This book is both a challenge and a consolation. It challenges us—with open and forceful words—to face all our fragility, all our limitations, all our selfishness. And it consoles us because it treats this recognition not as defeat but as the threshold of growth, of brotherhood, of love. Jean Vanier walked this path alongside people with handicaps, the "wounded ones," as he calls them. From them and through them, he learned its peculiar demands, its obstacles, and its tenderness. For him and for all who worked beside him, this path became an encounter with Jesus—the God hidden in the heart of human poverty and suffering. The small child is God's revelation. Vanier says: "In his radical poverty, in his visible wound, there lies hidden the mystery of God's presence" (La communauté lieu du pardon et de la fète, p. 47).
The author, a theologian trained in Montreal who teaches at Saint-Sacrament school in Terrebonne, lived for several months at L'Arche in Haiti and worked closely with Jean Vanier, drawn into his cause for people with handicaps and immersed in the spirit that animates it. In these pages, he traces Vanier's life and work step by step, probing its essential insights and the originality of his thought with precision and clarity.
When I first read this book, I knew Jean Vanier only by reputation. I assumed, as it seemed natural to think, that he spoke and acted only for the most destitute and those who cared for them. Now I understand this captures only part of the truth. Vanier speaks to everyone, insisting that people with handicaps teach us to recognize the weakness and wounds we all carry within ourselves. As he observes: "We are all wounded—wounded by illness, by handicap, or by the death of someone we love; wounded by the past and by our refusal to accept ourselves; wounded by injustice at work and especially in our relationships; wounded by hatred and fear, by unforgiveness, by exclusion, by barriers between persons and groups; wounded by our infidelities, our sins" (Homme et femme il les fit, p. 195).
In the face of this awareness, we all long for liberation, for guidance. This happens in L'Arche communities and can happen elsewhere too. The smallest, the most forsaken, the most wounded can teach us to walk in simplicity and love, in humility and patience. They take our hand and lead us—and themselves—toward the Liberator, the hidden God.
Vanier's work began with these convictions. He took into his home two men with mental handicaps, Raphael and Philip. Shortly after, he was named director of Val Fleuri, a home for men with handicaps. "In many ways," he recalls, "I was ignorant. I had much to learn about handicapped persons and about life in community." (Vivre une alliance dans les foyers de l'Arche, p. 5). He chose to become a student of the poor, and later he spoke often of his gratitude for these little ones who had been his teachers.
He added: "Compassion—a word full of meaning: to share the same passion, the same suffering, the same agony, to welcome into my heart the misery of your heart, my brother." (Ton silence m'appelle, p. 46).
The community grew quickly and multiplied.
In 1971, a movement emerged from the spiritual riches of L'Arche: Faith and Light. Its members include people with handicaps, their families, and friends, gathered for exchange, celebration, and prayer.
In 1972, the International Federation of L'Arche was founded, with communities established in Africa, India, and Haiti. Today L'Arche communities comprise men and women wounded in body and mind, assistants who have chosen to live among them, professionals who share the work's mission without living in community, and board members who support the movement's cause.
Beyond these, parents of people with handicaps, friends, neighbors, and villagers find a privileged place as well. They witness to the possibility of community life rooted in love, in joy and peace, and testify to the living truth of the Beatitudes.
Vanier asks L'Arche assistants "to hold this deep conviction: that they will receive far more from the poor than they can ever give them" (Vivre une alliance dans les foyers de l'Arche, p. 56). "To live alongside someone who is wounded means to enter into mutual relationship and to live interdependence with them," the author adds.
I said at the outset that this book brings both challenge and consolation. Now I can add that from it we draw hope, trust, and the resolve to act.
— Natalia Livi, 1990