It was during my time at Orval that I came to understand how deeply I love the Ark and Faith and Light. I began to see how God has called me to live these profound relationships of communion, which spring from God's own heart, with people who have disabilities, and also with the assistants, who are themselves poor in their own ways.
I am grateful now to be back at my Foyer in Val Fleuri, grateful to live alongside fragile and vulnerable people so that we might witness together to our society the importance and worth of the weakest among us—when they are heard, when they are respected, when we enter into genuine relationship with them.
This makes me think about the Ark's own evolution. A gentle evolution. At the beginning, I wanted to create a community that would witness to Jesus within the Catholic Church. I wanted to live generously with people in difficulty, to live together as a sign of the Gospel and of Jesus' presence among the poorest.
Gradually, the Ark discovered it had been called to witness not so much to the goodness of the assistants and their faith, but above all to the worth of these more fragile people themselves. Over time, many of them—despite their handicaps, sometimes severe ones—have achieved a genuine human and spiritual maturity. Their spontaneity, their inner freedom, their joy in relationships and in life itself, the simplicity that flows from authentic connection: all of this reveals a different way of living in our society. I sense that many people today are exhausted by this stressed, competitive life, marked by intense individualism and the weakening of bonds within families and beyond. They are searching for a different way of being. Less consumption, more connection. Less personal achievement, more communion and life lived together. A society that is less pyramidal, where a few strong and competent people scramble to climb higher. Instead, they long for the building of a body where both weak and strong find their place and celebrate their common humanity—witnesses together to a path of peace.
The fact that the Ark welcomes men and women from different Christian churches, of different faiths, from different cultures—both assistants and people with disabilities—and the fact that our communities exist in so many different countries, has deepened this evolution. All of this is not the fruit of theory or intellectual vision. It is the fruit of experience and universal human suffering. The Ark does not witness only to Catholic faith, but to the transformation of weakness and suffering into life, by God's grace. This is not to diminish the role of faith, of union with God, of spiritual growth. Quite the opposite. To live in community with people of different cultures, faiths, and different capacities and incapacities, each person must deepen their own inner life, their own faith, and this faith must be sustained by the community. The Ark is a school of love where each of us learns to love the other—the one who is different. This requires that each person do deep work within themselves. It is learning to see in every other person someone inhabited by God, someone from whom we can receive gifts, so that we grow in love. This transformation demands great humility, a certain dying to our own interests, and growth in love.
An Ark assistant—I'll call him Luigi—testified to a group not long ago. He was at Forestière, where people with severe disabilities live. They asked him to care particularly for Francesca, whom everyone there calls "Grandma." She is seventy-six, with a very severe handicap, bedridden, blind, unable to speak. Luigi was discouraged at first. He felt no attraction to her. But when asked, he regularly fed her, though it was hard work. Then one day he placed his hand over hers, and she smiled. It was magical, he said—a moment of transformation, of grace. From that moment on, he went to her with joy. What had felt difficult became a blessing. Is this not the very testimony of the Ark and Faith and Light? There is a mysterious power that flows from the hearts of fragile people like Francesca, a power that calls us into relationship and transforms our hearts in ways that can reshape how we live in our societies.
My health is good. The monks at Orval told me I looked younger! I don't know if it's true. Yet I also feel the weakness of my eighty-one years. I want to dedicate whatever time remains to proclaim this mystery of the Ark and Faith and Light—through retreats at La Ferme and elsewhere. I love announcing the worth and importance of weak people, who are signs of God's presence. Perhaps my own weaknesses help me understand the Good News of Jesus more deeply. He himself became weak and vulnerable. Through his weakness, he gives us life and calls us to love ever more fully. We have such a great treasure, and I long so deeply to share it so that others may know it and live it.
Pray for me, that I may learn to grow old gradually, gently, with joy.
I feel deeply in communion with all the communities of Faith and Light and the Ark, and with so many friends. I carry your concerns and your joys in my heart and in my prayers. Thank you for your letters. I cannot answer each one, but every letter expresses the communion we live together.
United with each of you, in God's joy,
Jean Vanier