In the L'Arche community where I live, there is Enrico, a boy profoundly poor, blind and deaf. For many years he lived in a hospital and had no real relationship with his parents. His body is rigid as wood, which speaks to some deep inner tension. Touch is our only language with him—the only tool we have to communicate. Enrico moves us. With the trust he shows us, he awakens the best in ourselves. But I have discovered he can also stir something else in me: a very, very deep aggression.
Let us not be afraid to enter into our own fragility and discover the poverty within us.
Let us not be afraid to enter into our own fragility and discover the poverty within us.It is a painful thing to discover that we are capable of harming someone weak—especially when we long to be close to them. It happens: we cannot bear the person who disturbs us, who gives us anguish, who blocks us from within. We feel ourselves becoming aggressive. Then we glimpse something of our own inner violence.
This "wolf," as I call it, lives in every one of us. There is always someone we want to devour.
The breaking point comes—sometimes it is a mercy to break—when we feel such sharp irritation that we want to smash everything. It is terrible when the weak person shows us that we cannot offer presence, listening, love. The vulnerable one can reveal to us a heart capable of love, but also forces of rejection within us. This is the drama: to be a good Christian and meet poverty. Alone, we can believe ourselves saints. But when we encounter the poor, they reveal to us a difficulty we must share. It is hard to bear. That is why we build ghettos—so we do not have to see them anymore.
I know I am made of love and hate, light and darkness. Through this revelation, I am able to grow.
I know I am made of love and hate, light and darkness. Through this revelation, I am able to grow.Yet when I discover my heart is not beautiful, something lights up inside me. There is no escape. It is a contradiction to be unclean and believe yourself clean. If you are unclean, it is better to know it—then you can begin to progress. You no longer need to live in pretense. I know I am made of love and hate, light and darkness. Through this revelation, I am able to grow.
Silent Violence
Some people, apparently not violent, are violent in extraordinary ways.
We all know the parable of the Good Samaritan. A man lies dying on the road. A priest passes by, sees him, looks away, and continues on. A Levite does the same. Surely they were afraid to commit themselves. There is violence in not stopping beside someone in need.
I call it "silent" violence—the violence of the rich. For me, the rich are those who "manage" alone: they ask no one for help and give help to no one. The poor are not only those without money. They are the crushed, those who cry out for help. They might be someone with a physical disability, a mother who has just lost her child, a person without work, someone fragile in spirit. In this sense, our society is very violent. The "rich" fear being disturbed. They cannot bear people who might shake their security.
Here is another example. A child comes home from school with a heavy heart because he quarreled with a classmate, or bursting with joy because he was praised for good work and wants to tell his father. But the father is tired, does not want to listen. There is the silent violence: a father who cannot tear himself from the television. It is very important to recognize this secret violence in us—this violence that refuses to listen because we feel incapable or too weak. A person infected with this kind of violence often has a sad heart, frustrated or aggressive.
Who Is the Enemy?
Violence is always bound to an enemy. Jesus told us: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you." The problem for each of us is to identify the enemy. It is impossible to begin loving someone if we do not know who they are. Some people say, "I love everyone." Either they are great saints or they live in illusion. I think it is usually the latter.
Our enemy is the one—near or far—who blocks us, who puts us in danger in ideas, politics, practical life, who threatens our freedom and peace of mind. It might be a parent, even a child, the person who becomes "unbearable" to us.
What must we do when we have identified the enemy?
Usually we avoid them.
But what if we must live with them?
We always say, "I cannot bear them because they are disagreeable, they irritate me." We never say, "They provoke in me reactions I cannot bear." We condemn them: they are not good, not intelligent—without admitting that the difficulties come also from our own anguish, our own blocks.
Jesus Is Also in My Poverty
Let us not be afraid to enter into our own fragility and discover the poverty within us.
Jung, the Swiss analyst, wrote to a Christian friend: "I admire you Christians because in the poor you see Jesus. You see him in those who hunger and thirst, in those in prison or in the hospital. I find this very beautiful. But I do not understand why you do not see Jesus in your own poverty. You too hunger and thirst for affection. You are somewhat imprisoned or sick, naked or strangers." Why must Jesus be only in the poverty of others? In fact, everything changes if we apply Jesus's words to ourselves. Perhaps we would refuse others less if we refused ourselves less.
Why must I always pretend to be the best when I know it is not true? I am like everyone else. We do not live in idealism. We are a wounded people.
Why cannot I recognize in my own poverty the presence of God? The Good News for the poor that we all are is that God dwells in our wounds and can bring peace to our angers and frustrations.
Walking Together
Patience springs forth when I am no longer angry at my own fragility, my own limits. Then it becomes much easier to welcome the other and bear their weakness. The discovery and acceptance of my weakness brings me much closer to the person with a disability. It is no longer "I am able, he is not." It becomes "I have my fragility, he has his"—and so equality is born. There is an alliance between us. We walk together. I no longer need to perform, standing on a pedestal. Then we become humble. Communion with God and the poor happens only in humility.
Usually in Scripture, Yahweh calls and we respond like Samuel: "Here I am." In Isaiah 58, it is the opposite: "If you are near to the poor, your wound will be healed.
Let us not be afraid to discover the poverty within us.
Let us not be afraid to discover the poverty within us.You will cry out and Yahweh will answer: Here I am. Your light will rise in the darkness and obscurity will be as noon for you. You will be like a watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail."
Loved as You Are
The great message of the Gospel in the face of this world of poverty, violence, anger, and hypocrisy—the "heart" of the Gospel—is that God loves us as we are. The man in prison is loved with his angers, his violence, his malformed sexuality. The rich person is loved in their wealth. When we have discovered this love, the first healing of our violence can begin. We no longer need to hide our weakness or try to dominate it. Hope is born. We can begin to share.
The rich are those who manage alone: they ask no one for help and give help to no one
The rich are those who manage alone: they ask no one for help and give help to no oneIn the story of the rich young man, Saint Mark says: "Jesus looked at him and loved him." That look said: "I will be your security. I love you as you are, with your ambiguities, your fragility. Now sell what you have and follow me." The young man could not believe he was loved so deeply in his heart. He chose the security of money and possession instead. We struggle to believe that we are precious and important to God. When this revelation touches our heart, when we are certain that he does not judge us, does not condemn us, but always waits for us—then we enter into the trust of love.
The Forgiveness That Heals
In the Gospel, the story of the prodigal son always moves me deeply. This son became so poor after squandering his inheritance that he identified himself with the pigs. He returns to his father broken, ruined, and experiences the wonder of being loved for who he is. The elder son, who remained "faithful," cannot accept his father's welcome, his joy. He judges. He has never touched his own misery, so he cannot understand mercy. The younger son, who was forgiven, will never judge anyone because he has touched his own misery.
My violence begins to disappear when I accept myself as I am under God's gaze. Everything becomes calm when I accept my mortality, my ignorance, my limits, my incapacity—when I accept that there is a world of darkness, of bitterness in me as in all of Adam and Eve's children.
I am a sinner and I need reconciliation. I discover it is impossible to escape alone. I turn to Jesus: "It is true that I am full of hardness and hate. I ask your forgiveness. Have mercy on me."
—by Jean Vanier, 1984 from Ombres et Lumière N.64