What Is Faith and Light?
Each issue of this magazine devotes some pages to the movement Faith and Light. For readers unfamiliar with it, we offer an overview of its core mission and work.
Who We Are
Ordinary people, called together by those among us who are the smallest and most vulnerable. People from 30 countries, gathered in 549 communities. Faith and Light began in 1971.
By participating in our communities, you discover:
IF YOU ARE A HANDICAPPED PERSON, your rightful place within human and Christian community.
IF YOU ARE A PARENT, the support of friendship that helps you know your child more deeply—discovering his or her capacity for growth and recognizing in them a source of unity.
Faith and Light is a community of encounter. At its heart stand people made fragile by intellectual disability of varying severity. Around them gather their parents and friends—especially young people.
IF YOU ARE A FRIEND, the chance to truly know a person with intellectual disability, to commit yourself to them, and to be led by them into new paths.
Faith and Light is a community of encounter. At its heart stand people made fragile by intellectual disability of varying severity. Around them gather their parents and friends—especially young people.
For What Purpose?
We live something together: a defeat, a challenge, a hope.
A typical Faith and Light community of around thirty people gathers regularly to share:
- Time for meeting and exchange: Each gathering includes time to reconnect, to speak together, to listen to one another. The focus is building personal relationships. We discover each other's sufferings and gifts, learn each other's names, grow in understanding. We share through conversation and common activities. In friendship marked by tenderness and faithfulness, we seek to be a sign of God's love;
- Time for celebration: Our meetings overflow with joy: singing, dancing, shared meals, games;
- Time for prayer: Our human encounter reaches its completion in prayer and the Eucharistic celebration—communion with God and with one another.
When?
Communities meet on a regular rhythm: weekly for some, monthly for many, every six weeks when members live far apart.
Meetings take place in the evening, Saturday afternoon, Sunday, or all day. Sometimes they last an entire weekend.
Where?
A fixed location works well—somewhere comfortable and familiar. But communities can move from neighborhood to neighborhood, parish to parish, or meet in a member's home when space allows.
How?
Communities don't sustain themselves. Someone must take the lead. Each community needs a core team—four to seven responsible people (parents, friends, a priest)—who guide and foster its growth.
Communities are bound together by friendship, regional and national and international gatherings, a Charter and Constitution. They seek to integrate themselves into the life of society and the Church, especially the parish.
Love Unleashes Creativity
Following God's inspiration and community needs, Faith and Light takes on many forms: welcoming others, organizing outings, vacation stays, inter-community gatherings, pilgrimages, formation days, retreats, deepening weekends.
«The important thing is to gather, to listen to the person with a handicap, so that real bonds can form. Then we know one another, we love one another, and we no longer leave the person alone. We carry each other's burdens and encourage one another to grow.» (Jean Vanier)
«Faith»
WHY WE BELIEVE
- that every person—handicapped or not—bears a human and divine dignity that must be respected and nurtured
- that a person's worth lies beyond their appearance
- that a life's value has nothing to do with independence or productivity
- that nothing helps a person give their best like love
- that parents, however strong and courageous, need others
- that all of us—every single one—need to love and be loved
- that we are all loved by God, exactly as we are
- that this Love gives meaning to our lives
«Light»
WHY WE SEE
- that the «small ones» kindle a light within us—a light that reveals our true self in place of the mask we thought we wore
- that this light, received from the smallest, calls us to see things in their proper worth and to question the values we live by
- that their presence in the Church is a constant call to convert to the spirit of the Beatitudes, to bear witness in the world to Jesus's word: «Blessed are the poor…»
- that the small ones force us to reach them in their simplicity, their clarity
- that they are, therefore, an element of unity and truth among people
«If the handicapped person stands at the center of Faith and Light's message, it is not to make Faith and Light a 'special movement for the handicapped at the expense of integration.' Rather, their presence is a constant reminder to let ourselves be challenged by the spirit of the Beatitudes through encounter with the other.» - Fr. Louis Sankale
«If the handicapped person stands at the center of Faith and Light's message, it is not to make Faith and Light a 'special movement for the handicapped at the expense of integration.' Rather, their presence is a constant reminder to let ourselves be challenged by the spirit of the Beatitudes through encounter with the other.» - Fr. Louis Sankale
Shadows and Light exists to support handicapped people, parents, and friends in everyday life.
There are many families we have yet to reach, parishes uncertain how to welcome people with disabilities.
Will you help us? Spread the magazine where you can. Ask us for sample copies.