Who are we?
Ordinary people, gathered together by those among us who are the smallest and most fragile.
Faith and Light is a movement of communities, each one bringing together about thirty people.
At the center are people made fragile by intellectual disability, whether mild or severe. With them are their parents and their friends.
The person with a disability can find their true place in human and Christian communities—called to share all the treasures of their heart, their tenderness, their faithfulness.
Parents can find the support of friendship in their struggles, come to know their child in a new way, discover their beauty and their calling.
Friends discover a new path of friendship and commitment with people made fragile by disability, finding in one another the presence of God.
Walking together at the heart of suffering, we become bearers of hope and unity.
In the language of Faith and Light, the Young are people with intellectual disabilities; Parents are their mothers and fathers; Friends are the other members of the community.
What do we do?
We live something together: a setback, a challenge, a hope, bonds of affection, moments of celebration. "We learn to grow together step by step, each at our own pace and according to our own abilities, leaving each person free to move forward or pause without ever forcing anything."
A community gathers regularly for:
A time of meeting and sharing
Coming together, talking, listening to one another—through words or shared activities—and building personal relationships. We discover each other's suffering and gifts, learn to know and call each other by name.
A time of celebration
With joy and affection, we share meals, sing, dance, play. "We learn to enjoy life, to share in peace and joy, in difficulty and in sorrow."
A time of prayer
The meeting finds its fulfillment in prayer and celebration, so "we come to know who holds us together—the Lord."
A time of faithfulness (the fourth moment)
Between gatherings, members continue to weave personal bonds by meeting for pizza, a weekend, a vacation, a pilgrimage. "We learn to lift from their heavy daily rhythm the burden that parents carry; we show concretely to the person with disability that it is beautiful to spend an afternoon with them, to go out together, to walk alongside."
Where do we meet?
Ideally, we would have a fixed meeting place—a parish church, perhaps—where we feel at home and know our way around. But we can move from neighborhood to neighborhood, parish to parish, or when nothing else works, gather in someone's home if it's spacious enough.
Communities, bound together by friendship, by meetings, by a Charter and a Constitution, seek to integrate themselves into the activities of society and the Church, especially at the parish level.
Seeds of unity
The movement, born in the Catholic Church, brings together Christians of different traditions in many countries—and anyone willing to walk this path. Ecumenical communities witness that a weak and disabled person can become a seed of unity not only in society and the Church, but also among the Churches.
How to start a community
It begins with two or three people—armed with goodwill, courage, and perseverance—who want to "do something." Often they are drawn to the world of intellectual disability through a parent, a friend, a priest. They have learned of the community's experience from others. They may have heard a talk by Jean Vanier, read one of his books, and felt that Faith and Light's message speaks to their hearts. These people begin spreading the word among those who might be interested—perhaps in their own parish, if they have the support of their pastor. Or they start by joining a nearby community already underway: knowing others is always helpful when taking on a journey like this. They might organize meetings to explore what such a community could do; they might read documents that help clarify the spirit; they might listen to the testimony of those living the Faith and Light experience.
Less common, but possible and desirable, is when one or more people from an established community decide to "multiply"—not divide—the experience and bring it to another parish or setting.
Gradually the word spreads. Four becomes eight; eight becomes sixteen. And suddenly the community is on its way.
Faith and Light believes:
In the dignity of each person:
- Every person, with or without disability, possesses a human and divine dignity that must be respected and nurtured.
- The value of a person must be sought beyond their appearance.
- The value of life is not tied to independence or productivity.
- Our ways of understanding the world do not exclude other ways of seeing it.
- Love, more than anything else, helps a person give their best.
- Parents, even when strong and courageous, need others.
- All of us, without exception, need to love and be loved.
- We are all loved by God, exactly as we are.
- This love gives meaning to our lives.
In what we discover through faith in one another:
- The "little ones" shine a light within us that reveals our true selves—not the persona we thought we were.
- This light, received from the smallest among us, calls us to give things their proper value and to question our scale of values.
- Their presence in the Church is a constant call to convert to the spirit of the Beatitudes, to witness to Jesus's word in the world: "Blessed are the poor."
- They require us to reach them in their simplicity, their clarity.
- They are, therefore, an element of union and truth among all people.
With the prayer that these remain not merely words.
Mariangela Bertolini - from Insieme (1980)
A brief history
In 1968, several parents and educators—among them Jean Vanier and Marie Hélène Mathieu—decided to organize a pilgrimage to Lourdes for people with intellectual disabilities, their parents, and their friends. They were answering the call of one couple, Camille and Gerard, whose children Thadée and Loïc had mental disabilities. The family had been denied hospitality at a diocesan pilgrimage and at hotels simply because of the children's condition. Three years later, in 1971, twelve thousand people from fifteen nations gathered at the Grotto of Massabielle for the Easter celebration.
Four thousand of them had intellectual disabilities.
Three days of prayer, celebration, and encounter without borders of country, age, intellect, or background.
The pilgrims, many of whom had experienced great discouragement, knew at Lourdes a profound experience of joy and communion. When they returned home, they continued to gather regularly in small communities.
Over time, these communities spread and multiplied. Today there are 1,500 communities on every continent, from many different Christian traditions. In Italy, fifty-nine.
In 2015, Faith and Light celebrates forty years in Italy and receives recognition of its statutes as an ecclesiastical association from the Italian Conference of Bishops, which acknowledges the importance of its work helping people with intellectual disabilities and their families find their place in Church life and in society through the moments that form the heart of its charism: prayer, encounter, and celebration.
Letter from Paul VI to the pilgrims of Faith and Light Rome, October 25, 1975
You have a particular place in the heart of Christ Jesus, who says to you: "Come to me and I will give you rest" (Mt. 11).
You have a chosen place in the Church, where your simple faith, your prayer, your eyes seeking affection, your generous hearts remind Christians of the essential path to God.
You have a place in human society, among whom, thank God, you count many friends bound to you, who support you and count on you.
Letter from John Paul II to the pilgrims of Faith and Light Lourdes, Easter 1981
Your care and attention to your disabled child or friend have led you down a difficult and demanding path, bringing its "shadows" and its "lights" each day. You have understood how important the family environment is for a person with a disability—or when this is not possible, an institution or small community that mirrors the family, where personal relationships and human warmth allow you to meet, as is right, their deep need for friendship and security, developing their human, moral, and spiritual qualities to the extent possible.
Letter from John Paul II to the pilgrims of Faith and Light Lourdes, Easter 1991
All of society must, as it sometimes does, change its attitude, remembering that it will be judged by the regard it shows to the weakest. A person with a disability must feel that they are never alone and never useless. The Easter message is a message of Faith and Light. The Lord asks us to open ourselves to his risen life, which illuminates and radiates his presence into all created things, so that we can say with the psalmist: "With you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light" (Ps. 36:9).
John Paul II to the pilgrims of Faith and Light Lourdes – Easter 2001
With all my affection, I call down upon you, upon those who accompany you, and upon all who could not come, the strength of the risen Lord, that he may make each of you capable of continuing with courage and joy to witness God's love in the world. May you, following the example of Bernadette, welcome and bear fruit from the Good News, which our humanity needs so much.
Pope Benedict XVI at the General Assembly of Faith and Light, Lourdes, October 2008
The Pope rejoices deeply because throughout the world so many families join hands to support one another and together offer witness to the infinite value of every human life, even the most fragile. May each of you always be guided and sustained by the conviction that the disciples of Christ must, in their mission, express a love that they have first drawn from the heart of the Savior.
Pope Francis March 2013
The Church is called to step outside itself and move toward the peripheries—not only geographic peripheries, but existential ones: the peripheries of mystery, of sin, of suffering, of injustice, of ignorance, of every kind of misery. When the Church fails to go out and evangelize, it becomes self-referential and grows sick. A self-referential Church tries to contain Jesus Christ within itself and will not let him go out. It pains me to see so many closed parishes. We must go out. We must meet others and bring them the light and joy of our faith. We must always go out with God's love and tenderness.
Pope Francis October 4, 2013
The Christian worships Jesus; the Christian seeks Jesus; the Christian will know how to recognize the wounds of Jesus. And all of us here today must say: "These wounds must be heard!" But there is something else that gives us hope. Jesus is present in the Eucharist, here is the flesh of Jesus; Jesus is present among you, and the flesh of Jesus is the wounds of Jesus in these people.
Pope Francis, March 29, 2014
These are the two opposing cultures: the culture of encounter and the culture of exclusion, of prejudice. A person who is sick or disabled, precisely through their fragility and limitation, can become a witness to encounter: encounter with Jesus, which opens us to life and faith, and encounter with others, with the community. Indeed, only those who recognize their own fragility, their own limits, can build fraternal and solidarity relationships in the Church and in society.
Beniamino Gnappi Fidenza - Kimata
I go happily to Faith and Light because it's like a family of Jesus where we do lots of things like games or meals. I go to Faith and Light because I'm a messenger of joy and I have a good heart. I go there because I've learned to love others the way He loved me.