A few days ago, I was invited to a "day for the sick." After Mass, about 150 of us gathered in the parish hall—the elderly, the blind, the ill, those we usually call "the poor."
Young people came to animate the celebration. They played music, sang, put on a show. It was nice, but deeply sad. The blind boy couldn't see any of it. An elderly woman in her nineties understood almost nothing of the skits. A girl in a wheelchair sat there, a passive spectator.
It wasn't a real celebration because we had missed what mattered most.
The blind boy wanted to tell a story. The elderly woman wanted to sing a song from her youth. The girl in the wheelchair wanted to join in a game.
Certainly it was a celebration for the young people, who were happy to give something to the handicapped children and elderly. But the others—once again in their lives—had only received passively. How much they would have preferred to participate, to offer something of themselves.
A true celebration rests on something simple: the ability to listen to the message of peace, joy, and hope that even the poorest person can give. When we gather, the point isn't to perform activities. It's to make sure everyone is truly festive.
In today's world, we rush constantly. We live in noise. We "do things," and in doing so we've lost the rhythm of slowness. By evening we're exhausted, so depleted that television seems our only escape. We hurtle from hyperactivity to images; and in that rush, we sweep away tenderness and listening—forgotten ways, unknown ways, rejected because we have neither time nor strength anymore. We've forgotten how to sit together at a table, to speak quietly, to listen to one another.
In such a world, Fede e Luce seeks to teach us the rhythm of "the smallest," so that we might hear their message of calm, tenderness, and presence. What matters, then, is not what we do but how we do it—the quality of the encounter itself.
To truly listen to someone who can communicate only by tapping one finger on a keyboard takes time—real, unhurried time spent close beside them. When we face suffering, we often grow clumsy. We don't know how to respond. So we busy ourselves, we fret, or else we grow troubled, seized by pity.
What we must do instead is both simple and hard: we must stop. Look at the handicapped person. Let them teach us their way of speaking. Only then can we begin to communicate, to help them live, to help them discover the beauty of who they are.
Sometimes that language breaks forth as a cry. Days ago, in an Arche home, a man suddenly startled us with violent blows. If we know his story, we learn that since birth he has been rejected, cast aside, never heard, treated as mad. He remains wounded in the depths, crushed. There is something understandable in the violence he expresses—his way of crying out that he has never been loved, accepted, heard.
Those who live with him must recognize how much justice lies in that cry.
Fede e Luce can help us understand what lies hidden in the heart of the handicapped person. Success depends on the quality of our listening, the quality of our hope, the quality of our encounter.
When Jesus said, "I was hungry and you gave me food," he meant this: what matters is not the food itself, but the way we give it. The encounter happens in that way.
If we want to be true bearers of the Holy Spirit, we must listen to the excluded person first—and only afterward allow ourselves to be called into question. It's far easier to make plans for someone than to listen to their plans and help them come true.
Fede e Luce is also a group of people who love each other, know each other, and seek to live the Gospel message in everyday life. Celebration creates encounter. Encounter enables listening. Listening reveals that we all need each other. From there, we commit to one another. Small communities grow up—signs of a sure and active friendship. They include not only parents and handicapped people, but young friends too—what I call the "determined" and the "undetermined." The undetermined are the young people still searching, full of vitality. The determined are those whose lives are already organized. From their meeting will spring every kind of idea, and then reality.
So it is vital to build true communities. Places where we listen to the elderly woman's song. Where we attend to "the smallest," the poorest. Where we gather in joy. Where we celebrate the Eucharist around Jesus crucified and risen. He who completely transformed all our values and showed us that the deepest wounds can become fountains of grace—and that joy is God's gift.
Jean Vanier