Jean Vanier sampler

Jean Vanier sampler Contents 1 ... A Cry is Heard: My path towards peace 20 ... The Gospel of John: The Gospel of Relationship 31 ... Signs of the Times: Seven Paths of Hope for a Troubled World 52 ... Community and Growth 60 ... Essential Writings: Jean Vanier 79 ... Becoming Human 115 ... Befriending the Stranger 132 ... The Broken Body 139 ... Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus Through the Gospel of John 148 ... Mental Health: The Inclusive Church Resource 164 ... Mercy Within Mercy: Georges and Pauline Vanier and the Search for God 179 ... Thérèse Vanier: Pioneer of L’Arche, palliative care and spiritual unity 190 ... The Second Calling: A novel inspired by the life and work of Jean Vanier

A Cry is Heard .

MY PATH TO PEACE

j ean vanier with Franรงois-Xavier Maigre

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd 1 Spencer Court 140 – 142 Wandsworth High Street London SW18 4JJ First published in English in Canada in 2018 by Novalis Publishing Inc. 10 Lower Spadina Avenue, Suite 400 Toronto, Ontario M5V 2Z2 Originally published in France in 2017 Bayard Editions 18, rue Barbès, 92128 Montrouge Copyright © 2018 Jean Vanier ISBN 978-0-232-53391-0 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The scripture quotations contained herein are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyrighted © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, and are used by permission. All rights reserved.

Cover design: Martin Gould Cover image: Philip Coulter Layout: Audrey Wells Translation: Anne Louise Mahoney Printed and bound Bell & Bain, Glasgow

The truth will make you free.

The Gospel of John 8:32

Table of Contents 1. Praise for the Gift of Encounter.............................................

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2. A Hidden Presence.................................................................. 11 3. Roadblocks within Me............................................................ 12 4. Towards Greater Freedom...................................................... 15 5. A European Childhood: Living between Hope and Threats..................................................................... 17 6. The Call of the Sea................................................................... 20 7. Leaving Everything Behind…................................................ 22 8. I Find a Spiritual Father.......................................................... 26 9. “Do You Want to Be Our Friend?”........................................ 28 10. The Small Inner Voice: My Ariadne’s Thread....................... 31 11. I Had Found a Home.............................................................. 33 12. A Sign of the Covenant........................................................... 36 13. Strength and Perseverance..................................................... 38 14. Freedom to Grow..................................................................... 41 15. An Open Spirituality............................................................... 44 16. A Free Electron........................................................................ 48 17. The Gospel in India................................................................. 51 18. Community: A Place of Healing and Liberation................. 55 19. Authority through Listening.................................................. 60 20. When Faith Sets Our Hearts Free.......................................... 63 21. Communion beyond Words.................................................. 67 22. Joy Is Tested.............................................................................. 71

23. Living with Our Weaknesses.................................................. 74 24. Freedom Hidden in Those Who Are Oppressed................. 77 25. From Generosity to Encounter.............................................. 82 26. The Truth Springs Forth from Below.................................... 85 27. “I Am Happy!”......................................................................... 89 28. She Watches over Me............................................................... 91 29. Drawn to a Holy Spring.......................................................... 93 30. What I Owe to John Paul II.................................................... 95 31. The Fear that the Messenger Overshadows the Message.... 98 32. Saint John and the Gospel of Freedom................................. 101 33. The Evolution of Humanity: Towards Greater Unity.......... 104 34. The Mystery of the Person...................................................... 110 35. Working for a More Humane Society................................... 112 36. From Ireland to Palestine, a Path of Peace........................... 114 37. A Few Fioretti......................................................................... 117 38. Fr. Joseph Wresinski, Apostle of Transformation................ 121 39. Two Lights for My Path........................................................... 123 40. The Power of Mercy................................................................. 125 41. An Encounter and a Risk........................................................ 129 42. The Cry..................................................................................... 132 43. Heaven’s Ark............................................................................. 135 44. Walking in Weakness.............................................................. 137 45. The Joy of a Presence............................................................... 140 46. At the End of the Road… A Time of Waiting and a Promise............................................................................ 142

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Praise for the Gift of Encounter

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his book grew out of a sense of urgency.

In the face of the sad spectacle of divisions, fears, wars and inequalities that pervades our world, in the face of the depression and despair of so many young people, I dare to share with you a path of hope that was opened to me.

During my life, it has been people with an intellectual disability who gradually transformed me, freeing me from my fears, revealing to me my own humanity. After the terrorist attacks that have hit various countries recently, it seemed more important than ever to witness to the fellowship that is possible between people of different cultures, religions and histories. All is not lost. A path to unity, fellowship and peace is possible. The future depends on each one of us. Pope Francis has encouraged us since the beginning of his pontificate to encounter the poorest, the marginalized and all those who are different in some way. He invites us to let ourselves be evangelized by them, to receive their share of wisdom. The pope calls us to live a culture of encounter.

Encountering difference and working constantly to build bridges and not walls: this is the path of peace.

For more than 50 years, the most vulnerable in our L’ Arche communities have taught me to accept my own weaknesses and 6

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limits. By their side, I understood that I must break free from my resistance, my bursts of pride, to become more free so I can love them better and let myself be loved. The pope consistently calls us to love all those who have been set aside, weakened by broken relationships, marginalized and oppressed: people who have no home, prisoners and others. I am also thinking of people who are homosexual, who, in a way, often live their difference as marginalization in a world that has trouble accepting them.

At L’ Arche, I understood that the suffering of people with a disability gradually made me one with the suffering of refugees and migrants fleeing wars in the hope of a life that is more human and more free. I am now 89 years old, and my strength is waning.

But I dare to cry: Let us set ourselves free! Free of our fears that build walls between groups and people. Free of our dreams of power that make us dominate others. Free of our rivalries, our desires to win, that blind us. Free of our race for success, our unhealthy possessions and our desire for superiority, which prevent us from living fully the culture of encounter and from making room for a world of peace and unity. These words go against the spirit of competition that tends to rule our modern societies. Always higher, always ahead; this approach can trap us in elitist groups where we feel protected. The oppressed with whom I share daily life have taught me otherwise. And I am a witness: true happiness can be found in living this hectic race in reverse. The people I live with taught me the path of joyful wisdom. With them, I slowly learned to relinquish myself, to lower myself, to accept myself with my weaknesses, even though I have a long way to go to become like them. ✴

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A Cry is Heard

In the twilight of my life, I wanted to try to trace a few stages of this inner liberation.

My words are those of a poor man, in a constant state of conversion, who wants to share his passion for living and his commitment. I often meet young people who work in various fields: social action, interfaith dialogue, renewal for our planet Earth, welcoming of the most vulnerable.… I admire their enthusiasm: it tells me that help is on the way. I would like, through these words, to encourage all those who work for peace by tearing down walls.

Such an endeavour, with the weariness that comes with age, was a challenge. My friendship with François-Xavier Maigre, a poet and writer, editor of the magazine Panorama where I publish a column once a month, meant we could work on it together, patiently and cooperatively. This book would not exist without him, and I wish to warmly thank him for his time.

François-Xavier would have been my grandson’s age, if I had had one, and he was able to find the words to help me pass the torch to new generations. These pages reveal a special alchemy between my thought, my experience and the poetic sensibility of a young writer. For several months, we met often at my house, in Trosly. We shared and talked a lot… François-Xavier discovered a little of the intimacy of our home, Val fleuri, by sitting at our always lively table. And that is how, week after week, this praise for the gift of encounter was born… ✴ Did you know that L’ Arche started almost by chance?

Deep down, I had this desire for a life of community with the poor, rooted in the Gospel. The spark was ignited more than 50 years ago, when our societies were open to all kinds of new 8

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things. At that time, I discovered the atmosphere of violence in institutions for people with an intellectual disability. In one of those institutions, I became friends with two men, and I invited them to come with me. We started living together, and we laughed a lot. We were happy. We spent our happiest times in the kitchen, around the table. So many unforgettable moments… Then L’ Arche grew, so wonderfully, through the gentle hand of God. If I was the engine behind it, no one was more surprised than I. We were simply responding to an urgent need.

Requests poured in; we tried to welcome them. Volunteers from around the world came to help us. Some found their vocation there. Although inspired by Christianity, L’ Arche gradually began to welcome Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists. Today, it includes 140 communities in around 40 countries on five continents. Together, we started to discover unity on a human level. We witnessed the possibility of shared happiness, despite our cultural differences. What’s more, we found that life with people with intellectual disabilities is a source of unexpected joy.

Many of them reveal an immense, sensitive and loving heart.

Our international community grew quickly.

Little by little, I was transformed as I discovered a new vision for our society. The success of L’ Arche brought me honours that I sometimes accepted, to draw attention to the richness of the most fragile. Proclaiming a message of fellowship – that is what motivated me more and more noticeably. Thanks to L’ Arche, we learned that living with people with a disability is a way to heal our hearts, which are so often closed, and to go out and meet all those who bear the disability of marginalization and oppression. Transformed by the weakest, we discover that together we can work for a transformation of our societies. The most fragile open us up to hope.

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A Cry is Heard

When the news is at times grim and discouraging, when selfishness, fear, insecurity, despair and hate close us in on ourselves, I thought it was important to bear witness to this hope, in a new light.

As though the healing of fears that paralyze our world and are the source of our violence, our rejection of the other, our closing in on ourselves, depended on each of our private liberations.

So many walls arise between us. So many protective mechanisms harden our consciences. I think we need little signs of hope to create new paths‌ Paths that lead to universal fellowship.

Here are a few.

In their own quiet way, they inspired my journey and have given me insight over the years ‌

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2

A Hidden Presence

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f there is any wisdom that I can never get enough of, it is that of Etty Hillesum. In her journal, this young Jewish woman, who died at Auschwitz, talks of the existence of a well hidden in the depths of her being. In this well, she writes, lives God: “Sometimes I am there too. But more often stones and grit block the well, and God is buried beneath. Then he must be dug out again.”

To be in relationship with God, we must free ourselves of everything that prevents us from encountering him. I truly believe this. God is this hidden presence, this spring that can quench our thirst. We must go down to find him.

All it took for me to experience it was to let myself be led by the weakest, the most foolish and the most oppressed of our societies. A long road lay before me. I had to patiently learn to remove these stones, this rubble that prevented me from encountering God. And I am far from being finished. L’ Arche allowed me to discover how much the walls that separate people can seem difficult to knock down, reinforced by the stones that lodge deep in our hearts and block the spring. It’s all about how to remove them.

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3

Roadblocks within Me

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hen I went to Chile a few years ago, Denis met me at the airport. He had offered to drive me to Santiago, a city of five million people, where I was going to visit our Faith and Light communities. There we were on the road. The first few kilometres passed under an enormous sun. My gaze was focused on the curving landscape when, at the side of the road, a pile of tin and cinderblocks appeared. Poverty in its rawest expression. This was only the first of the surprises awaiting me.

On the other side of the road, just a few dozen metres away, the ambiance was very different. Luxury, calm, opulence. A striking contrast! Denis pulled over and told me a bit more.

“On the left are the slums of Santiago. On the right are the homes of rich families, under tight police and military protection.” My host became silent. He looked at me sadly: “This road, Jean – no one ever crosses it.” The rich are afraid of the poor, and the poor are afraid of the rich. Something powerful separates them. Like a wall. A border. Each group is locked behind its security walls. We are living in a paradox where some roads, designed to allow for communication, mark boundaries that cannot be crossed. But there are other barriers, more underground, that enclose our hearts. They are hidden from view. They feed on our most secret fears, our deepest wounds.

They dry up our lives, without our realizing it. Experience has 12

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taught me that it is essential to topple them to experience true freedom, which our humanity is founded on and for which God made us.

Yes, the secret of a happy life may be tied to this process of liberation to lead us toward an inner spring that leads to universal fellowship. And the story of L’ Arche is, in my eyes, a long and wonderful story of liberation. Gradually knocking down the walls that hide this spring, because we are afraid of our vulnerability. It prevents us from encountering the other who is different from us, loving them as God loves them. It’s a daily struggle. At the beginning, every human person is born vulnerable, with their primal innocence. Look at the infant: it needs its mother and father to feel at peace, to feel secure, to know it is loved unconditionally. As the child grows up, they confront the world. They learn to do things for themselves, as if they have to prove they are loveable and capable. Their parents try to teach them as best they can, by loving them and protecting them. But whatever they do, this feeling of vulnerability never really disappears: it lurks in the deepest part of their being.

Without always being aware of it, we move on with our original fragility. Unconsciously, it inspires our endless quests for power, our race for success, our need for recognition and our desire to own things. But, deep within ourselves, we thirst for the truly infinite. Love that would fill our whole being. Love that would heal our hurts. Love that would quench our thirst for relationship. And often, reality does not seem to meet our expectations. That is how, through disappointments and trials, we come to build impenetrable walls around our vulnerable hearts, but also around the groups we belong to. Through our defensive stance, we think we are protecting ourselves. In reality, these attitudes end up imprisoning us.

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A Cry is Heard

How can we break down our walls? First, by agreeing to name them. Words open up a powerful pathway for healing.

Then, in discovering a new strength within ourselves, strength that can calm us and reassure us beyond all our hopes. The daily encounter with people who are weak allowed my barriers to gradually crack. I understood that true freedom involves approaching God through the presence and sacrament of the poor, as Saint John Chrysostom said. This life allowed me to grasp the promise of Jesus: “The truth will make you free.�

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Towards Greater Freedom

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hen I reflect on my own inner life, on my human and spiritual growth, I realize that the constant search for human achievement, for a kind of fullness, was at times my driving force.

Years later, something new drove me. I am always motivated by a greater desire to live with Jesus. It seems that my spiritual life deepened as the barriers around my heart crumbled. The more these buttresses fell, the more my true “me� sprang up.

My inner self began to awaken. I found that I was vulnerable without being afraid. I felt my freedom awaken.

For me, this happened gradually. Day after day, season after season. Gently, I would even say. Almost unconsciously.

I was tenderly led by the hand by the poor and the weak towards something ever new. As if I were slowly being stripped of my certainties, of all those desires, all those postures that were walling me in. As if I felt the urgent need to be set free from these desires for recognition, for domination. They did not always lead me to just relationships with certain people or to appropriate behaviours as the person in charge. I also am vulnerable; I long for relationship. At my age, I see clearly how these desires, which seem legitimate, are all driven by grasping tendencies, towards myself as well as towards others.

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A Cry is Heard

These gaps allowed me to move towards another desire, a peaceful but increasingly burning one. A desire for greater unity within me, and for peacemaking. A desire for unity around me, among people of different religions and cultures, and different abilities. For peace. Of course, I am still far from this total freedom that the Holy Spirit would like to give me. There are still, I am sure, many protective mechanisms that separate me from others and that need to come down – remaining anxieties, and buried fears whose causes and remedies I don’t know. The future also holds difficult times for me, no doubt. Suffering, perhaps, when I myself become someone with a major disability. I am getting old and my strength is fading. That is a fact I cannot ignore.

Still, I am convinced that the challenges to come will lead me to a greater inner peace. A new happiness will be given to me in my old age. I hope to live this happiness in my final weakness – that is, when I die – welcomed in the tender arms of God, who will come to find me and fulfill me like a beloved friend.

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5

A European Childhood: Living between Hope and Threats

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et’s go back in time... As far back as my memories go, nothing prepared me for such a life. It all began in my childhood, at the dawn of the 20th century’s major ruptures. My parents, Georges and Pauline Vanier, originally from Quebec, were both deeply Christian. In 1938, during a sermon preached by an eloquent Jesuit, my father experienced a loving God for the first time – the intensity of a presence that suddenly enfolded his prayer in unexpected warmth. He who had been raised in the spirit of Jansenism, a rigid and austere approach, discovered faith in a new light. My mother came across as an exuberant, slightly depressive woman, but she had a great thirst for God. She became friends with several Carmelites, to whom she felt spiritually close.

This devotion shone through our family. There were five of us children: the eldest, my sister, Thérèse, who would become a palliative care physician and founder of L’ Arche in the United Kingdom; my brother Benedict, who would join the Cistercian order; then Bernard, a little older than me, a future painter. I was the fourth. A younger brother, Michel, a wonderful man, would complete our ranks. Next to my older siblings, all very bright, I paled in comparison. I was seen as a mediocre student with 17

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Chapter Five

Jesus Meets a Wounded Woman ( john 4:1–30)

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esus is in Judea, and he wants to return to Galilee with his disciples. He leaves early in the morning, and trav-

eling by foot, he arrives tired, around noon, at the well of Jacob in Samaria.

First, we should have some background information about

the Samaritans, because in this Gospel—the Gospel of life, light, and relationship—Jesus is about to meet a Samaritan woman. We are going to witness Jesus living a profound moment of communion with her. In this encounter, we will discover how Jesus wants to meet each one of us.

A Woman of Samaria The Samaritans and the Jews had been hostile toward each other for about seven hundred years. Like the Jews, the Samaritans were children of Abraham; but they lived in the Northern Kingdom of Israel and had been conquered by the Assyrians, so over time they became cut off from the mainstream of the Jewish religion. These oppressed Samaritans, under Assyrian control, believed only in the first five books of the Bible—not in the books of the prophets, nor in the books of wisdom. Their temple was not in Jerusalem but on Mount Gerizim.

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In Jesus’s day, the Jews were the majority in Israel, and most of them despised the Samaritans, whose religion they held to be worthless. In the eighth chapter of John, some Pharisees say to Jesus to insult him, “You are a Samaritan, and the devil is in you!” There was no greater insult than this: You are a Samaritan! The Samaritans were considered the lowest of the low. Unfortunately, there are many similar situations around the world and in our different societies today where a people, a group, or a social class considers itself better than others and despises them.

Jesus Is Tired In John 4, Jesus, tired, sits beside the well. As a human, Jesus is sometimes exhausted, just like all of us. The disciples have gone to buy food. Why did all twelve need to go for food?

Maybe they were afraid of the Samaritans and wanted to feel safe as a group in case they were attacked and had to defend themselves. Or perhaps they simply needed to get away from Jesus? Between them and Jesus there must have been many moments of tension, and often they did not understand him.

Perhaps they needed to leave him so that they could talk among themselves. Or perhaps they sensed that Jesus needed to be alone.

In any case, Jesus is there, at noon—alone, hot, and tired. A Samaritan woman arrives at the well. We will discover later that she has lived through many broken relationships. People who have been hurt in relationships can be closed in upon themselves. There are recriminations on both sides: against oneself, and against the other. In such a situation, this woman, we can guess, was quite likely closed up in a form of depression.

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Normally, women did not come to draw water from the well at noon, when it is very hot! Perhaps this woman came to get water then, rather than early in the morning as others did, because she had lived through hurtful experiences, even at the well. Perhaps when she came to the well at the same time as the others, they pointed their fingers at her and laughed: “Woman of ill repute!” She was a wounded woman, hurt by scorn and broken relationships, a woman with a broken self-image. She may have felt unloved and depressed. In this Gospel, we see how Jesus comes close to those who are broken and hurt.

The Vital Need to Be Loved I try to understand this Gospel through an experience with those who are depressed, wounded, and rejected. I would like to speak to you about eric, whom I mentioned in chapter four.

He was a young man whom we met in a psychiatric hospital, not far from our L’Arche community. He was blind, deaf, and unable to walk. I do not think I have ever met a young person with so much anguish. eric had been placed in the psychiatric hospital when he was four years old. His mother was a wonderful woman who had other children. Her husband was a truck driver and was often absent. Unable to cope with eric alone, she sent him to the psychiatric hospital. She came only once to visit him—she was so upset by what she found there that she never returned.

Was eric aware of his handicap? I have no idea. eric did not speak. What I do know is that a newborn baby has a vital—I repeat, vital—need to be loved. A newborn baby has no means of self-protection and is very fragile and vulnerable. If he is not loved, he is in acute danger because he is defenseless. He 33

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the gosp el of john, the gosp el of relat ionsh ip

needs a mother who will hold him tenderly in her arms and say, “I love you, my beloved child. You are precious to me just as you are.” The mother always calls her baby by his name. In this way, a tiny child learns that he is someone, because another loves him. If there is nobody to love him, then he is nobody; and an intolerable anguish rises up within him.

Anguish is different from fear. If one is afraid of an object, a dog, or something that appears dangerous, and the object or the dog is removed, fear leaves. Anguish is much more existential; it is a sort of inner void: “I am lost; I am nothing, without a center. I do not know who I am. I do not have a place.” Little eric was like that, filled with anguish. He did not know who he was, because he had been abandoned and had experienced many broken relationships.

We welcomed eric to live with us because the fundamental principle of our L’Arche communities is that of the Gospels: “every person is sacred.” All people, whatever their culture, whatever their capacities or incapacities, whatever their religion, are born of God and are for God. each person is precious.

What did eric need when he came to our community?

Certainly, he needed professionals. I must say that at L’Arche we have a wonderful team of medical professionals. We worked with a surgeon who operated on eric’s legs, and eric began to walk. Although a child with severe disabilities needs doctors and other specialists, none of us would want to spend our whole lives with professionals, no matter how competent and sensitive they are! What we each need more fundamentally is friends, brothers and sisters, people who tell us, “I am happy to live with you.” We need people who create a family, 34

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a community with us. eric needed that also. He needed in his anguish to meet someone who loved and respected him and created a true relationship with him.

How Do We Approach Those Whose Lives Are Broken?

At the well, Jesus is tired and hot. The Samaritan woman arrives, a woman who, like eric, has a wounded and broken heart. “Give me something to drink,” Jesus asks her. He becomes the needy one, putting himself lower than her, saying, “I’m thirsty.” He is calling the Samaritan woman to be in the position of giving life to him. Perhaps Jesus is really saying, “I am thirsty for a real relationship.”

Here, Jesus is teaching us how to approach people who are fragile and vulnerable like this woman who has a broken self-image. His approach is as a beggar, saying: “I need you.”

Jesus makes it clear that to approach another from a position of neediness is the way of true compassion, empowering the other. Jesus is not there simply to do good for this woman. Of course, he will do her good, but first he wishes to enter into a relationship with her. He wants to meet her, reveal her value, and call her forth. Jesus sees in this woman that which is deep inside her, beyond all the broken relationships of her life, and beyond her feelings of guilt and worthlessness. Jesus sees a woman who is a child of God. So, Jesus puts himself in a position of inferiority and need with respect to her. He raises her up. She is obviously astounded, because Jews would never talk with a Samaritan!

Neither would a single man ever speak with an unaccompanied woman. He is doing something radically countercultural.

Astonished, the woman recognizes that this encounter is out 35

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of the ordinary. What is happening? “You, a Jew are asking for water from me, a Samaritan woman? Why?” Jesus answers, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is asking you for something to drink, I would have given you living water.” extraordinary words! “If you knew the gift of God …” We know that the gift of God is Jesus himself. We have heard this in this Gospel: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” Jesus is the gift of God. But the woman is also a gift of God, a woman loved by God. She does not know herself very well. Jesus tells her that if she had known the gift of God, she would have asked him for water, and he would have given her living water!

“The well is very deep, how will you draw water?” she asks.

“Are you greater than our Father Jacob who drew water from this well?” She begins a conversation with him, and even more, she begins to meet him and know him. Bishop Pierre Claverie, a man martyred in his efforts to establish dialogue between Christians and Muslims, once expressed the idea: “Dialogue is important, but meetings are even more important.”

Meeting Love This meeting with the woman of Samaria is very significant at the symbolic level. In Genesis, it is at wells that important biblical people meet their beloved. For instance, Abraham sent his servant to find a wife for his son Isaac. The servant was a bit overwhelmed, wondering, “How will I find someone for him?” He said to himself, “Ah, I have an idea! I will be at the well, and I will say to the first woman who arrives, ‘Give me something to drink.’ If she responds positively, then she will be the one.” That is exactly what happened. Thus, Isaac 36

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married Rebecca. Jacob and Rachel also met at a well, as did Moses and Zipphorah. The encounters at wells signify intimate encounters, the birth of mutuality and vulnerability.

Here, we have Jesus coming to the well and saying to the wounded Samaritan woman, “Give me something to drink.”

This woman is loved by Jesus.

The Promise of Jesus Jesus next reveals to this broken woman the heart of his message, “If you drink that well water, you will thirst again, whereas if you drink the water that I give you, you will never be thirsty again.” even if we drink ordinary water regularly, we are thirsty again after a few hours. When we have coffee or tea, we are thirsty again in a little while. But if we do not have enough ordinary water, we die. Water is life-giving. If there is no rain, plants die; if there is no harvest, there is death.

The water that Jesus gives, however, is something else. It symbolizes the Holy Spirit, the Spirit that gives life. Jesus says here the most extraordinary words of the whole Gospel: “The water that I will give will become in the person who drinks it a spring of water welling up to eternal life!”

In the Gospel of John, eternal life signifies the very life of God. One could almost translate the phrase “eternal life” as “the life of the eternal.” Jesus promises this woman, and each one of us, that if we drink the water he gives us, it will become in us a wellspring of the life of the eternal! If you receive life, you will give life, you will be fecund, and life will flow out through you. If you receive the Holy Spirit, you will give the 37

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Holy Spirit. If you know that you are truly loved, you will be able to love others.

Accepting the Truth of Who We Are The woman replies, “Give me some of that water. Then I will no longer thirst or need to come here to draw water.” Jesus responds; he wants to go further in this conversation: “Go, find your husband, and come back here.” She says to Jesus, “I have no husband.” “Yes, you are right,” Jesus replies. “You have no husband. You have lived with five men, and the man you are living with now is not your husband.” Jesus delicately reveals to this woman that she is wounded and fragile, having endured many broken relationships. He adds, “What you say is true.”

If we are not honest about ourselves, Jesus cannot give us the water that will become in us the source of eternal life. If we believe that we are better than others, if we believe that we do not need to be helped and healed, or if we do not recognize our brokenness and our inner darkness, Jesus cannot give us this living water of eternal life.

Who Is Right and Who Is Wrong?

Then the woman says to Jesus, “I see that you are a prophet!”

She then asks what must be the central question in her mind: “Who is right, the Samaritans or the Jews?” Jesus does not respond to this old quarrel. He just says, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming, and now is upon us, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in Truth.” Through Jesus, the Spirit will be given, and the truth will be revealed. Through Jesus, and in the Spirit, we will enter 38

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into a loving relationship with God. Our prayer will take place not only in mountains or temples, but especially in the heart.

The woman responds showing a belief in the coming of the Messiah, “When the Messiah comes he will tell us everything.” Jesus replies, “I am he, who speaks to you.” Jesus is the Messiah. He looks at her—she who had been rejected and mocked by so many other human beings—with tenderness and love, and he reveals to her his secret. The Samaritan woman is the only person in the Gospel to whom Jesus reveals that he is the Messiah. Transformed by her meeting with Jesus, she goes into the village and calls the people there to meet him.

This Samaritan woman is each of us. The woman symbolizes all of us who have been wounded in our relationships, who have been humiliated, or who have experienced rejection.

Jesus comes to meet us and transform us through the gift of the Spirit so that we, too, can give to others the Spirit living in us.

The One I Reject Is the One Who Heals Me We are all filled with fears, prejudices, and wounds. We are afraid of our own limits, fragility, and mortality. We are afraid of those who are different, of people with disabilities, of people like eric. If we let go of our defenses, we meet within ourselves those parts of us that are also wounded, disabled, and weak. It is extraordinary to discover within ourselves the wounded person we have been hiding! As we welcome those around us who are wounded, we can enter into a relationship with the wounded person within ourselves. At L’Arche, we have discovered that we are healed by the ones who have 39

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the gosp el of john, the gosp el of relat ionsh ip

been rejected and put aside, as long as we enter into a relationship of mutual vulnerability with them and live a covenant of love with them. They heal us in a mysterious fashion, since they lead us into our deepest being where God resides. It is the presence of Jesus in the wounded that heals the wounds within us and allows us to discover Jesus within us.

We are transformed by those who are weak and rejected, just as this woman was transformed by Jesus. St. Pope John Paul II describes well this teaching power of the weak: Disabled people are humanity’s privileged witnesses.

They can teach everyone about the love that saves us; they can become heralds of a new world, no longer dominated by force, violence and aggression, but by love, solidarity and acceptance, a new world transfigured by the light of Christ, the Son of God who became incarnate, who was crucified and rose for us.3

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CHAPTER TWO FROM CONFORMITY TO CONSCIENCE

The Church today is living the humiliation of the paedophilia scandals. Pope Benedict XVI was very clear about these: the most terrible persecutions experienced by the Church come not from outside, but from within, from its own sin, from the infidelity of its own members and their refusal to follow Jesus who came, with his gentle and humble heart, to teach us to live the true relationships that give life to others.1 How is the Church to live these times of humiliation? Does it even recognise them as such? Pope John Paul II’s many pleas for forgiveness referred to in the 32

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SIGNS OF THE TIMES previous chapter can help us think about this: he looked squarely at the sins and errors of governance of the past, and named the humiliations. But in spite of this example, there is still the temptation to seek loopholes: these were not the Church’s misdeeds, for instance, but only those of bad Christians. This is to forget that the Church, source of life and grace, is made up of sinners. Its ‘complex reality’2 is not universally apparent; many people judge it by the actions of its members.

Paedophile priests bring a humiliation to the Church which must lead it to a deeper humility and greater wisdom. It is not enough to say that the problem can be considered resolved when these situations are reported to the police. Surely the Church must examine itself more deeply. Benedict XVI, in his book Light of the World,3 raises the much wider question of the selection of future priests and their accompaniment. The theological and intellectual education they receive can obscure their equally indispensable need for education in relationship.

They need to learn that true encounter demands 33

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FROM CONFORMITY TO CONSCIENCE humility, patience and listening. Alongside their intellectual training, they need an education of the heart.

An act of paedophilia is always an abuse of power and trust, whether committed by a family member, a teacher, a priest or a psychotherapist. In each case, the child has put their faith in someone in an accepted position of authority. And today, we seem to be seeking to emphasise the authority of the priest, and forgetting the listening, humility and vulnerability which are essential to true encounter. This is a time of humiliation, and any statement that doesn’t resonate with that reality will grate like an intolerable lie. Until the situation is grasped and named, a pervasive sense of unease will continue. Humility? Humiliation? We say constantly that we must pray for humility. But it is much harder to pray for humiliation. Now we are living it. What are we to make of it?

At one level, paedophilia is a crime which cannot be covered up, but must be denounced, its perpetrators handed over to the criminal justice system. It is also, in the eyes of the Church, a sin. And didn’t Jesus come to save sinners? I do not think that the condem34

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SIGNS OF THE TIMES nation of paedophile priests as forever unforgiveable will help them; far less will it resolve the problem of paedophilia in the Church. I believe that the issue has to be confronted in all its complexity, without trying to ‘manage it’ too quickly by conflating its distinct dimensions in a confusion of human, psychological, judicial, disciplinary, moral and spiritual approaches.

Isn’t it important to take time to foster acts of restorative justice, in which an encounter is carefully prepared between the abuser and the person abused?

Then the one can ask for forgiveness and the other, perhaps in time, feel able to give it, so that together they can journey towards a true healing of the heart.

When I think of the passion of Jesus, I believe that his greatest suffering, even greater than his physical pain, was humiliation. If anyone is to live through this, the only thing they really need is a presence. This alone can assuage their pain and heal them. In re-reading the history of the Church in Algeria, we discovered that humiliation enabled it to find a relationship with the other that went far beyond any consideration of power and made possible a true 35

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FROM CONFORMITY TO CONSCIENCE encounter, in equality and humility. Now we see a reciprocal movement: when we are humiliated, we need a true presence at our side. I am often shocked, in representations of the Crucifixion, by the portrayal of Mary, Mater Dolorosa, at a distance of several feet from the Cross. At this moment, Jesus needed a very close, loving and trustworthy presence, because humiliation engenders a very specific human suffering, and a wound to the heart. The humiliated person needs that consoling presence which tells them: ‘I am with you, I love you and trust you, and I give myself to be with you.’ Through her heart, body and eyes, Mary offered this authentic presence, accompanying Jesus in his humiliation.

We are often afraid to look reality in the face. Here is just one example. I was supporting a priest who had fathered a child. He had had the courage – and I use the word advisedly – to leave the priesthood and his religious life, in full awareness of the gravity of his infidelity to his vows, in order to take responsibility for his actions. His order wanted his child to be adopted, and the child’s paternity kept hidden, so 36

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SIGNS OF THE TIMES that the priest could resume his religious and priestly calling. The culture of achievement, of ‘ecclesiastical success’, had brought pressure for concealment of a situation seen as humiliating for both the priest and his order. He however could step outside that culture: he preferred to carry the humiliation of being ‘defrocked’ and to assume his responsibility.

Considered as too heavy a burden by his religious order which could no longer look him in the face, this man became an outsider. His situation raises a further question: what kind of support had he been offered earlier? One of the great problems of our Church is its concern for its reputation and fear of humiliation.

It is not alone in this. In People of the Lie, the American psychiatrist Scott Peck cites a psychiatric study, based on research and interviews, of disturbance among American soldiers who had killed civilians in the Vietnam War.4 This study was never published, because it was considered too damaging to the reputation of the American army. Here is an example of how the norms of success and concern for public standing, what I call the ‘tyranny of normalisation’, 37

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FROM CONFORMITY TO CONSCIENCE can lead people who carry responsibility to live in contradiction: they want to keep up appearances while knowing the gravity of the wrongdoing which has been committed. Isn’t truth the one thing that can set us free? And doesn’t accepting the truth demand that we take the path of humiliation that can lead to transformation?

‘Transformation’ is a key word in any talk of humiliation and encounter. We Christians sometimes give the impression that our faith comes in a solid block: ‘you either have it or you don’t’. But faith isn’t simply a matter of belief in dogma and regulation. To have faith is to believe in, place our confidence in, a person: for Christians, that is Jesus. Then this trust, and the friendship it engenders, evolves. It is a journey of growth, transformation, deepening and humility, which is accompanied by a love and a vulnerability that become more and more radical and take us further and further away from the idea that we know a superior truth. This fragility both attracts and frightens us. ‘When I am weak, then I am strong’, says St Paul (2 Cor. 12:10).

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SIGNS OF THE TIMES Everything about encounter lies in the realm of the heart, where we do not seek to be superior to the other. In our societies, the imperative of ‘normalisation’ seems to be all-pervasive: we have to be strong to supplant and change the other. We cannot accept being weak. But a true encounter implies acceptance of our frailty and the frailty of the other. St Peter, called to be the rock on whom the Church was built, was profoundly humiliated by the way in which he denied Jesus, and by his own weakness and fear. He had to grow in humility and openness. St Paul reminds us that love is first of all patient, kind, and without envy. It isn’t boastful or arrogant, irritable or out for its own interests. It takes no delight in injustice, but rejoices in the right. ‘Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things’ (1 Cor 13:4–7). This love is given us as we accept our frailty. It is the fruit of an encounter whose source is in God. It is a gift of God, this encounter where there is no more superiority or inferiority.

All true encounters must integrate frailty, including death, the mortality which is the ultimate human 39

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FROM CONFORMITY TO CONSCIENCE frailty. Here is what Etty Hillesum has to say, as she accepts the coming reality of the Nazi destruction of the Jews: I have come to terms with life … [By which] I mean the reality of death has become a definite part of my life; my life has, so to speak, been extended by death, by my looking death in the eye and accepting it, by accepting destruction as part of life and no longer wasting my energies on fear of death or the refusal to acknowledge its inevitability. It sounds paradoxical: by excluding death from our life we cannot live a full life, and by admitting death into our life we enlarge and enrich it’.5 Etty Hillesum’s life, right up to her death at the age of 29, is a perfect expression of this paradox: the more we can integrate our death, the more alive we become. And I would go so far as to say that this death is not simply a physical one, the end of our 40

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SIGNS OF THE TIMES bodily existence, but made up of a multitude of ‘deaths’ – of bereavements and set backs, losses and renunciations, and humiliations as well. Each grief that we can integrate, whatever its origin, can become a source of life.

What

is

this

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that

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strength

which St Paul writes about and which we so dread even as we seek to find it? Think of the ‘blessed weakness’ of the baby. The mystery of every human being is that he or she begins life in a state of great fragility and vulnerability. In their early days, infants can survive only through a presence, an encounter and the tenderness that they evoke. This is why their vulnerability can be called ‘blessed’. Moved by such fragility, the mother enfolds the infant in a tenderness which says: ‘I love you. I love you as you are. If you cry in the night, however foolish you are, it doesn’t matter; I will go on loving you just the same. You won’t need to be strong or even see things as I do for me to love you.’ This love is a celebration: the mother and her child are celebrating their communion. The heart of their relationship is the mutual confidence 41

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FROM CONFORMITY TO CONSCIENCE that is carried through smiles, laughter and play, through exchange of looks and tender physical care.

For a small child, the body communicates: the mother’s love is expressed through a tenderness that passes essentially through the body. This is a relationship which is intensely physical and deeply spiritual at the same time. The psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva says that infancy is both pre-religious and pre-social. I would add that it is a time of a quite unique bond between two people – primarily the child and the mother, but also the father or another parental figure.

It is as if this stage is the untiring repetition of the statement: ‘You are my beloved son, you are my beloved daughter.’

Little by little, as children grow, they move towards normalisation. They learn to be sensible, to study, to do sport, to have friends, follow the rules, do as they’re told and become what their parents hope and desire them to be. The child learns to follow ethical, familial and cultural rules or the ways of their social milieu. To survive, children do what is expected of them. They feel they have to enter this normalisation, 42

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SIGNS OF THE TIMES to believe it when they are told: ‘If you don’t work at school, you’ll never get on in life.’ The criteria of achievement and of living they are offered are those of the prevailing social norms. Is their personal conscience taken into account?

There is also a tendency to impose a certain normalisation onto Christian life: we must go to Mass, catechism and so on. Fortunately, more and more families are now seeking to awaken their child’s personal conscience. How is this conscience to be educated? How to dialogue with the child? Some parents are asking their children: ‘What do you feel about it? What do you think is the right thing to do?’

Sometimes we fail to treat children as people, assuming that they have neither their own conscience nor the capacity for dialogue. This fails to recognise the wealth of their hearts, their thirst for truth and justice. It risks pushing the child to become no more than an obedient member of a cadre. Parents often use promises to get their way, or play on their child’s fears, rather than initiating a true dialogue. This understanding of ‘education’ fails to take account of the child’s own person or conscience.

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FROM CONFORMITY TO CONSCIENCE But parents can sometimes find it difficult to enter into dialogue with their child. One reason for this is the pervasive conviction that children shouldn’t suffer. If, for instance, grandmother is dying, it is thought better not talk about it too much. But this denies the child an opportunity to learn about life’s suffering, and that to be human is to suffer, whether from toothache or the death of a loved one. In the same way, children are encouraged not to ask too many questions. Thus family taboos grow up, for example around money. One day a couple came to see me to discuss their daughter, who was 17 and wanted more pocket money than they could afford. I asked them whether they had explained to her how they managed their finances, to show how much father and mother earned, the household expenses, the cost of running the car, the necessary savings and what was left over for day to day living. They said they hadn’t dared: ‘We have no right to worry a child of that age with such things’. But why not? I asked. This adolescent girl was of an age to understand the realities of her family’s financial situation.

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SIGNS OF THE TIMES To think of education in terms of social norms can also touch on religious questions within families.

Some parents who call themselves atheists feel that their child must be so too, and neither ask questions about religion nor discuss it. Some families who call themselves Catholics make attendance at Mass obligatory without questioning aspects of the behaviour or preaching of the priest. But where then are the opportunities to cultivate the personal conscience? A friend who is a priest told me about hearing the confessions of several children who accused themselves of lying. He asked why. They all told him that their fathers had been furious when they told them about bad marks at school; from then on they’d been afraid to tell the truth. The priest rejoiced, because he had been able to create a place of encounter and trust, where the personal conscience of each child could be evoked. Such places are extraordinary.

The text of Gaudium et Spes about conscience, quoted in the previous chapter, seems to me essential.

The question it raises is not about whether or not to 45

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FROM CONFORMITY TO CONSCIENCE follow the Magisterium, but about the education of the personal conscience, so that it can discern how best to act in truth, and above all in love for the other and the poor and disadvantaged. Today, faced at this very moment with this beggar I meet in the street or that person with a profound disability, what is the right response? It is my answer to that question which will guide my conduct. If my norm is the Gospel, then it is for my personal conscience to tell me how to live that norm, with prudence, in the concrete situations of everyday life. The Magisterium doesn’t have anything to say about how to behave towards the person in front of me now. The personal conscience is much deeper than this law or any general norm laid down by the Magisterium, because it operates in concrete reality, where each situation is unique. We need to cultivate it by listening to the little ‘interior voice’ that Etty Hillesum writes about.

It is through this voice that Jesus speaks and can sometimes lead us to actions which go against what appears to be conventional and ‘normal’. Learning to listen takes a great deal of discernment and training.

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SIGNS OF THE TIMES When a child reads the Gospel, they understand that Jesus asks that we love each person, including our enemy, and that we do not judge them but forgive them. So what happens when, for example, they hear at mealtimes their parents disparaging Muslims, people on welfare benefits or immigrants? If the child cannot listen to their own conscience and their own inner voice, they risk living in a state of deep contradiction, which can lead them to stifle their conscience even further.

If families and priests do not teach children to listen to their own conscience, they will not grow up to be truly free adults: they will be content to do what others want, acting according to the norms rather than personal truth and love. I have often seen this illustrated through the parents of young assistants who came to l’Arche for a short time and then chose to stay. The parents were delighted when they first came, because this fitted with their criteria of a ‘good deed’. But they were a lot less delighted when their children stayed. ‘We spent so much on your education and you choose to live with people ‘‘like 47

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FROM CONFORMITY TO CONSCIENCE that’’!’ The story of Francis of Assisi and Claire d’Offreduccio, so strongly confronted by the tyranny of their familial and social norms, repeats itself across the centuries.

Norms establish a distinction between those who are ‘good’ and those who are not: they define the elite towards which to aspire. Prisoners, alcoholics, drug addicts, prostitutes? Let’s have nothing to do with them! So it is easy to divide the ‘good’ from the ‘bad’, and from there ‘good people’ from ‘bad people’, just as it is easy to divide the ‘normal’ ones from the ‘abnormal’. Our personal conscience however allows us to consider each person as they are, to respect them and to love them with their own individual history. So we can turn with goodwill and compassion towards the person with a disability, the person who lives on the streets or the one in the grip of an addiction. From here, we become able to see their suffering and not simply their ‘abnormal situation’.

Priests and catechists insist on the religious norms: go to Mass, pray morning and night, participate in the sacraments. They sometimes forget that these norms 48

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SIGNS OF THE TIMES are intended precisely to help us develop personal conscience and to live as Jesus lived, allowing ourselves to be drawn towards the good and the true.

This is not emphasised enough. Once more, we can remember the experience of the Church in Algeria.

When the Church is ‘successful’, its priests can be tempted to content themselves with being welleducated and competent in directing a parish, and forget that they are also there to radiate love. Then the sacrament risks becoming no more than a ritual, empty of meaning. But when the priest is deeply bound to Jesus, ‘the sacrament of encounter’ allows the other to be truly seen, as a precious being. Then the priest will see the other through the eyes of Jesus, humbly and lovingly, attuned to their being and their suffering.

The Church’s social doctrine recognises each human being in their uniqueness and respects their differences; it remembers that from those to whom much has been given, much will be asked. The way of salvation is thus associated with the power to give and to work for justice. Benedict XVI emphasised 49

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FROM CONFORMITY TO CONSCIENCE that for a Christian, social action also demands above all a development of the heart. So is he not encouraging us to go further towards meeting the other in their need? It isn’t just a matter of willingly doing good, but of helping the other to discover their personal value, and working with them to create a more just and loving world. It is a matter of encounter and of allowing ourselves to be transformed through that. A meeting with someone who is homeless, disabled, or an outsider, sharing the scraps of our lives with them, can appear difficult and even useless.

But this can become the encounter which transforms us, leading us to the essence of what it is to be a person. The sacraments of the Church are there to lead us to love for the rejected and an encounter with them. Benedict XVI, in reference to John Chrysostom, said that the sacrament of the altar and the ‘sacrament of the poor’ constitute two aspects of the same mystery.6 It is through these two sacraments that there is the true encounter with Jesus, and this encounter transforms us. The sacrament of the altar, the Eucharist, is fulfilled in the ‘sacrament of the 50

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SIGNS OF THE TIMES poor’ – which means an encounter with Jesus in the poor. Isn’t this what Benedict XVI was saying in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est? ‘A Eucharist which does not pass over into the concrete practice of love is intrinsically fragmented’.7

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1 To lead us into love John 1:1-18

In the beginning, before all things communion was: communion between God and the “Logos” – the “Word.”

At one moment in time the “Logos” became flesh and entered history.

He came to lead us all into this communion, which is the very life of God.

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Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus

T

he Gospel of John begins with an extraordinary poetic, mystical vision of the healing of humanity, which in some way condenses the history of salvation and serves as a capsule version of the whole of this gospel.

It is called the “Prologue.”

It is centred on the Greek word “Logos,” which is normally translated as the “Word.”

This is not incorrect, but “Logos” has a much wider meaning, referring not only to the spoken word but also to the idea and thought behind the spoken word, the vision, the plan and the wisdom that inspire it.

It is the “Word” that has the power to change, create and transform.

“Wisdom” and “Word” both describe divine activity.

Before reading the Prologue of this gospel, let us look at a text from the book of Proverbs, written a few centuries before the birth of Jesus.

It tells about the wisdom of God at the heart of creation: The Lord created me [wisdom] at the beginning of his work…

Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth.

When there were no depths, I was brought forth…

Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth…

When he established the heavens, I was there…

Then I was beside him, like a master worker and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always …

Prov 8:22-30

In writing this magnificent Prologue in the Gospel of John, the author had certainly contemplated this form of wisdom.

Here is a rather free translation from the Greek of this hymn of the wisdom of God:

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To lead us into love

Before all things were, the Word was and the Word [or Wisdom] was with God, [or turned towards God, present to God, in communion with God].

He was God. Before all things were he was in communion with God. All things were made through him and without him nothing was made that was made.

In him was life, and life was the light of every person and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it.

The light which was God was in the world because all things were made by the light of the Word; he was hidden and yet revealed in all of creation.

But people did not welcome this light and wisdom.

He came also among his own people through prophets and holy people, but they did not welcome him either.

All those who did receive the light which was God, hidden in the conscience of each person, became children of God, children of the light.

Even though the world was filled with violence, engulfed in darkness, the God of light and of creation was with his people as they spread and evolved throughout the world.

God was revealing the Word and Wisdom to holy men and women, to prophets, over the centuries and throughout the world, showing them how to live in the ways of God.

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Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus

Socrates, a wise and holy man in ancient Greece, said he would rather die a thousand times than disobey God, who revealed himself in the light of his conscience and in his desire for truth.

But people did not listen to these prophets: The Word of God came unto his own, but his own received him not.

Then, at one moment in time and space, the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us.

Jn 1:14

Here is the heart, the centre, the beginning and the end of the gospel: the heart, the centre, the beginning and the end of history.

God, the eternal God, Creator of the heavens and the earth, became like us, a vulnerable, mortal human being.

He became as a baby needing a mother, conceived in her flesh nourished at her breast needing her love and the love and presence of Joseph in order to grow and develop as a human being.

He “dwelt amongst us,” which can be translated “put up his tent amongst us.”

He became a pilgrim and a brother, walking through the desert with us.

He became part of history revealing to us a way to God and to universal peace.

The “beloved disciple,” the author of this gospel, adds: We have seen with our eyes his glory the glory of the only begotten Son of the Father who was full of love and of truth.

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v. 14

To lead us into love

Yes, the disciples have now seen that God is no longer distant or set apart from our world.

They have seen him and received so much from him.

From the fullness of life and of love in Him we have received love upon love.

The Law was given through Moses but love and truth came through Jesus, the Messiah.

No one has ever seen God except the only begotten Son who is in the womb of the Father.

He has made God known. vv. 16-18

Or as Luc de Villers, a professor at L’École Biblique de Jérusalem translates it, The only Son of God who came to lead us into the womb of the Father.

What is clear in this magnificent movement or flow of the Prologue is that in God there is communion, unity, love and light, and from this communion, all creation flows.

And this movement finds its fulfillment as the Word became flesh to lead human beings into a new communion with God, to become one with God. Let us pause a moment here.

Jesus reveals himself in the Prologue as the unique Son of the Father.

He alone can witness to who God is because he knows God intimately, has seen God, is with God, and is in God. He alone shows us the road to oneness with God.

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Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus

Perhaps we have difficulty with language when we speak of God as “Father.”

Words are so limited.

How can finite words describe the Infinite?

For us humans, a “father” is a man.

But is God masculine? Of course not!

God is God, Creator of heaven and earth.

God created human beings; man and woman, God created them.

God transcends any notion of feminine or masculine.

God is neither one nor the other.

God is the source of all life and of all that is masculine and feminine.

Over the centuries, however, some men with power and influence have equated God with manhood and have tried to make women feel inferior, as if women could not live a relationship with God. Each of us can, in one way or another, use or manipulate religion to exert power and make others feel inferior.

If Jesus speaks of God as “Father,” it is because the Son flows from God. God is the source of all life.

God is the Source of the Word or Wisdom that flows from God, is born of God. So when Jesus speaks of his “Father,” he is speaking of the Infinite Source of Life, God, from whom the very person of Jesus flows.

That is why John speaks of the womb or innerness (in Greek, kolpos) of the Father in which Jesus lives and abides.

The Father is Source of Life from whom the Son flows; through the Son flows all life and all creation.

Through the Son we are drawn into God and become children of God; we receive the very life of God within us.

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To lead us into love

The origins of Jesus The Gospel of John begins by leading us to contemplate the origin of all things.

Some of the religious authorities of his time were continually inquiring about the origins of Jesus: where he came from, who his parents were.

Where other gospels tell us more about the human origins of Jesus, John speaks about his divine origin: Before all things, the Word was.

Jesus comes from God and is going to God. But Jesus also had very human origins.

He was a Jew, the son of a Jewish mother; his upbringing was Jewish.

He went to the synagogue.

On feast days he went to the Temple in Jerusalem to worship God. The Jewish people are steeped in Scripture; their culture and way of life are moulded by their history from Abraham to Moses and on through the prophets.

They love to tell their story, how God watches over them, loves them and guides them through all their joys, suffering and infidelities, for they are a people who have lived and suffered through many invasions and oppressions.

To understand the Gospel of John we have to go back to the history of the Israelite people in which it is rooted.

Abraham is our father in faith.

The words of Jesus frequently flow from the words of Moses and the prophets.

To let this gospel unfold in us, we have to claim and love this heritage.

People reach greater maturity as they find the freedom to be themselves and to claim, accept and love their own personal story, with all its brokenness and its beauty.

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Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus

So, too, Christians reach greater maturity in Jesus and advance into the new as they claim, accept, love, honour and forgive all that is beautiful and all that is broken in their heritage.

This heritage is their Jewish origins.

It is also the evolving history of Christianity and of the Church, with all that was and is broken and beautiful in it.

The Gospel of John, then, is the story of how the Eternal Word became flesh, was born a Jew, immersed in the Jewish culture.

The story of how he leads us all from behind the barriers of fear and indifference into a new unity, a new peace through a relationship with him which flows from God and brings us into the heart of God.

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The mission of Jesus and the lives of people with mental illness [I am writing] to all who have been called by God the Father, who loves you and keeps you safe in the care of Jesus Christ.

(Jude 1:1) The Gospels reveal a Jesus who is compassionate and humble of heart. He came to liberate everybody from those forces of sinfulness which incite people to violence and hatred and which separate them behind walls of fear. He came to announce a God who loves every person and calls them to unity and to peace. Among the great divisions is the one that separates the poor and the rich. He calls the rich to dispossess themselves and share with those who are in need; he calls those who are rejected and lonely to hope and reveals to them that they are precious to God. 62

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We see Jesus forgiving, healing and helping people in need. People brought Jesus ‘all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them’ (Matt. 4:24). He puts as requirements for entry into the Kingdom of God (Matt. 25) compassion, giving food and drink to the hungry and thirsty, visiting the sick and those in prison, welcoming strangers.

For disciples of Jesus it is not just a matter of preaching and telling people in distress that they are loved by God. To be a disciple is to say to those in need, ‘I love you and want to be committed to you, in order to help you to be liberated from rejection, and find the appropriate help as together we move towards peace and love.’ Such discipleship reveals the message of Jesus by living it. For disciples, there can be no separation between life and words (James 2). Those with mental illness may well be such disciples. But they also need to be able to find and interact with other disciples within our churches; people who seek to meet with them; to understand them, to appreciate them, to love them and to reveal to them that they are loved by God. Meeting, understanding, appreciating and loving – such is the way of the Kingdom. Such a loving dynamic is not a oneway thing; it is not a gift that the church alone 63

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offers to people with mental illness. It is also a gift that churches need to learn to accept from people living with mental illnesses.

As disciples, we recognise that our hearts of stone must then be transformed into hearts of flesh, pure hearts that are vulnerable and loving.

This is not simply an act of human beings; it is a gift of the Spirit. Ezekiel says, ‘I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh’ (Ezek. 36:26). Disciples of Jesus are not called to be competent therapists, but to have hearts that are understanding and loving. Growing into love is a long, hard road (1 Cor. 13:4–7). Patience, kindness, perseverance, forgiveness and hope, all take time. Love takes time. Such love is given to us by the Holy Spirit, just as Jesus promised. The message of Jesus is not merely a law that must be obeyed. If it were, the weak and the rejected would quickly feel guilty, unworthy, fearful of punishment, as indeed all persons would. Jesus came with a deep love designed to draw into his loving arms all those who have a broken image of themselves: those who are depressed and feel unloved; those who are sad in their spirits, but loved in their souls. He came with love to save and liberate those who are not able to live the law. Jesus brings to us a spirit of graceful love; a form of 64

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love that is not determined by human action (or the lack of it), but is motivated and driven by the desire to reach out to the wounded, the rejected and the weak. The open arms of Jesus on the cross draw all into his graceful loving presence. Recognising this is the beginning of discipleship and the point at which the churches’ ‘specialness’ begins to reveal itself.

It is only as we learn to love with the grace and compassion of Jesus that the suggestion that the wounded and the rejected can find places of welcome within our churches, our church halls, our retreat homes and our own hearts can become a possibility. Only then can those with deep psychological afflictions begin to believe that they are loved by God and can live a relationship of friendship with Jesus alongside those who claim to follow him. Only when the church can be seen to be the church can people be persuaded that it is the church. The love of Jesus has to be seen to be believed. The beginning point for the church’s ministry alongside people with mental illness is the recognition of the power of graceful love. In a special way people with mental illnesses need to hear, see and feel the message of the love, acceptance and graceful forgiveness of Jesus.

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Forgiveness Forgiveness is at the heart, of the gospel message. Many people experiencing mental illnesses can end up blaming themselves for their situation. ‘Is my illness caused by something I have done?’ ‘Should I do something or stop doing something?’ ‘Is God punishing me?’ People can feel that their disturbances and strange experiences, their suicide attempts, their depressions and perhaps even their violence have caused pain to themselves, their family and friends. Feelings of guilt can devour people. The beauty of the gospel is that forgiveness is available to all, free of charge!

Forgiveness is healing. In the light of the cross we can come close and whisper to one another: ‘God is not punishing you.’ ‘You have an illness.’ ‘You need not pressurise yourself by trying to do things differently. People will help you. People love you.’ ‘It may well be that you have caused distress to others, but Jesus forgives you.’ People need to discover the open arms of Jesus as he gently calls them to a relationship of love within which they can believe and experience the fact that they are free, forgiven, and that, as the apostle Paul says, ‘nothing can ever separate us from God’s love’ (Rom. 8:39). The task of the church is to embody that love in order that those who 66

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are broken can feel such love. This is the theological foundation of our call to love.

The pain of people with mental illness: listening and understanding It is difficult for an outsider to speak of the pain that people with mental illness experience. Both Jean and John have seen and been moved by chronically ill people in psychiatric wards strutting up and down a hospital ward muttering to themselves and clearly distressed. How can we understand if we have not walked with them? Where is their hope? A young woman at college who suddenly experiences a major life crisis is given medication. A little later she throws it away because of the side-effects. She begins to scream in the middle of the street, frightened of being hurt by imaginary thugs; she is taken away by the police. The temptation is simply to distance ourselves by saying ‘she is ill’. In this way we pass the responsibility to the ‘specialists’ and in so doing abrogate ourselves of responsibility. But we cannot know how she feels. We cannot truly understand what she is experiencing. We cannot judge her because we do not know. But if we were to take time and listen to what she is going through, perhaps we could understand her? Instead of passing 67

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her on to the ‘specialists’, perhaps our job is to learn how to come close and listen to her; to learn how to value her experience and love and understand her? Perhaps muttering has meaning.

Jean remembers being touched and saddened by a person who, having lived through a clinical depression said to him, ‘Nobody could understand me; I felt I was in a snake pit.’ As Jean listened he did begin to understand. He could never claim: ‘I know how you feel!’ And nor should he. But he could listen and try to understand what the other was going through.

Again, there are those who become lost in the midst of Alzheimer’s disease. They no longer seem to be able to understand where they are or even who they are; they feel totally lost.

How are we to accompany them? People who have bipolar disorder can quickly move from depression to hysterical enthusiasm; nobody seems to understand them, they feel rejected.

Alongside of their chaotic inner pain and anguish, people with mental illness often have the additional pain of feeling that nobody can understand them, and in frightening ways they cannot understand themselves. They may feel unwanted by God and unloved by everyone around them. This leads to a deep vulnerability which easily leads to mistreatment, abuse and a 68

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lack of sensitivity to people’s experiences, even by doctors and medical staff. Those in so-called ‘normal’ society are fearful of strangeness and difference and can be intolerant and excluding, leading to loneliness and isolation.

And yet, Jesus calls us to engage in persistent love; a love that is gentle, kind, loving and patient. Such love takes time. And time is exactly what many of us are tempted not to offer to people with mental illnesses. When we slow down and take time to listen and try to understand, things begin to look different.

When people who are mentally ill cry out or draw attention to themselves in the midst of their sadness or confusion, it may be that these expressions of concern are not actually ‘problems’. They may be the expression of experiences, questions, fears, requests for love.

Might it not be that they are looking for someone who, at last, will see them as persons and will listen to them? The real problem may be that we have not yet learned the practice of listening properly; of slowing down, being patient and opening our souls to the confusion of the other.

Maybe the experiences of mentally ill people are not just problems to be solved? Perhaps they are in fact cries to be heard, respected, trusted and understood: cries that demand love.

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try to understand; to hear people through the confusion and to move towards those who weep.

There is a temptation, for some of us, to move away from people with mental illnesses for fear of being engulfed by their pain. We are afraid that we will end up getting lost among the lost.

We feel inadequate, incapable of dealing with the situation. Instead of moving forward in love, we retreat backwards in fear. However, ‘There is no fear in love. Indeed, perfect love drives out fear’ (1 John 4:18). The call of Jesus is to hear the cries for love and to move forwards in friendship and in perseverant love; a mode of friendship which destroys stigma and opens up space for all of us together to be fully human even in the midst of our wildest storms.

If this is so, then the church is not called to find cures for the problem of mental illness.

Such a task belongs to specialists of a different kind. It is called to a ministry of listening, understanding and spiritual consolation.

Many people with mental illnesses retain hope in the midst of their pain, anguish and inner chaos; a hope that they will meet with God, a meeting that is mediated, for better and for worse, in and through God’s disciples.

Taking time to listen and to understand is not complicated: a look of respect, a gesture of love and tenderness, a thoughtful word that will 70

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reveal to people that they are not forgotten by God (or by humans); that they are loved. It is in the small things of this world that the Kingdom of God is revealed.

The presence of God in mental illness: recognising the small things Jean remembers a psychiatrist friend telling him that many people who are in serious psychotic states can remain open to authentic and deeply meaningful relationships. He told me of a patient who was claiming to be Jesus.

He listened to him without contradiction or discussion. When the man stopped talking, Jean’s friend said to him, ‘If you want, I can give you some medication which might relieve some of your pain.’ The ill man agreed and accepted the medication. Obviously he knew he was ill, and like so many people with mental illness, he wanted to feel better. He was also in front of a man – the psychiatrist – who was clearly a man of compassion who listened to him respectfully and took him seriously. It is in such little openings into respect and relationship that the possibility of encountering ‘real persons’ rather than diagnoses can occur. Such small things are the physical manifestations of belonging.

Louis who is 45 years old gave this witness during a conference on disabilities and society.

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He presented himself as ‘a schizophrenic’. The first symptoms appeared when he was 20. There followed long years of suffering. He spoke of the terrible anguish that overcame him, the crises, the violence and the uncontrollable acts which eventually brought him to be hospitalised. He spoke of his terrible solitude and loneliness.

Louis was angry. Who could blame him? He was treated with revulsion by his family and friends who disappeared in fear, not knowing what to do. He was like the psalmist who cried out, ‘You have caused my friends to abandon me; you have made me repulsive to them. I am closed in and cannot escape’ (Ps. 88:8). Now, with distance, he realises that such experiences, terrible as they were, were only for a season. Today, with the help of the right medication and the support of others, he is pretty well stabilised. Louis has learned to anticipate crises; he knows his personal flashpoints and he knows where and how to find appropriate help. He told the audience: In the worst moments of my illness and during the horrible crises I always felt a faithful presence of the Virgin Mary. I was certain that she would never leave me. Often I felt she was with me as she was with Jesus during the way of the 72

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cross. That gave me a lot of peace. But when I told this to a few people nobody took it seriously; in fact they imagined that was all part of my illness! I kept it secretly in my own heart. For a long time I hoped that Jesus would heal me. My real healing is that I have now accepted my illness and become more open to other people.

Louis reminds us of two things. First, the tragedy of Louis’s story is the way in which his label of being mentally ill shadowed everything that he did and thought. It is a grotesque tragedy when meaningful spiritual experiences are explained away as being ‘just another aspect of his illness’. Second, Louis reminds us that we must never see just illness in a mentally ill person: we must not allow the person to be subsumed to the illness. Even those things that we call ‘illness’ have meaning if we are prepared to look properly and listen without bias. There is a very real spiritual life within each person, even though it may at times be hidden beneath the turmoil of our lives. In each of us there is a secret. It is within this secret that Jesus lives.

Dr Nancy Kehoe has written a fascinating book about the spiritual and religious life of 73

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chronically ill people. She is a psychotherapist and a nun who suggested starting a discussion group on religion within the psychiatric hospital where she worked. She brought together a group of patients and gave them an opportunity to share and discuss their religious and spiritual experiences. The other doctors and therapists at the hospital were hesitant, partly because they felt that religion was somehow bad for people with mental health issues and partly because most of them were atheists or agnostics. In the end they accepted the ‘experiment’. The book reveals how people with severe mental illness can have and can ably articulate real spiritual experiences, and are often keen to speak of them. Many of them wanted to know about prayer: does God listen to them? Others wanted to feel protected

by God, and to wear a religious symbol to remind them of God’s presence. Some wanted to speak of the church they used to go to, or about their parents who had died. All needed to speak about what they deemed as their most intimate secrets, which they dared not share with doctors or therapists or even, normally, with other patients. Religion was important to them even if those who offered care to them seemed to think otherwise.

True spiritual experiences like Louis’s 74

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and the participants in Nancy Kehoe’s group are spoken of in humble ways. There is no need for complex spiritual exercises. They just happen when people come close to God and one another. As they come close there is no need to deny their illness; it becomes part of who they are and where they have been; part of their formation. In this way the person is helped to accept their illness without denying their spirituality, and in so doing is enabled to find new ways of encountering relational healing.

Psychosis, sadness and confusion can lead to denial: ‘I am not really ill!’ When this happens people are cut off from reality and from others.

What we see in the stories above is the simple fact that expressing true spiritual experiences can bring people back to a place of confidence, value and acceptance: a place of healing. The importance for a disciple of Jesus is to listen with respect to people who are ill, to help them realise that the person behind the illness is important, and that above all else they are loved by God. Both Jean and John have been deeply moved by the holiness and humility of some of the mentally ill people that they have known. Many have not had any deep religious experiences like the one Louis had, but they have accepted both that they are ill and that 75

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their illness has meaning beyond the mere desire to get rid of it. They know who to go to in times of crisis; they meet regularly with their doctor and they know they must keep on with their medication. They live a life that is regular and without excesses and they are careful not to let themselves get into situations which could create anguish in them. They have learned how to live and accept themselves as they are. Like Louis, they are no longer seeking a cure; they desire to live life in all of its fullness, alongside of and in the midst of their illness. Jesus came to bring life in all of its fullness. The challenge for the church is to ask and to answer the question: what does that look like?

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Introduction On 23 June 1945, Pauline Vanier, the wife of the Canadian ambassador to France, set out from Paris with her husband Georges and daughter Thérèse, to the town of Lisieux, most of which they found reduced to rubble from the Allied bombing of a year earlier. After they received greetings from the town’s dignitaries, they were ushered to the Carmelite monastery, one of the few buildings still intact. There they were told that Mother Agnes of Jesus, the 84-year-old prioress, would see them.

Mother Agnes, the former Pauline Martin, had been the first of the Martin sisters of Lisieux to become a Carmelite. Marie had entered the monastery a few years later, and then, most famously, their 15-year-old sister, Thérèse, had joined them. After their father’s death, a fourth sister, Céline, too, had become a Carmelite in the Lisieux monastery. Thérèse died in 1897 at age 24 and was canonized a saint 28 years later. Marie died in 1940, and so the only other Martin sister still in the Lisieux Carmel, besides Mother Agnes, was 76-year-old Céline, now known as Sister Geneviève.

Of the Vaniers’ four other children at this time, son Jean was in England and the others in Canada. In a collect-

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ive letter to them, Pauline sets the scene at the Lisieux Carmel as she, her husband and daughter prepared to meet Mother Agnes: ‘We were all very émotionnés at the thought of meeting this woman, a sister of the saint and a saint herself! Daddy saying, “you’ll do the talking because I’m too frightened”, and I saying, “Oh no! You must, I’m terrified.” Thérèse saying, “Well, I know that I shan’t say a word”.

‘We walked over to the Carmel with Msgr. Germain who left us at the door. We were taken by a “turn” sister to a parlour. Like all Carmel parlours, it has the grille with the spikes. But those spikes have no more terror for me now! I know them too well to be frightened.

We waited, the three of us very nervous and wondering what we would say. Suddenly we heard a door handle turn, the door opening, a voice said, “Deo gratias” and we none of us knew what to answer, which is disgraceful as far as I am concerned! Then to our great surprise and great relief we saw the shutter open and there we saw this grand woman, old in years but young in spirit.’

Mother Agnes had brought her conseil with her, including – to the Vaniers’ surprise and delight – the only other surviving sibling of St Thérèse, Sister Geneviève. The prioress was slightly deaf, and so voices were somewhat raised, ‘but otherwise there was no difficulty whatsoever in the conversation. She took it in hand and we followed on.’ The sisters told the Vaniers ‘what a character’ their young saint was, adding, ‘Il n’y avait rien à l’eau de rose en elle’ [‘There was nothing sentimental about her’]. At another juncture, when

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Pauline Vanier asked them to plead to St Thérèse on her behalf, Sister Geneviève waved her off: ‘You know how younger sisters are – she never listens to me!’

‘Then,’ Pauline adds, ‘I told [them] about Ganna [Pauline’s mother] being Père Pichon’s spiritual daughter … I told her about Hitchin1 and how privileged I had been … She said that they would pray for our family very particularly and added, “Vous êtes de la famille maintenant.” [“You’re part of the family now.”]’ By this time, ‘we spoke on cheerily and without any more fear. Even Daddy launched himself in conversation about a parallel to be drawn between St Thérèse and St Jeanne d’Arc, which they all approved and Mother Agnes asked one of the Sisters to read out of a passage of the last words of St Thérèse in which she says that she wishes that she were a soldier.’

Pauline ended the collective letter: ‘We came away feeling that St Thérèse was more than ever the protector of the family, more especially after the assurance of Mother Agnes’s prayers. The whole thing is so closely linked.’2

With this visit, Pauline Vanier had in a sense come full circle. The Jesuit Almire Pichon, whom she referred to in her letter, had become close to St Thérèse’s family, and the saint herself described him in her autobiography, Story of a Soul, as ‘a director such as St Teresa desired’.3 Père Pichon was sent to Canada as a retreat

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preacher in November 1888 (‘hardly had I been numbered among his children when he left for exile,’4 the saint writes).

In Montreal, where Père Pichon landed, he soon met another young woman, who was a year younger than Thérèse Martin. Her name was Thérèse de Salaberry. The Montreal Thérèse was an orphan who lived at a convent school called Pensionnat d’Hochalaga.

The exact circumstances of the meeting between Père Pichon and Thérèse de Salaberry are not known, but in some way he took on the role of ‘spiritual father’ to the girl, and she in turn became devoted to him. As a young Jesuit he had come under the influence of the spiritual writing of St Francis de Sales, who, in Introduction to the Devout Life and other works, advocated a gentle trust in God. Père Pichon became known for encouraging an affectionate attitude toward God, advocating a personal love of Jesus rather than a stern doctrinal approach or an overly judgemental view of one’s own unworthiness. (‘Take Jesus by the heart’ was an exhortation he liked to use, and St Thérèse would eventually echo it.) He also encouraged devotion to the Sacred Heart, which he regarded as a means of discovering God’s infinite love through the heart of Jesus.

The parentless Thérèse de Salaberry, a young woman in need of affection, was ripe for the kind of guidance that Père Pichon offered. The Jesuit may have tried to steer her toward the life of a nun, but she suffered from fragile health and an anxious temperament and

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probably would not have withstood the rigours of the cloister. At any rate, when she reached adulthood she married a man by the name of Charles Archer. When the Lisieux Thérèse died of tuberculosis in her Carmelite monastery on 30 September 1897, the Montreal Thérèse was three months pregnant. On 28 March 1898, she gave birth to a daughter, Pauline.

Thérèse de Salaberry Archer remained close to Père Pichon as her spiritual father, and as a young child, Pauline made her first confession to him. After his return from Canada to France in 1907, they kept in touch with him through correspondence and transatlantic visits until his death in 1919.

Pere Pichon’s letters to Pauline’s mother contained echoes of the advice he gave to thousands of other correspondents, sounding the same themes of God’s mercy and trust in adversity: ‘I ask you to be kind to your soul … Jesus is as kind toward it, as indulgent, as merciful, as you are sometimes hard and severe. Look after my daughter with tenderness, as a good mother looks after a suffering child. No vinegar! Pour on the honey.’

‘Jesus is never more loving toward you than when he appears to be cruel. What a misfortune it would be if even for one day he suspended his merciful pursuit of you. Undoubtedly you have to walk like a blind person through thick darkness. But an invisible hand is leading you, supporting you, holding you, protecting you.’

‘The path that God is making you follow is mysterious. But, even more, it’s a path of mercy.’ ‘It seems that your heart’s distress isn’t over yet, that you still have

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something to learn from it. Jesus is busying himself in completing the lesson, and I see only a loving plan in it …’ ‘Against all appearances, believe in Our Lord’s love for you. I can never emphasize this enough.’5

Pauline Archer was twenty-one years old when she met thirty-one-year-old Georges Vanier, recently returned to Canada from the war in France, who, on 28 August 1918, had lost his right leg in battle. They were both natives of Montreal and were married there in 1921.

Pauline had grown into an extroverted young woman, with a need for affection and a tendency to anxiety similar to her mother’s. Because of her health, her formal schooling was curtailed, and most of her education was conducted by governesses. As she grew into adulthood, she felt, from her mother’s influence, a deep spiritual thirst and a desire for Christian service.

‘You and I are going upward hand in hand toward the Light, because God is drawing us to Himself,’ she wrote to her future husband a few days before their wedding.

‘Our ambition must be to always set our sights on this summit. Nothing else matters. We mustn’t forget that we were created for Him, and we must always show this with our lives. It will be our particular form of the apostolate.’6 Georges’s war wound had already taken a central place in their relationship: as an engagement gift he had given Pauline a small bottle, the size and shape of a perfume bottle, containing mud from the boot of

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his amputated leg. Each year on the anniversary of the date he was wounded, she would write him a letter of love and admiration.

But already, in the flush of youth and romance, she had set the tone for a lifetime of Christian service. Most of this service would take place in the world of diplomacy, in which the couple would become increasingly prominent. For nearly fifty years they would grow together in discovering God’s love. Singly and together they would find a spiritual path that would take them deeper into their relationship with each other and with God. By the mid-1930s Pauline, having come through a miscarriage and shaky early years of motherhood, would be open and ready for the spiritual adventure that would form a prayerful underpinning for the changes and turmoil ahead. During the coming years the Vaniers would be close to many of Europe’s historical events and they would see their own children’s lives unfolding in remarkable ways. Pauline would be led along a path remarkably similar to her mother’s, one familiar to the Carmelites of Lisieux, and in his own time Georges would discover this path as well.

Pauline’s first guide would be an English Carmelite prioress, Mother Mary of the Cross.

Not surprisingly, the prioress’s letters to Pauline can be seen to strike some of the themes that are to be found in Carmelite literature, and in particular those of St Thérèse’s Story of a Soul.

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Mercy within Mercy

In the second part of Story of a Soul, known as ‘Manuscript B’, St Thérèse writes of her discovery of ‘the science of love’ pouring out from God’s mercy. The road leading to this discovery is the path of ‘the surrender of the little child who sleeps without fear in its Father’s arms.’7 In a missive addressed to Jesus, she describes a dream in which Anne of Jesus, the founder of the Carmel in France, tells her ‘He is content’. St Thérèse takes this as confirmation that the path of trust and sacrificial love she has been walking along—which eventually will be called the ‘little way’—is acceptable to God, and this assurance is proof that she is loved. The dream is also a prelude to the many graces she asks for: elaborating on the various vocations that make up the Body of Christ (which she finds in the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians), she enumerates warrior, priest, apostle, doctor, martyr.

Then she moves on to ‘the more excellent way’, that of love.8 This will be her vocation: to be love at the heart of the Church. She goes even further, offering herself as a ‘victim’ of God’s merciful love, echoing the act of oblation she had made a year earlier. She declares herself as weak and powerless, and so her love will be proved by daily small sacrifices which she expresses to Jesus as the strewing of flowers (some of which will have thorns, she acknowledges) as if she were a child.

When one thinks of St Thérèse’s affectionate nature, of her need to be loved and to give love, and her discovery that her vocation was to be love at the heart of the Church, one can see how Mother Mary of the Cross,

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perhaps more personally inclined to the loftier prose of St Teresa of Avila, is guiding Pauline Vanier. There is no mention of ‘flowers’ in the nun’s letters (she refers only once to the younger Carmelite), and perhaps the floral imagery, cloying to modern sensibilities, does not appeal to her. Also, Mother Mary of the Cross is keenly aware of the Vaniers’ circumstances: Pauline is not cloistered, but living through the joys and travails of marriage, motherhood and the vagaries of world events.

Her days are lived against a larger immediate canvas than that of St Thérèse. She is very much in the world in a way that the saint, living in a cloister, was not.

But in their own way, in their particular time and place, Pauline and Georges too have a vocation at the heart of the Church. They may say with St Thérèse, quoting the Book of Wisdom, ‘For to him that is little, mercy will be shown’,9 but instead of offering themselves as victim of God’s merciful love, they can add, ‘You do not ask for holocaust and victim; instead, here am I.’10 This open desire for God permeates everything that the couple sets out to do, and it can be seen in the letters Pauline writes to her children during the war years when the family is separated. (On 9 May 1944 she writes from Algiers to her eldest son: ‘We are certainly living in interesting times and there is much for you young ones to do. You will need all the science of the knowledge of God that you can possibly have and you will have to have strength that alone He can give … It is in prayer alone that one can find our needs. Not prayer

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of words, but prayer of the spirit. It is the awareness of God, as Fr Steuart calls it, that is essential. It is all the more difficult in these days of continuous agitation to stop and listen to Him and yet – how are we to reach Him if we don’t listen? I find that the best time is just before going to sleep to try and do what Fr Steuart calls “pointing the spirit towards Him”.’11) Always, against the backdrop of tension, anxiety and devastation, there remains the presence of God. Throughout the whole of her long life, which will span most of the twentieth century, Pauline has both Martha’s open-hearted spirit of generosity and Mary’s longing to gaze upon God with love. Her temperamental anxiety, however, and the tendency to slide into depression, threaten to drag down her trust in God. She often feels unworthy – that her spiritual life is ‘wrong’ whenever her prayer seems nothing but a fog. She feels useless much of the time, as if her ambition to be of Christian service has frittered into nothing. As for her spiritual life, she can only often say with the psalmist, ‘I have sought you with all my heart; let me not stray from your commands.’ 12

Mother Mary of the Cross’s letters to Pauline span a period that is, in a sense, a time of exile for the Vaniers. By the time of the first letter, 5 January 1939, the couple have already passed an important turning point in their marriage and in Georges’s spiritual life.

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In the midst of the tumult of war, the family will eventually find itself scattered on three continents. Through all the daily upheaval, Pauline’s Carmelite director exhorts her to loving abandonment, to letting go in recognition of God’s mercy, to rejoicing before God in her weakness.

In the first part of Story of a Soul Thérèse says that Carmel was the desert where God wanted her to hide herself. Pauline’s is a particular twentieth-century desert: her life and the lives of her family and all she comes into contact with are uprooted and in upheaval (though less tragically than millions upon millions of others) because of war. Her need for spiritual comfort finds a response from her Carmelite director who writes to her of simplicity and littleness. The prioress paraphrases the great St Teresa, but could equally be echoing the little St Thérèse: ‘His Majesty loves to show His power in frail souls because in them His goodness meets with the least obstacle.’ She repeats more than once the original Latin meaning of mercy: ‘Miseri-cordare’—to give the heart to a wretched one.

In place of Thérèse’s thorns, Mother Mary of the Cross refers to ‘a zero temperature’, which will recur in other images: dryness, darkness, the inner ‘desert’ when all is bleak and nothing seems to be happening in prayer. Accept this state, she exhorts; do not shun it, but keep on acknowledging God’s love through the aridity.

The way of daily prayer and contemplation is not an easy one for Georges, either. He cannot confide in a spiritual director with his wife’s openness, but eventu-

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ally he, like her, will find a way through the frustration of dryness and distraction. The married life of Pauline and Georges Vanier will become, in its own way, an act of oblation to God’s merciful love, and certainly the heart of St Thérèse’s act will beat in the whole of their lives and in their desire to do everything for God. For Pauline’s part, Mother Mary of the Cross has a deep understanding of her needs, and she cautions Pauline against extraordinary practices, such as depriving herself of what is necessary in fulfilling her obligations. In fact, in response to Pauline who accuses herself of being self-indulgent when others are suffering, the prioress reminds her sternly of her ‘positive duty’ in her diplomatic role. The sacrifices required of Pauline are already real enough.

As the years go on, Pauline and Georges will deepen their relationship with God and with each other, and like St Thérèse, they are living more and more deeply at the heart of the Church. During the post-war years, the couple will find spiritual support at the Carmel of Nogent-sur-Marne, a short drive from Paris. Pauline will become a Carmelite tertiary there. The couple will embrace prayer and service in the way that Carmelites through the centuries have chosen: the way of simplicity, trusting in God’s loving mercy, acknowledging their own weakness, and echoing St Thérèse as they say with St Paul, ‘When I am weak, then I am strong.’ 13 Along the way, they will meet a Dominican priest, Thomas Philippe. He will become a guide for Pauline, helping her to deepen her understanding of God’s

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merciful love. The Vanier children will gradually move into adulthood following spiritual paths that Pauline, without realizing it, has opened for them. The oldest son becomes a Trappist monk named Benedict. He will be ordained a priest two weeks before Mother Mary of the Cross’s death in 1952 and will be regarded by his parents as the family’s spiritual rock.

Seven years later, Georges Vanier will be elevated to prominence as the Governor General of Canada.

His fellow Canadians will come to recognize the inner strength that lies beneath his wise words and friendly simplicity. They will note the patience with which he bears his increasing infirmity. Only after his death will they discover the rich sources of his spiritual life.

During Georges Vanier’s time in office, son Jean, with Père Thomas, will found a new small community which they call ‘L’Arche’. Georges Vanier, the mainstay of Pauline’s life, will die in 1967, and as a widow, Pauline will find a new vocation. She will be educated in what she calls ‘the school of L’Arche’. As she moves into advanced old age she will rely increasingly on her son Benedict whose gentle transatlantic messages will echo, in the language of a new generation, the spiritual counsel of the Carmelite prioress. St Thérèse writes in her Act of Oblation, ‘In the evening of this life I shall appear before You with empty hands’. 14 For Pauline, it is a lifetime’s courageous struggle to hold her hands open in trust.

St Thérèse found in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians a signpost on her little way. Likewise, Georges and

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Pauline Vanier, both singly and together, strive to live out Paul’s injunction, ‘Now you are the body of Christ’.

15 As they navigate their own path through their own particular time and place, they can remind themselves at every step, ‘Now you have received mercy’. 16

‘Use poor means’ In 1964, when her brother Jean started work on the first house of L’Arche in a small village in Northern France, Thérèse wrote approvingly to her parents.

I think this sort of thing will do a tremendous amount of good. A philosopher who puts his philosophy into practical practice is so rare, and clearly his colleagues and erstwhile masters consider he is crazy or ‘irresponsible’ and wasting his talents! Clearly also in time they will see how right he is and how much more teaching can be done (and thinking too!) by a way of life than by pedagogy ... I know his influence with the young will grow in consequence.1 Jean put Thérèse on the board of management – ‘to make sure,’ she said, ‘of at least one vote!’ She visited when the house welcomed its first inhabitants; she followed developments as the idea of L’Arche began to spread – with Daybreak, the first Canadian house, opening in 1969. At this time, she was more than fully occupied with her work at St Thomas’s hospital – though in retrospect she thought that already she was searching for ‘something more comprehensive’ in the care of her patients. Then, in 1971, she went as an accompanying doctor – ‘rather reluctantly, let it be said’ – on a huge pilgrimage to Lourdes organised by Faith and Light, an international movement for people with intellectual disabilities, their families and friends. On that pilgrimage, she had two meetings which she later remembered as of tremendous significance for both herself and the establishment of L’Arche in the UK. 2 The first was with a man called Billy Saunders, and his elderly mother. Billy had intellectual and other disabilities and lived in a hospital in South Wales; his mother had heart disease and both spent much of their time in wheelchairs. Thérèse was caring for

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them medically, but soon realised that there was no way in which she could meet their deeper needs.

Billy’s prayer, always out loud, was ‘I don’t want to go back to hospital’, and his mother’s prayer was ‘I don’t want to die before Billy dies because if I die nobody will visit him.’ What could I do?

Several weeks later she heard that Billy had died suddenly in his mother’s house on his way back to hospital.

So in a mysterious way, both their prayers had been answered.

I’m quite sure that was what made me consider what I was doing with my life. 3 The second meeting at Lourdes was with Geoffrey Morgan, a colleague of Jean’s from their navy days, who with his wife Ann and baby son had been living in the L’Arche Daybreak community.

They wanted to settle in L’Arche, but knew that they couldn’t live in a French-speaking community. For Thérèse, it was as if her sense of powerlessness in the face of Billy and his mother’s need had received a response from God: ‘You know you do not have to do everything … And there are companions on your journey.’

Already Thérèse was seriously questioning whether she wanted to continue with a conventional medical career. She had a deep sense that she was not caring properly for her dying patients within the constraints of a large general hospital, and was visiting St Christopher’s Hospice in South London to learn more. She faced a choice: should she give her energies to L’Arche or to palliative care? She knew that the second was a great deal more attractive to her. She was a member of the Lay Fraternity of Charles de Foucauld; she admired the commitment of ‘Brother Charles’ to living in solidarity with the poor and the fraternities of Little Brothers and Little Sisters of Jesus inspired by his example. She asked advice of an elderly priest in Liverpool, whom she’d met through her membership of the Fraternity. ‘Whatever you decide to do,’ he said, ‘use poor means.’

The phrase stayed with Thérèse; it seemed to be echoed over and over by the wheels of the train on her journey back to London.

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‘Use poor means’ It meant only one thing. At St Christopher’s I would become totally involved in an area of medicine in which I was competent, which I liked and which I knew I would be good at. If I went to L’Arche, I felt that I wouldn’t have a clue as to what to do. So where or what were the poor means? I had no knowledge of mental handicap. I certainly had no experience of founding a new charity ... My conversion to L’Arche had been very gradual – and was highly resisted for quite a long time! But gradually it became clearer and clearer to me.4

Events unfolded with that uncanny combination of coincidence and happenstance that can seem providential. An offer of a totally unsuitable house near Canterbury from a Frenchwoman, through Jean, turned thoughts towards this area. A meeting with Michael Ramsey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, at Jean’s suggestion, brought a promise of information about redundant church property for sale.

Thérèse and Ann and Geoffrey Morgan, together with Tim Hollis, another naval friend of Jean’s, set to work; people knew people and a committee assembled to run the new charity. Eventually, Little Ewell, the first L’Arche house in Europe outside France, opened in 1974 in Barfrestone, a little village near Canterbury. And by then, Thérèse had been offered work for two days a week at St Christopher’s – which gave her not just a salary but a precious opportunity to develop her medical expertise.

Within five years, there were five L’Arche communities in the UK – in Inverness, Liverpool, and Lambeth in London and Bognor as well as Kent. Thérèse was director of Little Ewell for two years, and then of Lambeth for four; she was involved in negotiations to set up the Inverness house before Little Ewell even opened, and worked with the others from the start. At the same time, as well as giving talks on L’Arche, constant fund-raising, and working two days a week at St Christopher’s, she was a Trustee of the growing Faith and Light. From 1975, she was also L’Arche’s ‘regional coordinator’ for an area that eventually included not just the UK communities but others in Denmark, Norway, and Ireland.

Inspiration and need, it seemed, had come together in an extraordinary burst of energy. ‘How do we get started, without a penny in the bank?’ Thérèse had asked John Stitt, the chairman of

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her little committee when Little Ewell was still only a hope. ‘You’ll find the answer in the Psalms’, he replied: ‘Open thy mouth wide and I shall fill it!’ And the gifts, it seemed, kept coming. There was a political dimension to this bounty. From the end of the 1960s onwards, there had been a series of inquiries in England into the grossly neglected hospitals in which very many people with intellectual disabilities had no alternative but to live. The findings were profoundly shocking; politicians were obliged to respond.

Better Services for the Mentally Handicapped, a government blueprint for change published in 1971, urged the development of more ‘community-based’ living that would both enable many people to leave hospital and prevent others from being so shut away in future.

Local authorities had to act – but many had no experience what a ‘home’ for someone with an intellectual disability could mean.

L’Arche came in its time.

But what it offered was far from the ‘staffed hostels’ the Government envisaged. It’s hard to remember now, perhaps, just how radical it was to set up house in the belief that people with severe intellectual disabilities could grow in confidence, security and relationship through shared life with young assistants who had no training at all, far less that of a ‘nurse’. Jeanne Males, then ‘a young, self-assured’ clinical psychologist based at a huge long stay hospital, gives a flavour of this. She started working with L’Arche when some ‘patients’ from that hospital were being ‘selected’ to move into the first Lambeth house.

As that community grew and evolved, I began to understand that I was almost working within two worlds. In one, people with learning disability were treated, cared for – always on the receiving end, whereas in the other, the core members of the community were valued, at the centre of things, and people from whom we received and indeed from whom we all learned.

I had trained in a hospital context that very much espoused the ‘medical model’, where the ‘experts’, led by the medical team of doctors and nurses (and later including psychologists and therapists) made decisions about the ‘patient’ – the

31

‘Use poor means’ person with learning disability. Their individuality was fast swallowed up by the system, in a world where they could make few decisions, in which there was little privacy with huge dormitories, and in which mealtimes came and went (with food being delivered from vast kitchens) to strict timetables and with little choice. And yet more recently qualified people could certainly see that individuality shine through all that seemed to be imposed by that ‘medical model’ and the ever-present pressures of the institution. Community care was beginning to be discussed, but the knowledge of the individuals with learning disability was very limited. When I accompanied a very small group of people to visit what might become L’Arche Lambeth (simply a private home) the first response of one of them was ‘Well, I like this hostel!’

He had no other word to describe what he was seeing and experiencing.

And perhaps in those early days, L’Arche had few explanations to offer. From the very start, Ann Morgan has said, it was founded on weakness, including her own. When she and Geoffrey returned from Canada, it was with the joyful hope of settling in Trosly.

But she simply couldn’t cope with not being able to speak or understand the language; with great sadness, she and Geoffrey told Jean that they wouldn’t be able to work for L’Arche after all. He simply brought out a bottle of his best brandy, she recalls, poured them a drink and said, ‘Never mind, it means we will just have to start a L’Arche in England!’

When that happened, as Ann recalls, there was everything to learn.

We each had a host of ideals and dreams of how ‘our’ community would be and very little experience between us. Some assistants had ideas of commune living, where each person did much whatever they liked, while our men from the local hospital had always had a regimented life with very little opportunity for choice. Suddenly they were freed from that and actually asked what they wanted, which was very confusing for them, so we had to gradually put in place

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boundaries, routines and rules. In those early days, there were none of the ‘outside’ processes in place, which could look objectively at a community and give advice and support, so we were ‘on our own’ as it were, as we struggled to find an acceptable way forward. There was a huge amount of pain and struggle around – and bad decisions made. Because we had no guide and no guidelines.

Some of that suffering had been particular: Geoffrey’s severe chronic illness was one part of it, and the pain of living in Christianity’s deep divides was another. (This is explored in the section on Ecumenism.) But some of the suffering was built into the endeavour that is L’Arche itself. From the start it has lived with what Thérèse might call ‘the defects of its qualities’. From the start, it has drawn on the loving idealism of the young – and has met their sometimes tempestuous lack of boundaries and rejection of structures. From the start, it has tried to respect the views of its core members – and created confusion and insecurity, especially in those who came from highly structured institutions. And from the start, in its valuing of the qualities of the heart, it has also exposed the depth of past heart-wounds, in many core members and their assistants as well.

As many people have remarked, the hurly burly of community life would hardly seem a natural choice for someone as orderly and introverted as Thérèse. From a professional and structured environment where she could use her expertise to predict outcomes with some certainty and influence events, she found herself in situations where she often felt powerless – and among much younger assistants with a great deal less life experience than herself. She was used to the responsibility of running an entire hospital department and could become quite angry when assistants drifted into meetings with watches set vaguely on ‘L’Arche time’.

Her professional approach and administrative skills brought huge benefits to L’Arche from the start – not least the confidence of potential funders. (Tim Hollis called her ‘L’Arche’s secret weapon’.)

And her long experience with vulnerability was invaluable. Unlike most assistants, she was of a similar age to many core members, and that brought security to them and the assistants too. Maggie

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‘Use poor means’

Smith, who joined Little Ewell as an assistant in the early days, remembers her as not just more practical and experienced but more ‘natural’ about life.When Betty, one of the core members, died, her body remained in her room for about a day while members of the community took turns to sit with her and say their goodbyes.

Thérèse came down to visit, Maggie remembers, and took an hour at Betty’s side.

I took her a cup of tea. She was knitting. I’ve often quoted this to people.When we are in the initial shock of discovering a friend is dying, we don’t know how to respond or how to be. Thérèse knitting seems to give us all permission to be ordinary, to be ourselves and to find our own way of being there.

But the extraordinary activity of the early years battered Thérèse as well as others. The structures were not strong enough to contain the energy, roles were unclear and hurtful decisions were made.

‘Visitors of all kinds would say things about an atmosphere of peace’ she recalled later ‘and I knew, we all knew, that this was anything but the case: there was anger, aggression, resentment, even violence, tiredness, exhaustion, people felt ‘churned up inside.’5 Bill Armstrong, a founding member of Little Ewell, once gave her a tip as she set off on yet another evening meeting to raise funds.

‘You won’t forget to smile, will you Thérèse? Because if you smile, people will know you are happy.’

In those days – consistent with L’Arche’s own paradoxical vision – it could be the ostensibly ‘weakest’ members of the community who did much to hold it together and remind others why they were there.Thérèse often told stories about Bill. Both of them were used to living under a hierarchy of command – she at St Thomas’s, he in a local long-stay hospital. ‘I think’, says Maggie, ‘they both found the relaxedness [of Little Ewell] grating at times and liberating at others, and I suspect they had an inbuilt understanding of each other because of that.’They were the same age and they knew each other over very many years. When they were both 60, he chose a steak and chips dinner for her and she went to his party; ten years on, they celebrated together again.

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But on the morning in question, as Thérèse remembered, Bill was in a foul mood – as he could be. The community was having a fairly important meeting, and he decided he wasn’t coming.

Some 15 minutes into the meeting, he appeared at the door, still in a foul temper, came in and sat down. Nobody said anything. Then Bill said: ‘I want to know if anyone wants me to stay here?’ I remained silent. David [another core member] was the butt of Bill’s anger and unpleasantness. David said: ‘Bill, I want you to stay.’

David had triggered off something. People began, going round the room, in turn, and saying to Bill: ‘Bill, I want you to stay.’ Then it came to Geraldine’s turn. Geraldine had a strong sense of who was in charge. She looked at me and said: ‘Thérèse, I want Bill to stay.’Whereupon David looked at Geraldine and said: ‘Don’t talk to Thérèse, talk to Bill.’ I never forgot that sequence of events; it was such a lesson.6 Looking back on the founding years of L’Arche in the UK many years later, Thérèse felt that people were caught up in a real sense of mission, which carried a huge amount of energy. But events overtook the capacity of individuals and groups; people got hurt and unwitting damage was caused. ‘All this may explain my own inadequacies at the time’ she said. ‘ I take responsibility for the way things were and I hope that I am right in believing that I later tried to express my sorrow for my part in what happened’.7 For Ann Morgan, this was a precious gift.

Thérèse wrote us a most humble letter asking our forgiveness for the mistakes she had made in those early years. Geoffrey and I were deeply moved by her words – what an amazing thing to do! Thus she was the one who opened the door for us to really communicate our truth for the first time, and for me to be able to express my deep sorrow for the many ways I felt I had hurt her. We could acknowledge that those early years had been really rough and painful for us both. She was a woman of great heart and sensitivity and we eventually grew quite close towards the end of her life. I will always treasure

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‘Use poor means’ the memory of how loving and generous she was to me and how she gave me this gift of humility and reconciliation out of her own warm heart. This is her precious legacy to me.

The pain had lingered over many years before that reconciliation could begin. But it was out of those ‘rough and painful’ beginnings that Thérèse and L’Arche UK learned to build many elements of its distinctive contribution to the movement’s development: a clarity about what was needed, an insistence on structures of support and a bringing together of competence and love.

Sue Mosteller, who was international coordinator of L’Arche International during the huge expansion of the 1970s, became friends with Thérèse through their many meetings over nearly a decade. She greatly loved and respected her clear priorities and her ability to articulate these so coherently in the context of a unified vision.

Thérèse was aware of St Paul’s words about the Body to the Corinthians: ‘If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it.’ (1 Cor. 12:26) Her spiritual and practical background seemed to have energised and shaped Thérèse’s passion for overall health of the community (body) of L’Arche, and for the community (body) of the Christian church.

For L’Arche as a community (body), Thérèse unambiguously called us to examine our responsibilities as caregivers for the health of the whole body. She recognised healthy aspects and our efforts to listen, to respond, and to care for those with disabilities. She supported and encouraged growth in good management and organisation. However, the bee in her bonnet was our complete disregard, during her tenure, for the health and well-being of those caring for the people with disabilities. For years, Thérèse advocated for change and more recognition in our expectations of caregivers living together day in and day out with those needing their constant assistance and support. We simply had too high expectations of our wonderful and dedicated assistants.

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Her voice was like one ‘crying in the wilderness’ over those first years, mainly because of the increasing number of more urgent challenges that presented themselves to a rapidly growing international organization. Poor Thérèse!

She couldn’t stop herself. ‘The assistants need privacy. The assistants need more time away. The assistants must be paid a just wage. We cannot use people! Our caregivers are our greatest asset. What are we doing? We MUST address this situation.’

For so many reasons I regret not supporting Thérèse more in her painful clarity about such unhealthy practice. ‘If one part suffers, every part suffers with it.’ Our international community suffered in those early years, with numbers of precious assistants unable to survive our unrealistic expectations. Were Thérèse with us today, I believe she would rejoice to recognise the changes and continuing efforts to care for the caregivers of our cherished community.

6.

The Next Day ‘Good morning everyone!’ Jonathan intended it to sound relaxed but wasn’t sure he succeeded. This would be his first official day in the pottery. Since Antonio had not given him any particular assignment, other than to use his eyes and stay out of the way, he was unsure how to figure out for himself what to do.

‘Good morning.’ Antonio and Pascal, both of who were standing by the kiln, replied. Of the others only Sofia and Alfredo were present. No Lucie yet, Jonathan noticed. The other two men were absent. Today was their second day of the week working in the house with Claire.

‘Jonathan would you be so kind as to make coffee?’ Antonio asked. ‘Sofia will tell you where you find everything.’

Since he had different aspirations for his own contribution to the workshop, he was not excited by the idea of being the coffee maid, but Sofia saw an opportunity.

‘Oh, sure, I am glad to assist you!’ she spoke with a red-cheeked smile towards him that was clearly meant to be endearing. ‘The coffee machine is in the office, where we also have a drawer that has the mugs, and the coffee and sugar. Cream is in the fridge in the hall. Come let me show you.’

Antonio saw with a twinkle in his eyes that the plan worked.

This kid might be very useful, but he needed to learn a few things in order to understand what this place was about. Antonio had seen a number of new assistants coming and going, and had developed an eye for what they were up to. This young American seemed to 29

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The Second Calling

be the ‘I do it my way’ type. ‘Maybe later you will,’ Antonio said to himself, ‘but not right now.’

Sofia led Jonathan into the office to prepare the early morning coffee when Alfredo got up from his chair. ‘Antonio, do you have a minute?’

‘Yes, sure, I will be with you in a second.’ He finished the plan with Pascal for the pieces that were to be fired in the kiln that day, and then turned to Alfredo. ‘What’s up, Sir?’ Alfredo did not mind being addressed in this way. On the contrary, his disfigured body had made him feel undignified, which he made up for by comporting himself in a somewhat formal manner.There were no jackets and ties to be found in the entire community, but Alfredo was the exception. He wore them every day.

‘I need to speak to you about my back. It’s hurting when I try to sit straight enough to see what I am doing at the wheel.’

‘That’s awful! I am sorry I haven’t noticed. Has this been going on for some time?’

‘A few weeks. I haven’t had the same trouble in the house, only here in the workshop.’

‘You think it’s working at the wheel, then?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘What can we do about it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Would it help if we place the wheel differently?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘We could lower the wheel, but then you will only be able to see what you’re doing from above, which is not what you want as a potter.’

‘No,’ Alfredo agreed, ‘Then I could not see how the shape of what I am making comes out.’

‘Right.’

‘Let me think of something. I may have an idea.’

‘What is it?’

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‘Well, something I must have seen somewhere. It’s a potter’s wheel that is set into motion horizontally, like this.’ Antonio moved his hand from left to right before Alfredo’s face.

‘Huh? How can I then use my feet?’

‘You don’t need to use your feet. It can be made to turn on electricity. It is switched on and off with a big button, like the ones they use for electric doors, so you can handle the speed with your elbow.’

‘That’s pretty smart.’

‘It is pretty smart. You and I are going to re-invent the wheel!’

Antonio joked.

Sofia and Jonathan had brought in the coffee. Pascal left his work at the kiln and joined them. ‘Who is going to re-invent what?’ he wanted to know.

‘Antonio and I,’ said Alfredo with noticeable pride, ‘we are going to make a new type of potter’s wheel.’

‘What type?’

‘It’s hard to explain, you will see when it’s ready.’

‘You’re making me curious.’

‘I have to talk with Diego, the handyman,’ Antonio said, ‘he knows how to do this kind of thing. As of today: no wheel-job for you anymore, Alfredo. You must spare your back. All right?’ Then, turning to the others, ‘What other stories do we have this morning, people? Did everybody sleep well?’

‘No news from Lucie?’ Jonathan asked. His question brought back the hilarious moment at the dinner table the night before, when Claire told how Lucie had thrown the volunteer’s dog on the floor like a coffee mug.

‘Nothing so far,’ Antonio replied. ‘I asked Claire. Someone will be assisting her in the afternoon, but we might have to miss her this morning.’

‘I am glad,’ Sofia whispered. Everybody pretended not to have heard her comment.

Jonathan saw that his plan to devote his time to Lucie that morning was not going to work, which annoyed him. He

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The Second Calling

anticipated excitement on Sofia’s part imagining that she would have him all for herself, and he resolved that this was not going to happen.

‘Maybe I can join Alfredo, and learn from him today,’ he said cheerfully but not being entirely honest. Sofia’s face showed disappointment, as he had anticipated.

‘You do that,’ said Antonio, which settled the matter. They all went to work while Antonio cleared the empty coffee mugs from the table.

‘Alfredo, what is your plan for this morning?’ Jonathan asked.

‘I have nothing going, since I finished my bowl yesterday. It’s going to be baked in the kiln today, I think.’

‘No new project?’

‘I was thinking about an Andalusian vase, you know, they are about this high,’ Alfredo explained, indicating a size of seven or eight inches. ‘They are decorated very colourfully, so I first need to make a drawing of how it is going to look.’

‘Do you always work from a drawing?’

‘Not always, but when you are making something that you don’t do too often, it’s better to have a clear picture in your head of what you want it to look like. In that case a drawing will help.’

‘I would love to learn what an Andalusian vase looks like.’ This time Jonathan seemed genuinely interested. Sitting together behind a drawing would allow him to learn a lot about the workshop, which would be good for his report.

‘Let’s ask Antonio,’ Alfredo suggested, ‘I think he has books with examples of different pots, and jars, and stuff like that. We will find ideas.’

A few minutes later they were drawing. Antonio had found an old catalogue from an exhibit of Andalusian pottery by a gallery in Seville. ‘Bring it back to me as soon as you have found something.’

Alfredo had picked a fine specimen in blue, a typical colour for the kind of vase he had in mind. The decorations were elegant geometrical motifs in white.

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‘How do you know about these vases?’ Jonathan wanted to know.

‘My family is from Seville. I saw them quite often when I was a boy.’

‘How was your childhood? Did you…’

‘Did I always have my hump?’

‘Yes.’

7.

The Path of Humility ‘I was born with a disease that runs through the family from my mother’s side,’ said Alfredo as he began his first sketch of the vase he had in mind. Jonathan followed his example. Being together at work, the balance of intimacy and distance proved just right for what turned out to be a painful question.

‘How did your father react?’ Jonathan asked.

‘He hated it, saw it as a sign of weakness.’

Jonathan barely managed not to ask himself what his own father’s response to such a condition would have been. ‘What kind of man was your father?’

‘A carpenter from Seville. Broad-shouldered and strong headed who couldn’t bear having me for a son; a working class man. As a teenager, I suffered from fatigue because of my trouble standing and sitting straight, so I frequently had to lie down. My father took it as a sign of laziness. “Born a gentleman taking his siesta, I suppose?” he would say with biting sarcasm.’

He went on: ‘At other times, when he saw me sitting with my head down because of my aching spine, he would yell: “Don’t slouch! A man holds his head up!” Then to my mother “That boy of yours will not grow up a man”. Afterwards my mother would cry because of being humiliated in this way. “It’s not your fault, mother,” I would say to comfort her.’

Jonathan saw Alfredo was biting his lip, but couldn’t say whether this was because he was concentrating on his drawing. Alfredo’s vase came out nicely, an oval body narrowing at its neck to widen 34

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again towards the rim. ‘You must have done this before,’ Jonathan said with admiration in his voice.

‘Yes, Antonio taught me how to sketch from a picture.’

They concentrated on their work for a while. Then Jonathan asked: ‘Was there anyone in your home to comfort you?’

‘I don’t think anyone ever did. My family on mother’s side were farmers; women running the household, busy as bees, men working in the fields, strong as oxen. To them I was simply Alfredo with the hump who was trouble for his parents. Nobody ever asked me what it was to be in that deformed body of mine.’

‘Did you go to school?’

‘For a year or two, yes. But school was even worse than home.’

His schoolmates had been cruel, Alfredo explained. ‘No one called me Alfredo, my nickname was Quasimodo, as in the famous story

by Victor Hugo that was made into a movie.’

‘How did they know that?’

‘Somebody must have told them, perhaps one of the teachers.

Or someone had seen the movie.’

‘Did the schoolteachers not tell them to leave you alone?’

‘Not really.When my classmates forced me to join them in boys’ games, like running, they knew I could not do it because it caused me a lot of pain when I tried, but no teacher told them to stop.’

‘How was your own teacher?’

‘She was the devil.’

‘She?’ ‘A nun.We had nuns the first three years. Her name was Mother Philomena. She had her special ways of making me miserable before my classmates. ‘Alfredo, how many lamps are hanging from the ceiling?’ she would ask. It was probably meant as an exercise, both physical and intellectual at the same time. On every occasion she would make me feel that I was less than the other boys.’

‘How?’ ‘There were small tasks that would allow you to leave the classroom for a few minutes as a reward. I was never chosen. “No Alfredo,” she would say when I volunteered to bring her a glass

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of water, “you wouldn’t be able to carry a glass of water without spilling half of it.” Grinning classmates made the rebuke in such remarks all the more painful.’

‘Did your mother never take you to see a doctor?’

‘For my hump? In her family they had known it for ages. It was taken to be a sign of rejection by God. “Nothing comes from nothing,” they would say. My mother believed so herself, even if she had no clue what her offense had been.’

‘Did you love her?’

‘Oh, yes, very much so. After my father had one of his angry outbursts about me and had taken it out on her, she would say to me: “You are my humiliation.” She didn’t mean to make me feel bad, but that hurt me more than my back ever did.’

‘I can imagine,’ said Jonathan softly. ‘It must have left a mark.’

‘It has. I was going down the path of humility,’ Alfredo said, laying down his pencil. He looked at the result with satisfaction in his eyes. Then he turned to Jonathan, ‘but I have to tell you that I only discovered this afterwards. At the time I was going through it, I had no clue that life could be different, even for someone like me.’

Vaguely aware that it was not only Alfredo’s life he was interested in, Jonathan was not yet done with his questions. ‘What changed it?’ he wanted to know.

‘When I was sixteen, the situation at home became untenable.

My father didn’t want me as an apprentice so I had to work in the fields also, but I couldn’t. “Then we must find a place where they can take care of you,” he said. “We can’t feed those who do not work.” My mother was heartbroken about his cruelty, but she could not stop him since she believed it was her fault to begin with. Then a nephew of my mother came by and suggested asking if I could come here, to this community. She did, and I was invited to come. It took a few years before I began to see what they had done to me.’

‘Then you have already been here for some time?’

‘Seven years now.’

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‘That means you’re only twenty-three. I thought you were much older. A retired gentleman.’

‘I guess that’s what humiliation does to a person. It does not make you any younger at any rate; that I can tell. Here I have learned what it is to be accepted as a person in my own right. It is dignifying. That probably explains this,’ Alfredo said holding up his tie.

They were quiet for a few minutes and concentrated on their drawing, which Alfredo had managed to work on while he was talking. Jonathan had achieved much less on his paper. He felt tired; tired and very old.