Jean Vanier Thoughts

Life Responds to Reality

There are things in life that are predetermined, but also things that are not. Life is flexible, embracing reality, adapting itself according to its environment and the welcome that it does or does not receive. The body develops, life flows if it finds love, or else it tenses up, draws back and protects itself in the face of obstacles, fear and suffering. Defense mechanisms go up, the body develops blocks against life, or it forces itself forward with a kind of violence.
- Jean Vanier, Our Journey Home, p. 141

The Waiting Treasure

The first suffering that a child experiences, which causes the first inner wound, is like a foretaste of death. All alone the child is too little, weak and vulnerable to be able to live. She needs adults to feed her and protect her against the things that are hostile in nature and society. If she does not feel loved, the child experiences the trauma of the fear of death. She is completely devastated, in a state of distress and panic in the face of this terrible reality. It looks from the outside as if the child is sulking. She cuts herself off from her relationships. But inside, life remains hidden like a treasure waiting to set out on its journey again if one day it is called to do so.
- Jean Vanier, Our Journey Home, p. 140

Life Persists

Life is like water flowing in a river. It turns and winds. If it meets an obstacle, it flows around it. The first obstacle it meets is pain, the unbearable rock of suffering which seems like an enemy of life, a harbinger of death. Life skirts around this horrible reality; it moves on elsewhere.
- Jean Vanier, Our Journey Home, p. 140

Celebrating a Death

In our communities, we try to celebrate the death of individuals: Celebrate in the sense that we do not run away from it. We look it in the face, speak of it, talk about the person who has left us, about their beauty and about our Christian hope, and also about our pain, anguish, anger or even revolt. A death is also celebrated in the way that people pray close to the dead body, support the bereaved family and live the funeral Eucharist. Our Journey Home, pge. 136
- Jean Vanier, Our Journey Home, p. 136

Doing Good

In the beautiful things we do and in our struggles for justice there is always a certain self-seeking and a need to prove ourselves, but these acts also have their own beauty and truth. They are necessary for the fulfillment of our being.
- Jean Vanier, Our Journey Home, p. 132

Having More Than One Interest in Times of Grief

I have myself passed through times of grief, but the emptiness or vacuum of inner pain that I have experienced have never been very long because my energies have never been fixed on only one thing. Bringing to birth and guiding the community was never my only occupation. I have always kept up my intellectual interests. I also lived the joys of communion with members of my community and with my friends outside the community.
- Jean Vanier, Our Journey Home, p. 131