Quotes from Jean Vanier

We work for peace every time we exercise authority with wisdom and authentic love.

From doing to listening in the end, the most important thing is not to do things for people who are poor and in distress, but to enter into relationship with them, to be with them and help them find confidence in themselves and discover their own gifts. . . . The promise of Jesus is to help us discover that the poor are a source of life and not just objects of our charity.

This evolution towards a real responsibility for others is sometimes blocked by fear. It is easier to stay on the level of a pleasant way of life in which we keep our freedom and our distance. But that means that we stop growing and shut ourselves up in our own small concerns and pleasures.

Our humanity is so beautiful, but it needs to be transformed

Community as caring . . . So many people enter groups in order to develop a certain form of spirituality or to acquire knowledge about the things of God and of humanity. But that is not community; it is a school. It becomes community only when people start truly caring for each other and for each other's growth.

Weakness, recognized, accepted, and offered, is at the heart of belonging, so it is at the heart of communion with another.

Belonging is for becoming . . . if for some reason it becomes stifling, then the person may have to take the risk of moving on, no matter how painful the separation may be. Community as such is never an end in itself. It is people and love and communion with God that are the goal. But, of course, a separation of this kind comes only after mature discernment and not just because being in community is painful or because there is a new leader we do not like!

Community and cooperation . . . Communion is based on some common inner expression of love; it is the recognition of being one body, one people, called by God to be a source of love and peace. Its fulfilment is more in silence than in words, more in celebration than in work . . . When a community is just a place of work, it is in danger of dying.

Children can then quickly discover that there is such a thing called truth; that they are not living in a chaotic world that is hypocritical, filled with only lies and pretense. Parents who admit to their children that they have been unjustly angry and ask for forgiveness are naming something: they are admitting that they are not perfect. Words and life can come together: the word can indeed become flesh.

The word love has been so abused by publicity and advertisements that we no longer know really what it means.

A group is the manifestation of this need to belong. A group can, however, close in on itself, believing that it is superior to others. But my vision is that belonging should be at the heart of a fundamental discovery: that we all belong to a common humanity, the human race. We may be rooted in a specific family and culture but we come to this earth to open up to others, to serve them and receive the gifts they bring to us, as well as to all of humanity.

To love someone is to reveal to them their capacities for life, the light that is shining in them.

The friend of time doesn't spend all day saying: 'I haven't got time.' He doesn't fight with time. He accepts it and cherishes it.

Prayer is a meeting which nourishes our hearts. It is presence and communion. The secret of our being is in this kiss of God by which we know we are loved and forgiven. In our deepest selves, below the levels of action and understanding, there is a vulnerable heart, a child who loves but is afraid to love. Silent prayer nourishes this deep place.

An ethics of desire is good news for those of us who have become allergic to an ethics of law.

That is the fundamental question; how to trust that she has a heart and that she can, little by little, receive love, be transformed by love, and then give love.

Belonging is important for our growth to independence; even further, it is important for our growth to inner freedom and maturity. It is only through belonging that we can break out of the shell of individualism and self-centredness that both protects and isolates us.

He comes into that part of our being that is our treasure, that sacred space within us, hidden under all the fears, walls and anger in us so that we may grow in the spirit of love.

The weak and the poor are for us a source of unity. Jesus came into the world to change and transform society from a "pyramid" in which the strong and clever dominate at the top, into a "body", where each member of society has a place, is respected and is important.

The fear of failure, of feeling helpless and unable to cope, had been built up in me ever since my childhood. I had to be a success. I had to prove my worth. I had to be right. This need to succeed and to be accepted, even admired by my parents and by those whom I considered my "superiors," was a strong motivating force in me and is a motivation at the heart of many human endeavours.

Her screams were not only a sign of her inner brokenness, darkness, and anguish but also a cry for help. Difficult as it is for us to accept and come to terms with this idea, I believe that every act of violence is also a message that needs to be understood. Violence should not be answered just by greater violence but by real understanding. We must ask: where is the violence coming from? What is its meaning?

Jesus does not impose or force anything on anyone. He gently invites each one of us to move forward. He says "come," come and see, come and live an experience of love, healing and a new inner freedom.

Community as forgiveness . . . Too many people come into community to find something, to belong to a dynamic group, to discover a life which approaches the ideal. If we come into community without knowing that the reason we come is to learn to forgive and be forgiven seven times seventy-seven times, we will soon be disappointed.

The language of elitism smells bad! It is not healthy to believe that we are the only ones to have captured truth and even less healthy to condemn others.