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I believe 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?

Jean Vanier

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Jean Vanier
Age: 90 †
Born: 1928
Born: September 10
Died: 2019
Died: May 7
Naval Officer
Philosopher
Theologian
University Teacher
Writer
Genève
Real
Understood
Needs
Coming
Every
Violence
Believe
Asks
Greater
Answered
Understanding
Message
Also
Messages
Must
Meaning

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All of us have a secret desire to be seen as saints, heroes, martyrs. We are afraid to be children, to be ourselves.
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Love doesn't mean doing extraordinary or heroic things. It means knowing how to do ordinary things with tenderness.
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If we are to grow in love, the prisons of our egoism must be unlocked. This implies suffering, constant effort and repeated choices.
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A tension or difficulty can signal the approach of a new grace of God. But it has to be looked at wisely and humanly.
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So we need places, laboratories, the creation of places which could be each one of our homes, where we invite people who are different, and we listen to each other, people of different class groups.
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We don’t know what to do with our own pain, so what to do with the pain of others? We don’t know what to do with our own weakness except hide it or pretend it doesn’t exist. So how can we welcome fully the weakness of another if we haven’t welcomed our own weakness?
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Community means caring: caring for people. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says: He who loves community destroys community he who loves the brethren builds community. A community is not an abstract ideal.
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A community that is growing rich and seeks only to defend its goods and its reputation is dying. It has ceased to grow in love. A community is alive when it is poor and its members feel they have to work together and remain united, if only to ensure that they can all eat tomorrow!
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So many in our world today are suffering from isolation, war and oppression. So much money is spent on the construction of armaments. Many, many young people are in despair because of the danger.
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We have to remind ourselves constantly that we are not saviours. We are simply a tiny sign, among thousands of others, that love is possible, that the world is not condemned to a struggle between oppressors and oppressed, that class and racial warfare is not inevitable.
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Growth begins when we start to accept our own weakness
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Every act of violence is also a message that needs to be understood. (23-24)
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Community is not an ideal it is people. It is you and I. In community we are called to love people just as they are with their wounds and their gifts, not as we want them to be.
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Every child, every person needs to know that they are a source of joy every child, every person, needs to be celebrated. Only when all of our weaknesses are accepted as part of our humanity can our negative, broken self-images be transformed.
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Avoid the poison in your life that brings you turmoil.
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A Christian community should do as Jesus did: propose and not impose. Its attraction must lie in the radiance cast by the love of brothers.
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Many people confuse authority and the power of efficiency, as if the first role of people with responsibility is to take decisions, command effectively and so exercise power. But their role first of all is to be a person to whom others can turn for help and advice, to provide security, to affirm, to support, to encourage and to guide.
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The belly laugh is the best way to evacuate anguish.
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To be lonely is to feel unwanted and unloved, and therefor unloveable. Loneliness is a taste of death. No wonder some people who are desperately lonely lose themselves in mental illness or violence to forget the inner pain.
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Wisdom is something that comes, little by little, through a lot of listening.
Jean Vanier