Quote

A growing community must integrate three elements: a life of silent prayer, a life of service and above all of listening to the poor, and a community life through which all its members can grow in their own gift.

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
Community
Gift
Poor
Elements
Three
Members
Must
Listening
Life
Grow
Integrate
Prayer
Integrating
Growing
Service
Grows
Silent

More quotes by Jean Vanier

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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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Stop looking for peace. Give yourselves where you are. Stop looking at yourselves, look instead at your brothers and sisters in need. Ask how you can better love your brothers and sisters. Then you will find peace.
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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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Growth begins when we start to accept our own weakness
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I remember that throughout history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it always...whenever you are in doubt that that is God's way - the way the world is meant to be. Think of that and then try to do His way.
Jean Vanier
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Life is a succession of crises and moments when we have to rediscover who we are and what we really want.
Jean Vanier
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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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[Happiness] comes when we choose to be who we are, to be ourselves, at this present moment in our lives.
Jean Vanier
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One of the marvelous things about community is that it enables us to welcome and help people in a way we couldn't as individuals.
Jean Vanier
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Wisdom is something that comes, little by little, through a lot of listening.
Jean Vanier
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Love doesn't mean doing extraordinary or heroic things. It means knowing how to do ordinary things with tenderness.
Jean Vanier
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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 tension or difficulty can signal the approach of a new grace of God. But it has to be looked at wisely and humanly.
Jean Vanier
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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.
Jean Vanier
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In any case, community is not about perfect people. It is about people who are bonded to each other, each of whom is a mixture of good and bad, darkness and light, love and hate.
Jean Vanier
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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.
Jean Vanier
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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.
Jean Vanier
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'Going home' is a journey to the heart of who we are, a place where we can be ourselves and welcome the reality of our beauty and our pain. From this acceptance of ourselves, we can accept others as they are and we can see our common humanity.
Jean Vanier
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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!
Jean Vanier
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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?
Jean Vanier