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

More quotes by Jean Vanier

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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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There is nothing stronger than a heart which loves and is freely given.
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The strong need the weak as much as the weak need the strong
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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.
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It is only when we stand up, with all our failings and sufferings, and try to support others rather than withdraw into ourselves, that we can fully live the life of community.
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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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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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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.
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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.
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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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Growth begins when we start to accept our own weakness
Jean Vanier
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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.
Jean Vanier
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We discover that we are at the same time very insignificant and very important, because each of our actions is preparing the humanity of tomorrow it is a tiny contribution to the construction of the huge and glorious final humanity
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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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People cannot accept their own evil if they do not at the same time feel loved, respected and trusted.
Jean Vanier
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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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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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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.
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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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A community is only a community when the majority of its members are making the transition from 'the community for myself' to 'myself for the community'.
Jean Vanier