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Each person is sacred, no matter what his or her culture, religion, handicap, or fragility. Each person is created in God’s image each one has a heart, a capacity to love and to be loved.

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
Religion
Handicap
Culture
Fragility
Persons
Handicaps
Person
Image
Matter
Sacred
Heart
Created
Love
Capacity
Loved

More quotes by Jean Vanier

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Peace is the fruit of love, a love that is also justice. But to grow in love requires work -- hard work. And it can bring pain because it implies loss -- loss of the certitudes, comforts, and hurts that shelter and define us.
Jean Vanier
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To love someone is not first of all to do things for them,but to reveal to them their beauty and value, to say to them through our attitude: 'You are beautiful. You are important. I trust you. You can trust yourself.'
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
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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.
Jean Vanier
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Look at your own poverty welcome it cherish it don't be afraid share your death because thus you will share your love and your life
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.
Jean Vanier
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Every act of violence is also a message that needs to be understood. (23-24)
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.
Jean Vanier
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People may come to our communities because they want to serve the poor they will only stay once they have discovered that they themselves are poor.
Jean Vanier
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If we love (the poor) people, we want to identify with them and share with them.
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.
Jean Vanier
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But let us not put our sights too high. We do not have to be saviours of the world! We are simply human beings, enfolded in weakness and in hope, called together to change our world one heart at a time. (163)
Jean Vanier
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There is nothing stronger than a heart which loves and is freely given.
Jean Vanier
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Community begins in mystery and ends in administration. Leaders move away from people and into paper.
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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When people love each other, they are content with very little. When we have light and joy in our hearts, we don't need material wealth. The most loving communities are often the poorest.
Jean Vanier
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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.
Jean Vanier
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To love someone is to show to them their beauty, their worth and their importance.
Jean Vanier
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The strong need the weak as much as the weak need the strong
Jean Vanier
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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.
Jean Vanier