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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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Jean Vanier
Age: 90 †
Born: 1928
Born: September 10
Died: 2019
Died: May 7
Naval Officer
Philosopher
Theologian
University Teacher
Writer
Genève
People
Gifts
Ideal
Wounds
Ideals
Called
Community
Love

More quotes by 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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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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Each person with his or her history of being accepted or rejected, with his or her past history of inner pain and difficulties in relationships, is different. But in each one there is a yearning for communion and belonging, but at the same time a fear of it. Love is what we most want, yet it is what we fear the most.
Jean Vanier
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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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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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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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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.
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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The belly laugh is the best way to evacuate anguish.
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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Those we most often exclude from the normal life of society, people with disabilities, have profound lessons to teach us
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. When we pool our strength and share the work and responsibility, we can welcome many people, even those in deep distress, and perhaps help them find self-confidence and inner healing.
Jean Vanier
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It is difficult to make people understand that the ideal doesn't exist, that personal equilibrium and the harmony they dream of come only after years and years of struggle, and that even then they come only as flashes of grace and peace.
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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There is nothing stronger than a heart which loves and is freely given.
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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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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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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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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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.
Jean Vanier