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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
Ideals
Called
Community
Love
People
Gifts
Ideal
Wounds

More quotes by 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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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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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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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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All of us have a secret desire to be seen as saints, heroes, martyrs. We are afraid to be children, to be ourselves.
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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Avoid the poison in your life that brings you turmoil.
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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...Individualistic material progress and the desire to gain prestige by coming out on top have taken over from the sense of fellowship, compassion and community. Now people live more or less on their own in a small house, jealously guarding their goods and planning to acquire more, with a notice on the gate that says, 'Beware of the Dog.
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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'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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Love is an act of endless forgiveness.
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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Every human being is a mixture of light and darkness, trust and fear, love and hate.
Jean Vanier
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We can be seduced...by powerful political groups that promise more wealth and lower taxes. Those with power can use clever, psychological tricks and play upon our weaknesses and brokenness in order to attract us to their way of thinking. We can be manipulated into illusion.
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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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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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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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.
Jean Vanier