’An irreverently joyful prophet for our time’

HE was a quiet man with a gentle spirit, yet when he spoke he held his audience – small or large – spellbound, even though he had no special tricks of oratory. I’ll never forget the time he spoke at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland: he was heard in complete silence, simply because he had profound things to say.

Yes, there was something special about Jean Vanier, who died in Paris on May 7 at the age of 90.

So what made him so special, and why do I have a number of his books on the shelves of my study? And why was he awarded the Templeton Prize for progress in religion? (Previous winners include Mother Teresa, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, and Scotland’s George MacLeod, founder of the Iona Community.)

Son of a Canadian diplomat who was to become Governor General of Canada, Jean was profoundly moved, at the age of 17, when he accompanied his mother to meet starving Holocaust survivors. He was shocked at the sight of the skeletal figures, and by the evidence of the cruel things human beings could do to each other. In his early 20s, he decided to leave his career in the navy and study philosophy in Paris. After receiving his doctorate, he taught philosophy in Toronto.

Then came a life-changing moment. A visit to his spiritual mentor, Father Thomas Philippe, chaplain at an institution for people with developmental disabilities, exposed him to the difficulties faced by vulnerable people with no career prospects. In 1964, following his heart, he bought a small house in the French village of Trosly-Breuil and invited two men from an institution to share it with him. He called the house “L’Arche,” after Noah’s Ark.

Soon, young people came to share life in this new kind of community. Vanier, a Roman Catholic layman, knew that they would find what he himself had discovered: that the gifts of the physically and mentally challenged are as precious and enriching as any help given by the willing assistants.

Vanier’s vision of shared community was an inspiring one. Today, there are 147 L’Arche communities in 38 countries on five continents. (There is one house in Inverness and another in Edinburgh.) Vanier helped to give marginalised people a voice.

In his life and books, Vanier has taught how people in need want not just generosity but relationship and communion; and how, as human beings, we all learn to hide our inner brokenness and vulnerability behind impenetrable screens.

Jean Vanier, then, has made a diff erence in the lives of countless people around the world—those with disabilities, their families, and the many young people who have chosen to help in L’Arche communities

He was a quiet man with a gentle spirit, yet when he spoke he held his audience – small or large – spellbound.

And there’s more to him. In the course of his personal pilgrimage, this Catholic layman had developed a profound spirituality which made him one of the most loved and admired figures in the ecumenical movement today. An encourager of inter-faith dialogue, he wrote: “Before being Christians or Jews or Muslims, before being Americans or Russians or Africans, before being generals or priests, rabbis or imams, before having visible or invisible disabilities, we are all human beings with hearts capable of loving.”

Jean Vanier was an irreverently joyful prophet for our time, one who, in life and in death, has given Christianity a good name.