REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE JUBILEE 2000th CELEBRATION – L’ARCHE, FAITH AND LIGHT
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE JUBILEE 2000th CELEBRATION – L’ARCHE, FAITH AND LIGHT, FAITH AND FRIENDSHIP
If you want to have your heart lifted by the good that there is in the world; if you want to be filled with wonder at the mystery of every child; if you want to know a joy that satisfies deeply and challenges deeply then you are in the right place and this is the place to be. What a privilege it has been to be here to witness these moving presentations, to have been welcomed a little while ago by my fellow former leader of The John Main Seminar, Jean Vanier.
What can I say about Jean Vanier? It is impossible to do justice to him and to his achievements. The beautiful and hope-filled words of Abbe de Tourville come to mind:
“God has scattered forerunners in the world. They are those ahead of their time and whose personal action is based on an inward knowledge of that which is to come…”.
Jean Vanier is surely one of God’s forerunners in the world. Those who watch and follow will not get lost. His eye is firmly on the Star of Bethlehem and it is the 2000th birthday of the Infant Jesus we gather in the National Basketball Arena to celebrate. We thank God for the gift of that child, for his oh so simple message of love, for Jean Vanier, his special messenger for the 20th and 21st century and for those who have joined Jean Vanier’s extraordinary journey.
There was a time and not so long ago when people of good will and charity asked: what can we do for the mentally handicapped? What Jean Vanier did – like the other mould-breakers and iconoclasts who have changed the course of history – was to turn that question on its head and ask instead what has God in mind for the mentally handicapped to teach us. How can we be enriched, energised and spiritually nourished by the mentally handicapped?
Rejecting the paralysing culture of paternalism and overprotection, Jean Vanier insisted that the mystery of each individual be given scope and encouragement to shine out and touch those around them. He has championed the recognition – even amidst the undoubted pain and grief that I know and accept is so often present – that the handicapped and the disabled can bestow really special gifts - gifts that sometimes await discovery for far too long. Or gifts that are sadly unclaimed. Gifts that challenge those who receive them to ask if they are really worthy of such fortune. Gifts that do not come in the currency of silver and gold (or even a Lotto cheque) but out of the unfathomable treasury of God’s love and ingenuity. These are gifts which put a premium on goodness, on human kindness, on sharing, on joyful curiosity about each other, in other words the kind of values that make life bearable and liveable with all its ups and downs, its successes and its disappointments.
What Jean Vanier and his friends started almost 40 years ago in Trosly has transformed the lives of countless thousands of people around the world. This is not however the work of one generation or one group alone. This huge miraculous garden of undiscovered and beautiful blossoms has spread across many countries, but like all such gardens its beauty is only sustained when each generation in turn accepts responsibility for the painstaking work it demands.
At this gathering today as we celebrate the inter-penetration of L’Arche, Faith and Light, Faith and Friendship and Faith and Sharing in the lives of so many people in Ireland, we take joy in what they signify. Indeed what you in this great National Basketball Arena in Dublin, Ireland this afternoon signify: a great extended human family who are living and proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ day in and day out. A community of doers who are being sustained and nourished by the free flow of God’s grace in your lives and in the lives of those entrusted to you. And sustained and nurtured also by the knowledge that yours is a project that enjoys the favour of the One who said, “Unless you become like little children you cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven”. You are the quiet heroes and heroines who do not seek attention. This is no place for false bravado or easy spin. You know the work, you know the tiredness, you know the sadness, you know the simplicity of the rewards, you know the strange, strange face of happiness, you know this life. Your commitment is to a vocation higher than you might have once wished for yourselves but one accepted and entered into in faith when life put the choice directly into your path. You are people who have made difficult choices but taken the road less travelled because you believe you are in good company there.
What I have seen of your work today – and what I know goes on in your various communities around the country – convinces me that you are a quiet leaven in our world witnessing to the truth in the prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi: “it is in giving that we receive”.
What you are doing quietly but effectively is confounding the cynicism and inertia and the me-ism that is the downside of today’s world. Many of you, especially those of you who have had to meet head-on the challenge of bringing up a special needs child or caring for a disabled or infirm relative, have endured times of righteous anger and indignation, of isolation and downright exhaustion yet you have refused to be daunted, and insisted in seeing God’s blessed hand and purpose even in these times of spiritual disillusionment. I wonder do you have any idea how important you are and how much we need you.
Your work is the Gospel in action. It promulgates the Good News. It obeys Christ’s command to “Love one another as I have loved you”.
Through your work we are enabled to see the depth of that love and the demands it makes. This love can take us to the very limits of endurance. It can fill us to the very brim with wonder and humility. It can leave us full of questions that only faith can answer. It can give us a blessed day like this.
The Psalmist of old cried out to God (Psalm 67) “O God, be gracious and bless us and let your face shed its light upon us”. Who cannot say, seeing the children’s faces at this enthralling and beautiful event today, that we are seeing with our own eyes at least a glimpse of God shedding His light on us?
If you want to see Ireland at its best. If you want to see God’s people at their best. If you want to see his work done well – yes, this is the place to be.
May God Bless all you do and may the world know why you do it.