25th Sunday in Ordinary Time---- - 20 th September 2009

Jean Vanier, founder of l’Arche 45 years ago, was just 13 years of age when he asked his father if he could leave Canada and go to study at Britain’s Royal Navy College. His father said he trusted his son and off he set across the Atlantic during World War II. Not the safest of trips to take! He began a journey that is truly amazing and I had the privilege to listen to Jean Vanier as he conducted a retreat for priests earlier this month.

Vanier found out while serving on an aircraft carrier, “The Magnificent”, that he ‘felt called by Jesus to take another path, the path of peace’ (Brokenness to Community, p.11). He came to France and obtained a doctorate in Philosophy at the Institut Catholique de Paris. After a spell back in Canada teaching philosophy at the University of Toronto, he became more and more aware of the profound complexity and widespread confusion in the world. He saw that the weakest and most vulnerable suffer most.

He consulted his spiritual advisor in Paris, Father Thomas Philippe, O.P., who suggested visiting some asylums in France. Overwhelmed by the conditions he saw, he purchased a house in Trosly-Breuil, a village north of Paris, and invited two men he had met in an asylum to share the house with him. The little house was christened l’Arche, after Noah’s Ark. Now there are l’Arche communities in many parts of the world. Vanier commented, ‘the Gospel message gave me the strength to start l’Arche, but life in l’Arche revealed to me the deep, hidden meaning of the Gospel’ (Community to Growth, p.97).

Vanier might have become an Admiral if he had remained in the Navy. He might have got a job in government directing maritime matters. But he didn’t want to become among the ‘greats’ of this world in terms of power. Unlike the apostles, it didn’t cross his mind to ask ‘who is the greatest?’ ‘Maybe what I was doing before was hiding the brokenness, being a naval officer, being somebody in philosophy, you’re spending a lot of your time pretending.’ (The Broken Body, p.2)

Jesus took a child as the model of the Kingdom of God. In some profound way, Vanier discovered this secret of childlike simplicity. Even now at 81 years of age, he speaks of his profound gratitude to God for allowing him to discover the beauty of people with physical and profound mental needs. He speaks of l’Arche being a school of relationships in which the teacher is often the person the world calls ‘handicapped’.

It gives me hope and maybe you also, when I realise that the ‘champion’, the ‘greatest’, the most ‘important’ is not the one with the most power but the person with the most love and the generosity to serve others. Jesus never intended to form a government as this world knows that term. He sought to establish a Kingdom where the poor will sit at the top table and the weak will be honoured guests.

May each have us find in St Joseph’s a place in which we know we belong to Jesus and to each other because we are children of God. In that lies our greatness.

Aodhán Ó Troighthigh, C.P. (Aidan Troy, C.P.)