Jean Vanier, a transforming influence

For quite a number of years there has been a group of people working to identify people who would submit letters of nomination for Jean Vanier for the Nobel Peace Prize. Unlike other Nobel Prizes the Peace prize asks people to submit names. Eligible nominators are a fairly 'elite' group of, for instance, past Nobel winners, heads of government, members of parliaments, certain kinds of academics, members of international courts, and current and past members of the Nobel committee itself. That there were always a substantial number of letters for Jean from such a group of people is, as I see it, a sign of the scope of his life's work. Because by far the greatest number of people whose lives he has touched and still does, are very ordinary, often very poor, men and women and young people.

Jean Vanier is a Canadian by birth, son of the former Governor General of Canada, Georges Vanier. Jean's story is available on various websites most particularly: http://www.jean-vanier.org/. He is, in my opinion, a very great and good man who deserved the prize. So because he didn't win yet again, and perhaps never will now, I wanted to share with you my own experience of him because he helped to transform my life .

I first met Jean at his home at the original L'Arche community at Trosly-Breuil in France in about 1973. I had gone to the community with Sister Sue Mosteller who knew Jean and was writing a book about him and Mother Teresa. My first reaction in meeting him was that he scared me - not because he was a scary person but because I sensed that if I got to know him better my life would be changed. Something in him was speaking to my heart.

Well, it was true. When Sue and I returned to Canada she went to live at the new and as of then, only L'Arche community in Canada at Daybreak in Richmond Hill Ontario. In the months following our return we attended a number of retreats and 'events' in which Jean spoke. I had never heard anyone speak of Jesus and the gospel with such beauty and truth. Suddenly it all came to life for me - at least, perhaps I should say it was the beginning of a journey to life. He also spoke of what he wanted l'Arche to be about - a community where men and women share life together each in both their poverty and gifts. Men and women who would be considered mentally handicapped many of whom then lived in institutions, lived together with so-called normal people. The lives of each were and are, transformed by this experience of mutual sharing and respect.

Through the years l'Arche has grown throughout the world always inspired by Jean and his message and his sharing of the gospel; his compassion and integrity and truth. Now, he is 84 and no longer travels much but still shares the wisdom of his life with people who come to Trosly. Jean has met heads of government, the Pope, major leaders of the world but there is I suspect, the greatest room in his heart for the people around him who though often rejected by society have been his companions and teachers since the 1960's. 

Before I went to England to become a Carmelite, I spent a number of years in l'Arche both at Daybreak and then l'Arche Vancouver and I understand the transforming power of that life and the people who are at the heart of it. If I had not met Jean my life would, I am certain, have been so much poorer and so much less meaningful. And having read some of the letters of nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize from those leaders of society, I have a good sense of how he touched and continues to touch,  their lives too.