The Founder

The Roots of L’Arche and Faith & Light
Throughout the history of humanity, in every corner of the globe, people with disabilities have been cast aside from their rightful place in their communities. Their place has universally been the last place, a place of intolerable pain. Their history has been filled with rejection, isolation, grief and loss. In many cultures their existence has been seen as a sign of punishment from god, and so a source of great shame.

In the face of such norms, parents, families and communities whose children are born with a disability may, understandably, ask themselves “What did we do wrong?” “How will we cope with caring for such a child, and what will others say about us and about the child?” There is anguish in these questions. These special children have often been hidden from view, institutionalized, separated from their families, or abandoned, deprived of and denied their basic human dignity. The families have often been similarly treated. Together they have been the universal objects of derision, scorn and even hate.

It is easy to forget this history, especially given the global trend to de-institutionalization of the past 50 years. Moreover, it is all too easy to ignore the reality that such conditions still exist in many places of the world today.

A Warehouse of Human Misery
This history of rejection and shame was certainly the reality which Jean Vanier met when in 1964 he was invited by his friend and mentor Philippe Thomas, to visit the small French village of Trosly-Breuil. Pere Thomas was the chaplain of a small institution in the village, housing men with intellectual disabilities. These men were marched around the village in formation, twice a day, and otherwise kept under lock and key. Pere Thomas, touched by his personal contact with these men, invited Jean to visit the local psychiatric hospital, where many others were living in far worse conditions. What existed in that hospital was not unique to France, but was replicated many times over around the world.

Initially anxious about what he would talk about with the men there, Jean was moved beyond words by his first visit to the psychiatric hospital of Clermont. There was something terribly unjust and inhuman in what he saw there. It was in this warehouse of human misery that Vanier found the meaning and focus he had been seeking; the beginning of his lifelong struggle against the forces of exclusion. This struggle would prove to be as the man: authentic, faithful, just, peaceful, passionate and ever practical.

Unlocking the door of a whole new world
Jean Vanier, son of privilege, naval officer, philosophy professor and spiritual seeker, thus invited two men with intellectual disabilities, Raphael and Philippe, who had been living at that hospital, to share their lives with him. His invitation to them unknowingly unlocked the door to a whole new world.

A table, some food, laughter, songs and orange peels battles were the needed conditions to bring these three men closer together. To evolve, L'Arche needed to be place where each one felt equal and cherished, a place where the joy of living in mutual friendships would gradually break down the emotional toll that years of inequality, prejudice and rejection had wrought. The atmosphere was unprecedented, contagious and astonishing to the neighbours and visiting friends. It became a place of belonging where each and everyone could be themselves and enjoy life with others.

Jean became also intimately acquainted with the vulnerability and fragility of his new companions, both physical and emotional, a result of the rejection and suffering they had endured. He also became aware of his own blockages and limitations, and of his own need for friendship. Slowly the teacher became the student. He was accepted by them as Jean, not as officer, professor or philosopher. Together this unlikely trio formed the first community. They named their home L’Arche, in French, the Ark, a symbolic message that “we’re all in the same boat”. This name hinted early at the lessons that Jean was soon to learn about mutual vulnerability.

All Aboard!
Jean was a terrible cook and they needed a lot of help! Villagers were generous in sharing what they could, and gradually people Jean wrote to in Canada and Britain came to see for themselves what he was up to. In the summers he returned to Canada and gave talks about his new life, including to university students. Some of these, inspired by the striking congruence between Jean’s belief and what he was living, came to stay and work. Two of these were Steve and Ann Newroth who returned to Canada to start the first L’Arche in Canada, Daybreak, in Richmond Hill. Mira who longed to return to her native India, went there with Gabrielle, who had met Jean in Montreal. Out of their mutual exploration and a later trip of Jean and Gabrielle to India, the first L’Arche in India, Asha Niketan Bangalore, was born.

So it was with each community. The personal thirst which people brought with them to L'Arche found purpose and outlet and communities soon sprang ups in UK, France, Europe, Canada, India, and Africa, United-States, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Japan, Ukraine, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Syria, Egypt, Argentina and Bangladesh. This remarkable growth is well documented in Jean’s book of letters to the communities, Our Life Together.

An Unlikely Pilgrimage
The birth of Faith and Light was equally extraordinary. A family with two sons with severe disabilities, Loïc and Thadée, took them to Lourdes, traditionally a pilgrimage site of consolation and healing for the sick and disabled. The family was told that the boys could not eat in the hotel dining room with the other guests because they might disturb them! In response to the family’s story, Marie Helene Matthieu and Jean Vanier organized families with disabilities to travel together to Lourdes. At Easter in 1971, 12,000 people arrived from fifteen countries! It was suggested, given the positive response, that the little groups which journeyed there together, keep meeting together once home, for mutual support. Thus was Faith and Light born. In 2011, with more than 1,800 communities in 81 countries, Faith and Light celebrates 40th years since that first gathering in Lourdes, with multiple pilgrimages taking place all over the world over two years.

This growth of L’Arche and Faith and Light has been remarkable in several ways. It is growth through relationship; an organic, unplanned growth, at least initially. It is growth which is both inspired and sustained by personal transformation through mutually supportive relationship. These cannot be planned! It is growth in response to real need, but also in response to deep thirst, often for a different way of being, of understanding, of living in community, of searching for the truth or for God. It is remarkable in that no-one set out to promote this growth, no-one envisaged it and no consultants were directing its growth. This growth has been about fragility, mutual dependence and trust. It is growth that surpasses understanding or expectations.

A University of the Heart
All around the world are many, many thousands of individuals, often young people , who have been profoundly touched by time spent in L'Arche or in Faith and Light. They too have become students of vulnerable men and women who revealed to them a new vision of life, and a new sense of togetherness. Often they return home, bringing this new vision into their future, spreading the lessons of l’Arche. With the closing of institutions, other organisations such as PLAN or Tyze have succesfully inherited Jean's vision. They have built circles of support around members of our society living with disability. This had allowed people who otherwise would never have met because of their differences or fears, to create new ways of living together, focused on the most vulnerable members, source of unity.

Facing the Struggle Ahead
The social stigma that prevailed in France and around the world in 1964, vis a vis men and women living with disabilities, is still very present in many places. In fact, isolation and segregation of ‘different people' is still justified by the need to 'protect them'. In countries struck by war, ecological disaster or great poverty, men and women living with intellectual disabilities are often excluded, even among the excluded! Even in developed countries where disability rights have been acquired and are socially accepted, the struggle to belong and take a rightful place as a full member of society is still a long way off for most people living with an intellectual disabilities.

Jean Vanier' s struggle, started in the small village of Trosly in 1964, continues today. The road to justice and peace demands a lifetime commitment. Entering old age, at 83, the fervor of the founder is still visible in his serene lucidity, and he is more convinced than ever that those who are powerless and vulnerable attract what is most beautiful and most luminous in those who are stronger.