Community means caring: caring for people. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says: He who loves community destroys community; he who loves the brethren builds community. A community is not an abstract ideal. We are not striving for perfect community. Community is not an ideal; it is people. It is you and I. In community we are called to love people just as they are with their wounds and their gifts, not as we would want them to be. Community means giving them space, helping them to grow. It means also receiving from them so that we too can grow. It is giving each other freedom; it is giving each other trust; it is confirming but also challenging each other. We give dignity to each other by the way we listen to each other, in a spirit of trust and of dying to oneself so that the other may live, grow and give.
About This Quote
About Jean Vanier
Jean Vanier was a 20th-century Canadian theologian and philosopher. Jean Vanier was a Canadian Catholic philosopher and theologian. In 1964, he founded L'Arche, an international federation of communities spread over 37 countries for people with developmental disabilities and those who assist them. Read more on Wikipedia →