a spirituality of l'arche - part two...

Yesterday I summarized three broad ways of appreciating the unique spiritual path of L'Arche: through the theological mysteries described by Vanier, through the core values document of L'Arche Canada, and through my own synthesis. Today I return to Vanier 's insights in The Heart of L'Arche: A Spirituality for Every Day, in order to deepen both my understanding of these commitments and discern how to live into their wisdom more fully. Over the next week I will take a closer look at other expressions of L'Arche spirituality, too. 

By way of a reminder, L'Arche founder, Jean Vanier, has written that the core of a spirituality of L'Arche is the embodied expression of five mysteries:  

• The mystery of Jesus
• The mystery of the poor
• The mystery of life lived in community
• The mystery of the God who walks with us
• The mystery of the church

Please note that the word mystery is not about secrets or riddles, but rather a way of experiencing God's presence in creation. A sacrament is traditionally defined as an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual truth. To live and move in the world sacramentally, therefore, is to honor the obvious physical realities of life while simultaneously searching for deeper insights. A sacramental spirituality asserts that one of the ways the Holy communicates with us involves trusting creation as the "first revealed Word of God." St. Francis of Assisi, for example, often asked his "little brothers" to be on the look-out for signs of the cross in nature, in architecture, in stories, paintings and everything else in life. By doing so they were regularly reminded of God's loving presence in the world through what they saw, heard, tasted and encountered. 

• St. Paul put it like this in Romans 1:20: "Ever since the creation of the world God's eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things God has made."

• The first two chapters of Genesis form another foundational text: "In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day..."

• And the prologue of St. John's gospel is equally sacramental: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it... (In time, this) Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory."

Vanier embraces a sacramental way of discerning God's will within the world: this is why he pays so much attention to caring for the human body. If God became flesh in Jesus, and Jesus calls each of us God's beloved, then we all share something of the holy within our humble flesh. It is to be honored. Listened to seriously. Cared for tenderly. Here is how I understand the sacramental wisdom of the five mysteries Vanier utilizes in The Heart of L'Arche.

The mystery of Jesus:  As a Christian, Vanier has a profound relationship with Jesus. It is intimate, mystical, sacramental and personal. He is always clear and inclusive stating that all religious traditions are expressions of God's love as well as paths into making God's love flesh. At the same time, he has experienced the unique blessings found within the way of Jesus. In The Heart of L'Arche, he writes that the mystery of Jesus includes three practices that not only shape and transform our lives, but express God's love within the fabric of human society.

• Jesus came to bring good news to poor, broken and rejected people: Jesus first revealed to the suffering of the world that they were important and precious to God. They were not the forgotten: they were God's beloved. He also reached out to the privileged of his time asking them to share resources, time and love with the wounded. In doing this, he restored a measure of healing and wholeness to God's world as it was in the beginning. Vanier observes that in loving the wounded and connecting people with time and wealth to them, "Jesus (is seen to be the one who) did not come to judge or condemn, but to gather all the scattered children of God (John 11:52)."

He came to break down the walls that separate the rich from the poor, the strong from the weak, the healthy from the sick, so that they might be reconciled to one another and discover that they are all part of one body. He came to heal the wealthy and to lead them to love; he came to bring hope to those who were rejected. (pp. 19-20)

• Jesus shared daily bread and ordinary conversations with all of God's people: he ate with those who were hated (tax collectors and prostitutes) as well as beloved religious teachers (Pharisees and Sadducees.) He welcomed religious extremists into his community alongside those alienated from religion as well as ordinary working people, women with financial resources, children, those with illness of mind or body and everybody in-between. Vanier reminds us that it was during meals that people who rarely interacted rediscovered their common humanity.

(At table) Jesus called rich people... to change, to share their good with those in need instead of looking down on them. He did not insist that they sell their houses (and give up their wealth), but he did call them to open their hearts to the poor. (p. 19)

• And Jesus gave up privilege and power by choosing a life of downward mobility:  The way of Jesus up-ends conventional wisdom even as it reverberates with the questions of spirituality throughout the ages: what is the purpose of life and how can I grow closer to its source? As Vanier notes, Jesus does not just serve the poor, he becomes one of them. This is part of what happens when God's Word becomes flesh in first century Palestine. It is how Jesus documents that our hearts will be filled and our lives fulfilled not by power, but by sharing the lowest place in society. Jesus offers us a new vision rooted in the ageless testimony of God. "God is compassionate; God watches over the poor and calls the rich to enter into relationship with them."

The man of compassion becomes a man in need of compassion, a poor man. Jesus overturns the established order and urges people not simply to do good to the poor but to discover through relationship with him and them that God is hidden in the poor. Though his actions in life, and his abject vulnerability in death, Jesus reveals to us that the poor and weak have the power to heal and free people. (p. 22)

These three sacramental mysteries of Jesus are also practices that shape the soul of L'Arche. Reconciliation and healing takes place as those who are poor and forgotten experience relationships of love, trust and respect. And it is in the very act of loving and nourishing the most forgotten that those of us with privilege discover our own wounds and how love brings a measure of healing to us, too. Every day affords us a chance to renew our commitment to God's love as ordinary meals at shared tables become holy places where small miracles occur and new vulnerabilities are exposed. Trust and love require proximity - and family dinners are time-tested places to practice listening, laughing, loving, forgiving and sharing in simple ways. Over time, we realize we need one another to live this life honestly. None of us have the stamina or grace to do it by ourselves: we need God, we need one another and we need time. The mysteries of Jesus give these practices shape and form at L'Arche.