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.
Jean VanierThe friend of time doesn't spend all day saying: 'I haven't got time.' He doesn't fight with time. He accepts it and cherishes it.
Jean VanierPeople are longing to rediscover true community. We have had enough of loneliness, independence and competition.
Jean VanierCommunity is a sign that love is possible in a materialistic world where people so often either ignore or fight each other. It is a sign that we don't need a lot of money to be happy--in fact, the opposite.
Jean VanierThe person in misery does not need a look that judges and criticizes but a comforting presence that brings peace and hope and life and says: 'you are a human person: important, mysterious, infinitely precious, what you have to say is important because it flows from a humn person; in you there are those seeds of the infinite, those germs of love... of beauty which must rise from the earth of your misery so humanity be fulfilled. If you do not rise then something will be missing... Rise again because we all need you... be loved beloved.'
Jean Vanier