It is only when we stand up, with all our failings and sufferings, and try to support others rather than withdraw into ourselves, that we can fully live the life of community.
Jean VanierEvery human activity can be put at the service of the divine and of love. We should all exercise our gift to build community.
Jean VanierPeople are longing to rediscover true community. We have had enough of loneliness, independence and competition.
Jean VanierLoneliness is the fundamental force that urgees mystics to a deeper union with God... An experience of God quenches this thirst for the absolute but at the same time, paradoxiacally, whets it, because this is an experience that can never be total; by necessity, the knowledge of God is always partial. So loneliness opens up mystics to a desire to love each other and every human being as God loves them.
Jean Vanier