If we are to grow in love, the prisons of our egoism must be unlocked. This implies suffering, constant effort and repeated choices.
Jean VanierLove is to recognize that the other person is a person, is precious, is important and has value.
Jean VanierA community is only a community when the majority of its members are making the transition from 'the community for myself' to 'myself for the community'.
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