People come to L’Arche (or to community) to serve the needy.
They only stay if they have discovered that they themselves are needy, and that
the good news is announced by Jesus to the poor, not to those who serve the
poor.
Mission, then, does not imply an attitude of superiority or
domination, an attitude of: ‘We know, you don’t, so you must listen to us if
you want to be well off. Otherwise you will be miserable.’ Mission springs
necessarily from poverty and an inner wound, but also from trust in the love of
God. Mission is not elitism. It is life given and flowing from the tomb of our
beings which has become transformed into a source of life. It flows from the
knowledge that we have been liberated through forgiveness; it flows from
weakness and vulnerability.
Jean Vanier in Community and Growth (page 99, revised edition
published in 1989)
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