Giving Ourselves

Giving Ourselves

God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son.

John 3:16

Did you know that today, December 3, is recognized as International Day of Persons with Disabilities? It began in 1992 when it was promoted by the United Nations. But long before that, there was a man named Jean Vanier who was recognizing people with disabilities in ways few of us ever consider.

In 1964, after publishing his doctoral thesis on Aristotle and securing a teaching position at the University of Toronto, Jean Vanier became aware of the plight of thousands of people institutionalized with developmental disabilities. In a dramatic move, he gave up the security of his job and joined a community for men with mental disabilities. The change was transforming for Vanier, and it eventually led him to establish L’Arche (French for Noah’s Ark), small communities where people with developmental disabilities, volunteers, and a sprinkling of staff live together. “When you start living with people with disabilities,” he says, “you begin to discover a whole lot of things about yourself.” He learned that to “be human is to be bonded together, each with our own weaknesses and strengths, because we need each other.”^a

Here’s Vanier’s take on unconditional love between a husband and a wife:

I know a man who lives in Paris. His wife has Alzheimer’s. He was an important businessman—his life filled with busyness. But he said that when his wife fell sick, “I just couldn’t put her into an institution, so I kept her. I fed her. I bathed her.” I went to Paris to visit them, and this businessman who had been very busy all his life said, “I have changed. I have become more human.” I got a letter from him recently. He said that in the middle of the night his wife woke him up. She came out of the fog for a moment, and she said, “Darling, I just want to say thank you for all you’re doing for me.” Then she fell back into the fog. He told me, “I wept and I wept.”^b

Sometimes Christ calls us to love when we don’t seem to get love in return. And in marriage, we are sometimes called to love our spouse in the fog of not only a disability, but a weary spirit, a weak body, a stressed mind, or spiritual immaturity. As we love each other in these tough times, we may receive only fleeting glimpses of gratitude. But just as Jesus has loved us in the midst of our spiritual confusion, so we try our best to love, and in the process we learn how much we need each other.

To give and not expect return, that is what lies at the heart of love.

—Oscar Wilde

^a 166

^b 167