L'Arche resource

1. L’Arche
Objectives
To consider how Christian communities
today respond to Jesus’ call to discipleship
with reference to a specific organisation.

2. L’Arche
• L’Arche is a Federation of faith based
communities where people with a
developmental disability and those who share
their lives, live committed and mutual
relationships in family-style homes,
workshops, schools and day-care centres.
• L’Arche was founded by Jean Vanier.

3. Integrated into society
Called to unity Called to growth
Communities of Faith
Daily Life
Celebrations

4. Personal growth and development

5. Today’s International Federation of L’Arche
Communities comprises about 5.000 members
in 126 communities and 31 countries, with
projects in Egypt and Bangladesh and
contacts in Korea and Taiwan.
• Each community is a place of transformation
where weakness and vulnerability are
accepted. Communities commit themselves to
accompany their members in their personal,
spiritual and professional development.
L’Arche

6. • L’Arche is lived by people of different
cultures, languages, traditions, religions,
social origins and intellectual capacities who
wish to create strong ties and adhere to a
body of shared values. Open to and engaged
with the world, L’Arche communities seek to
be a sign of hope, solidarity, faithfulness and
reconciliation.
L’Arche

7. JEAN VANIER’S TESTIMONY
• “I discovered people with learning disabilities in
1963 when I visited the chaplain at the Val
Fleuri, a home for thirty or so men with learning
disabilities, in a village in France. I was
challenged by their simplicity, their sense of
welcome, their urgent call to relationship.
This experience moved me and I decided to visit homes for the
mentally handicapped, homes for the elderly and psychiatric
hospitals. What I saw came as a terrible shock to me. I
discovered an atmosphere of violence, of cries and yet, at the
same time, I felt that God was deeply present. It was a
mixture of peace and chaos
I gradually became aware of how deeply wounded people with
learning disabilities are. Even if they are well cared for, they
do not understand why they have been excluded, why they are
not living in the same way as their brothers and sisters. They
are also sometimes oppressed: throughout the world I have
seen children chained up; I have seen 200 men and women piled
into a room and living in filth…

8. • My experience has shown me that their violence, their
strange behaviour, their depression are pleas for true
relationship: Am I worth taking care of? The only response
to this question is another heart saying “Yes, you’re worth
it. I am willing to commit myself to a relationship with you,
because I want you to live”.
So it was that, with the Chaplains help and confirmation, I
felt called to welcome Raphaël and Philippe, two men with
learning disabilities. We started to live together in a small
house in Trosly Breuil. We worked, prayed, traveled, and
shared our lives together. Little by little we learned how to
get on with one another: L’Arche had begun”.
Raphaël and Philippe