Finding Jesus

I am reading Jean Vanier, a guy who has devoted his life to finding Jesus in the poor**. Here is a quote that I think applies to us all at CV, since we are pursuing the mission of Jesus as described in Isa. 61.

"...God chose the weak and the despised in order to accomplish his work of love. The world seeks human and technical knowledge; God wants the heart and love. So he chooses the little ones in order to confound the clever. That is the folly of the Gospels and of God, whose ways are often just the opposite to the ways of culture and reason. Our world is a world of scientific discoveries, materialism, search for money, power and independence; it is also a world of confusion, oppression, tyranny, apartheid, a breakdown of values and the rejection of God. L'Arche and Faith and Light*, (and Cambridge Vineyard) as small as they are, have a message for the world and good news for the poor** and for those who are close to them: God loves them and watches over them. "God has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the humble and the lowly."
In a world that constantly urges people to climb the ladder of human promotion, the Holy Spirit is teaching us to go down the ladder in order to find light in the hearts of the poor**. That seems crazy and even impossible. It is a secret Jesus has entrusted to us...and to many others in our world today. However, in order to live this secret folly, each one of us needs to grow in the love of God. In order to discover Jesus in the heart of the poor** and to be faithful in living with them, our hearts must grow in Jesus. To become a faithful friend of the poor** we must become a faithful friend of Jesus."

"Are there not two dangers that confront all followers of Jesus: either to be too distant from the poor**, too closed up in our own spiritual life, or else to be too distant from a union of love with Jesus and his Father because of too much involovement in social matters? Is this not the challenge of L'Arche*: to try to find a harmony beteween an intimate union with Jesus, an interior life in the Holy Spirit, and at the same time a loving presence to and with the poor**? We need to ask Jesus and his Holy Spirit to give us the grace to live this unity."

"Each one of us is called in an urgent way to become a man or woman of peace and reconciliation wherever we may be. We are called to open our hearts and minds to people who are different from us and who disturb us - to let the Holy Spirit come in to our beings and take away our fear of others, so that we may become less intimidated in welcoming others and listening to them."

After a visit to a large institution in Romania filled with handicapped children Jean writes...
"As I went from room to room and from bed to bed in that insitution, seeing all the little faces that were looking at me with such a thirst for love, I felt almost physically ill. It was too much. But how to help these people in Romania discover that all these little faces are faces of prophets who are calling us to tenderness and to love, that these faces in search of love are revealing the deepest thirst in the heart of all human beings, that the anwer to war is to welcome one of these little ones in the name of Jesus?"

"God is hidden in the weak and in the poor**, and as we enter into communion with them, we enter into communion with Jesus and the Father."

"There is a tendency everywhere today to want a victorious religion, a successful Jesus, as proof of our goodness and our truth. We forget the true Jesus who was persecuted, abandoned, lonely, who suffered agony, wept and was crucified. We forget that Jesus continues to live today in those who are persecuted, abandoned, lonely, crucified, in agony and in those who weep. They are waiting for friends who will be with them, who will accompany them on this journey of life and whose presence will transform the pain of loneliness into the joy of communion."

*(organizations which work to build relationships and commununities with the intellectually disabled and their parents)

**From dictionary.com
poor 
–adjective 1. having little or no money, goods, or other means of support
2. dependent upon charity or public support.
3. meagerly supplied or endowed with resources or funds.
4. characterized by or showing poverty.
5. deficient or lacking in something specified
6. faulty or inferior, as in construction
7. deficient in desirable ingredients, qualities, or the like
8. excessively lean or emaciated
9. of an inferior, inadequate, or unsatisfactory kind
10. lacking in skill, ability, or training
11. deficient in moral excellence:cowardly, abject, or mean.
12. scanty, meager, or paltry in amount or number
13. humble; modest
14. unfortunate; hapless

Synonyms:
needy, indigent, necessitous, straitened, destitute, penniless, poverty-stricken. meager.unsatisfactory, shabby. sterile, barren, unfruitful, unproductive. thin, skinny, meager, gaunt. miserable, unhappy, pitiable.