Jean Vanier gives an annual conference to UNESCO, last year speaking on the theme of guilt.
The Christian Office for People With a Disability announced this year’s address will be Feb. 10.
Vanier will take up themes such as a child’s frailty and the perfection of youth as myth.
There will also be discussions on how to support the elderly, and how educators and careers can better support vulnerable older persons.
Vanier himself will turn 82 this year. The Christian Office for People With a Disability asked him to describe his experience of this stage of life.
«My hope and my prayer is that when my moment of weakness comes, I will be able to accept it and rejoice over what is given to me,» Vanier said. «Human life begins in frailty and ends in frailty. During our whole life we remain avid for security and dependent on tenderness.
«It is our essential vulnerability. […] To love is to be vulnerable.»
L’Arche is an ecumenical and interreligious movement founded in 1964 to provide group homes and support for the disabled. It has more than 130 communities.
— — —
On the Net:
L’Arche: www.larche.org/a-l-arche-community-is-who-we-are.en-gb.21.0.news.htm
