By Samantha Lin
ROME — A common spiritual tenet in both Christianity and Islam — care and compassion toward people with disabilities — was the topic of an evening of interreligious dialogue at The Lay Centre May 7.
Members of L’Arche participated in this exchange with students from Cambridge Muslim College, who were in Rome for a weeklong seminar at The Lay Centre, called “Muslims and Christians in Dialogue.” The theme of the public conference was “Witnessing to a Culture of Tenderness.”
“Tenderness is a special word, dear to the vocabulary of the L’Arche communities,” said Dr. Michael Driessen, an assistant at “Il Chicco,” Rome’s L’Arche community.
L’Arche is an international Catholic federation of local communities that welcomes people with intellectual disabilities; they are assisted by live-in volunteers and many hold jobs outside the home. Founded by Canadian layman Jean Vanier, L’Arche has houses throughout the world.
L’Arche’s “central belief (is) that these people who possess these seemingly broken bodies and are so often outcast, ill-considered as a result, are, indeed, God’s blessed, that they have a special closeness to God,” said Dr. Driessen.
“We have much to learn from them,” he continued. “By listening to them, by loving them, by putting them at the centre of our lives and thoughts and friendships, we somehow approach and know God, and maybe become poor and therefore blessed ourselves.”
L’Arche band members then played and sang two songs, after which community members described life at “Il Chicco.”
Danilo, a core member, described his community’s weekly visits to Ikea, where they collect dying plants and flowers that can no longer be sold and then nurture them back to health. This service is emblematic of L’Arche’s mission in the current “throwaway culture” that casts aside people who aren’t “useful.”
Dr. Dreissen said L’Arche communities worldwide have engaged in interreligious dialogue, particularly with Muslim members.
“This training in loving deeply the other, delighting in them and their gifts, is built on a trust, confirmed by experience, that doing so enriches and deepens our faith, and gives our heart stronger roots and a larger home,” he said.
He shared testimonies from L’Arche assistants, who have had positive and profound interreligious experiences through the community. He cited Tina, who works in a L’Arche community in Bangladesh, who said: “Before, I didn’t know anything about people with disabilities, but thanks to my sister Irma, I have grown to understand many things. I believe that God, in His Almighty nature, acts fairly, in our differences with others, and the different religions…. For me, people with an intellectual disability have no dishonesty in them. They truly have pure hearts. This purity comes from their direct connection to Allah. They are really a holy people. They are the first to correspond to certain criteria that define devoted people in the Quran.”
Following the L’Arche presentation, Zain, a student at the Cambridge Muslim College, sang a traditional Muslim song about the love of Allah. Dr. Atif Imtiaz of the Cambridge Muslim College followed with brief remarks.
He spoke about the ways Islam expresses compassion toward people with disabilities. He recounted a Quranic story in which the prophet Mohammed, “frowned and turned away” when approached by a blind man. In this story, Allah admonishes Mohammed, for even the blind man is a true faith seeker. Dr. Imtiaz explained this verse to demonstrate that Allah calls all Muslims to be compassionate.
The presentation concluded with a short reflection on a citation of Pope Francis: “The future is made of ‘yous.’ It is made of encounter, because life flows through encounters with others.”
Christians are called to a “revolution of tenderness,” the pope said. “It is a movement that starts from our heart and reaches the eyes, the ears and the hands.”
The evening, sponsored in part by the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See and the John Paul II Center of Interreligious Dialogue, welcomed guests from the diplomatic corps and the World Food Programme. The evening’s discussion continued over refreshments and those in attendance met members of the “Il Chicco” community and students from the Cambridge Muslim College.
