Extraordinary love
Last month, Jean Vanier, the founder of the L’Arche organisation, sadly passed away at the age of 90. Vanier left a remarkable legacy in L’Arche – its mission is to support people with learning disabilities and today it has 150 communities, in 38 countries, supporting 3,500 people with day services and residential homes. It all began in Paris in 1964, when Vanier welcomed two men with learning disabilities to live in his home – they had been in an asylum and had no family. He had no grand vision then for what this act of kindness would become, just a simple faith in Jesus’ command to love one another, saying, “It’s a question of loving people as they are.”
This month we feature one congregation that has been loving those in its surrounding community through its after-schools’ club. Suzanne Hamilton tells the inspiring story of Mountpottinger Presbyterian in east Belfast, where, for the last 14 years, volunteers have been helping local children with their homework and providing a safe place for them to play, as well as supporting their parents in a variety of practical ways.
Volunteer Karis Baker explains how important it has been for the church to show unconditional love to families: “We have no right as Christians to come in and dabble in their lives. We either need to be there for the long haul, or not get involved at all. If we dabble and walk away, we end up being just another in a long line of people who have let them down.”
To be people who are committed to loving others takes integrity. Norman Hamilton discusses this virtue at length in his column. He has observed that integrity is valued less and less in our society these days: “Where the means justifies the end; where truth is reduced to what anybody says it is…and where discernment and wisdom are much less important than getting your own way.” For us to model integrity against this backdrop is certainly challenging.
Our new Moderator, Dr William Henry echoes these thoughts as he chats with William Scholes. His theme for the coming year is ‘Enjoying God’ with the idea that encountering God is a transformational process for how we live and connect with others: “The thing that is really going to reach into people’s lives is Christians living authentically and passionately believing in Jesus. When people see that, they recognise it.”
Living lives full of integrity, authenticity and love seems overwhelmingly difficult, but as Jean Vanier once said, “We are not called by God to do extraordinary things, but to do ordinary things with extraordinary love.”
The Presbyterian Herald is the official magazine of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. It provides a forum for debate and discussion on a wide range of topics and aims to challenge and encourage Presbyterians, as well as inform them about what the wider Church is involved in. It has a readership in excess of 25,000 and is distributed throughout Ireland.
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