“ Look, there is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world .” John 1:29

Our gospel passage for the Second Sunday of Ordinary Time reminds me of an article that I read some years ago about Jean Vanier, a Roman Catholic priest and founder of the L'Arche Communities for handicapped people.

He had his first encounter with the mentally handicapped in France when he was 35 years old. As he visited the asylums and hospitals, he was bewildered at the crowded and inhumane conditions in which they lived. He was touched by their intense sadness, pain and loneliness that constituted a great part of their lives as a result of being pushed around and disrespected by the society.

They yearned for friendship and relationships where they would be acknowledged and recognised as unique human beings instead of the isolation and alienation they experienced.

After some months, Jean Vanier purchased a house and invited two mentally handicapped men to live with him. His idea was to create a home, a family, a community where each individual could feel accepted, welcomed, respected and loved for who he/she was. They each had a place in the community.

He felt very strongly about these principles as he did not want, on any account, an institution where human beings became nameless, faceless, depersonalised and dehumanised statistics.

His initiative to establish homes, families and communities was recognised by the French government and over a period of time, many L'Arche communities were formed. To date, it has become an international network of homes operating in about 20 different countries such as England , Burkina Faso and Honduras , to name a few.

All the homes live by the same principle, which is to create community. The handicapped are at the centre and are the focus of attention. All who form the community at L'Arche, the handicapped and the workers, share mutually in the experience of togetherness, friendship and relationship.

Jean Vanier is like Jesus in our text today. He is a “ lamb of God ” in our world, an agent of change, a revolutionary, a human rights activist, a protester, who did not accept the way in which the mentally handicapped were being treated in institutions and, as a result, he went about creating and establishing homes that fostered respect and treated them as individuals and unique human beings.

Through the L'Arche communities he took away “ the sin of the world ” by ensuring that overcrowding and dehumanising conditions did not exist. He created a structure, a home that was life-giving. He was a “lamb of God” that engaged in struggle and fought a battle for the handicapped so that they too can live as brothers and sisters in our world.

Last week when school reopened, I asked my form one students to share their reflections on how the disaster in Asia affected them. I found their responses uplifting and refreshing as they articulated the lessons they had learnt from it.

Many felt that we take the gift of life for granted and now there is a deeper appreciation of family, friends and loved ones as well as respect for life. There was an awareness that death can occur at any time for anyone and so we are challenged to live life to the full.

One student in particular brought out the immense sadness that parents who lost their children would never experience the joy and pride that comes from seeing their children grow up and fulfill their dreams, and subsequently children who would grow up not ever having their parents at their side to guide and counsel them.

Another reflection that stood out was that while hundreds of millions of dollars was pouring in to aid all who were suffering, it can never replace the sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, husbands, wives and friends that were lost.

In my heart I felt the consciousness reflected by my students was like a “ lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. ” The starting point of becoming agents of change begins at the level of consciousness. The values of sympathy, compassion, love, sharing of one's resources, respect for human life, when lived, takes away the sin of the world - the greed, the selfishness, the individualism, the indifference and callousness.

Our parents and our educators, our homes and our schools, play a significant if not vital role in creating lambs of God that take away the sin of the world.

Let us pray:

Lord, we thank you for the lambs of God in our world, our country our hospitals, our schools, who take away the sin of the world. Continue to guide them as they engage in the struggle and the battle to remove the sin of racism, discrimination and inequality.

Lord, we ask forgiveness for the times when we were not lambs of God taking away the sin of the world. Instead Lord, we spoke about values, we attended conferences, seminars and endless meetings on poverty, hunger, the destruction of the environment, yet we stood idly by and watched the injustices, the neglect. We were not activists, so nothing changed; the sin of the world was not taken away. Have mercy on us.

Lord, we pray that you raise up lambs of God who take away the sin of the world. Give us the courage not only to stand up for what is right but to do what is right. Nourish us so that we can be strong to engage in the lifelong struggle to bring about change because that is what you call us to do. Amen.

Gospel Meditations for January are by Annie Gomes-Phillips. Mrs Gomes-Phillips is married to Ainsley and is the mother of Avion and Andrew. She is a parishioner of St Theresa's, Woodbrook and vice-principal of Fatima College.