A spacious and upside-down heart

Over the last twenty-four hours I've read quite a few lovely, moving obituaries and tributes to Jean Vanier, who died yesterday. Many wrote of the goodness and holiness he so clearly radiated, and of the God whose love he reflected. Many, too, repeated his words, especially that We are not called by God to do extraordinary things, but to do ordinary things with extraordinary love - an ideal he lived, fully, to the end of his life. Not only religious outlets, but secular ones, too, became reflective, and focused on the values and the mystery at the core of his life and witness. On the BBC website, for example, Martin Bashir summed up with: Jean Vanier devoted his life to what has been described as the upside down economics of Christianity: that the first shall be last. He embodied a principle first outlined in the New Testament by the Apostle Paul, who said, "When I am weak, then am I strong."

Vanier's witness to welcome and inclusion, tenderness, humility and vulnerability certainly seems to have struck a chord in a world riven by exclusion and hatred, and driven by power and the pursuit of success and bodily perfection. And yesterday, as I read about his vision and ideals - and about L'Arche's inclusive, all-embracing, "upside-down" ethos - I was reminded of some words from one of the Revelations of Divine Love of Julian of Norwich, whose feast we keep today:

With his face full of happiness our Lord looked at his wounded side and gazed at it in joy. I followed his glance, and he led my mind on from this wound, into his side. There he revealed a lovely and delightful place, spacious enough for everyone who is going to be saved to rest in peace and love.

Jesus' wounded Heart leading into a lovely and delightful place, spacious enough for everyone... Somehow, something of Jean Vanier's life and example is encapsulated in this, as is his amply spacious heart. And in here, too, is an invitation for me - and for everyone - to make a similar journey, through our woundedness into our hearts, allowing them to widen and grow, spacious and upside-down and big enough for everyone...