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 Homepage | The person | The family | The friends | Sitemap | Search | Contact  News  Year 2005 October 2005 : a new phase in the life of Faith and Light International Français | English | Español |  PrintSeven questions for Father Guy to get to know him better  What brought you to Faith and Light? In August 1984, I participated in a pilgrimage to Lourdes for the first time, it was a place I hadn’t been to before. Over 600 people from Belgium, many of whom had a disability, came together at the Massabielle cave to pray. I had had no previous contact with disabled people. It was a discovery for me. I was touched by the quality of the meetings, the smiles and the tears, the faith, just as much as the questioning or the people withdrawn into themselves. Everyone was accepted just as they were. At the end of the pilgrimage, Anne, leader of a Faith and Light community, came to ask me if I would accept to be the chaplain of their community. I didn’t have to think about it for too long, and I was very far from imaging at the time that Faith and Light would take up such a large place in my life. Who was it that convinced you to stay? It was Jesus. Jesus is present wherever two or three people are united in his Name. He is present in every person. But He particularly identified Himself with the smallest and weakest of people, as the gospel of Matthew reminds us: “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me” (Mt 25, 40). I no doubt knew this intellectually. Faith and Light allow me to experience it at the various meetings. In which country would you like to go and found Faith and Light? Trick question! It is not the chaplain’s work to go out and found communities! One wonders in reality if communities aren’t actually founded by the Holy Spirit. I spent several years in India, in particular in Calcutta, and it would be a great joy for me to see Faith and Light grow there because in India, there are still so many disabled people who are rejected and so many parents left to fend for themselves. How can we not give thanks for the presence of Faith and Light in the eighty countries and yet at the same time say “the harvest is plentiful”? There are still so many parts of the world remaining where Faith and Light is not yet known. There is certainly some ground to be covered among the tribal or aboriginal populations in Asia, in India, Burma, and Indonesia or in Vietnam. Faith and Light is present in many countries in Africa, but it is only a beginning. There is still nothing in Mali, Nigeria, Sudan, Ethiopia etc. It is fairly common for a handicap to be perceived as the result of evil forces. What a challenge to take up! And obviously, I dream that one day, Faith and Light communities will exist in Jesus’ own country in Israel and Palestine. If you had to go to a desert island for a year, what book would you take with you, excepting the Bible? I would take a poetry book (the biggest one possible with at least 365 pages and in several languages). Poets have the gift of being able to express what touches men’s hearts: beauty, friendship, love, hope, death, everything that counts in life. I would also take a very small book that doesn’t take up much room, I would slip it into my pocket without telling you: it the lovely text by Teilhard de Chardin, the Mass on the World. What did you family give you? I received an awful lot from them and in particular from my mother, who died from cancer when I was hardly 18 years old. She marked us – my two sisters and my brother – not so much through what she said, her words were always serene, respectful and just, but through her goodness, her unselfishness, and her trust in life. She believed deeply in God. This faith allowed her to get through many ordeals – health, money and even marriage difficulties. She brought us up believing in true freedom and in true values. She never wanted her children to do what she dreamt of for them, but she wanted them to find their own way. Do you have a favourite Saint? He’s not a Saint yet, but he soon will be I hope, it’s Charles de Foucauld. As a teenager searching for answers I read his biography and since then his face continues to accompany me. For me, it is not a question of following in his footsteps to his hermitage in Hoggar, but like him, to discover the presence of the Lord in our daily lives, in the ordinary and commonplace things, but things nonetheless that may also become the burning bush to which God calls us. What is your first message as international chaplain? “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Don’t be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position” (Romans 12,15-16). If Saint Paul would have been a chaplain of a Faith and Light community, he wouldn’t have been able to say anything more appropriate. He wasn’t addressing an anonymous community as you can read in Romans 16. For me too I can put faces to Faith and Light communities. I won’t have the occasion to meet every member personally, but I would like to assure you – people with a disability, parents, friends and chaplains – that you are present in my thoughts and my prayers. Please also pray for me and for this ministry that I have accepted in your name. Thank you. Interview by Corinne Chatain. |
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