“Wanted: A Friend”

Alito B. Delos Santos

Recently, I happened to meet a Grade 7 student, John (not his real name) who has a
physical disability. His father, the person who personally takes care of him explained to me
that John really wants to be at a regular class in spite of the presence of our school’s Open
High School Program (OHSP). While having this conversation, my mind simply drifted to my
seminary experience of working with “differently-abled” persons in L’Arche Chicago.
L'Arche is an international organization that seeks to create support networks with people
with intellectual disabilities.

At the start of my ministry in L’Arche, I asked myself how people with developmental
disabilities perceive and relate with Jesus. This question is important because part of my
ministry in L’Arche that time was to help core members (people with disability) deepen their
appreciation of and relationship with Jesus. Certainly, before I can help them deepen their
relationship with Jesus, I need to first deepen my own relationship with Him. This realization
brought me to confront two important issues for Christology (the theology that is concerned
with Jesus’ nature and works) that I saw in L’Arche. Among these issues, two seemed to
stand out.

The first, which I considered to be the very foundation of how I understand Jesus Christ
today, is suffering. Undeniably, one of the characteristics of our humanity is the capacity to
suffer. Suffering comes to us regardless of our socio-economic status, race, color, gender,
nationality, age, educational attainment, health, and so on and so forth. Nevertheless,
circumstances in life make some people suffer more than many others. People in abject
poverty or are afflicted with a stigmatized disease or doing a detestable and “immoral” job
are oftentimes suffering from severe marginalization and neglect by others, even by those
who should be able to understand and accept them as they are. Similarly, several of our
developmentally disabled brothers and sisters in society are also abandoned, disowned, and
maltreated by their very own families and/or relatives.

Moreover, it is unfortunate that most cultures of the world favor those who are strong, smart,
and successful and loathe those who are weak, unintelligent, and a failure. This kind of
culture in turn develops biased systems that aggravate the plight of those who are disabled
physically, emotionally, or developmentally. In turn, people with disabilities are continuously
discriminated, ostracized, and stereotyped.

This grim reality of the developmentally disabled challenges me to think how the Christian
notion of salvation can be translated in such a way that these people will be able to
experience it in a more meaningful way in the here and now. This leads me to the second
important Christological issue I became familiar with in L’Arche—friendship. Of course, like
the destitute, hungry, and the least in Jesus’ time, people with disabilities need to be taken
care of—to be fed, given water to drink, clothed, welcomed, visited—but these acts of
generosity can be simply too mechanical without friendship.

Today, there are many institutions all over the world that provide services that meet the
physical needs of the developmentally disabled persons, yet in many of these places of
hospitality, I deem that they still remain isolated, lonely, and disconnected because they are
not befriended by their caregivers. In many cases, the caregiver is always in the position of
providing care while depriving the disabled person the opportunity to give anything in return.

In L’Arche the story is different. Both the core-members and their assistants live and share
life together in a community where there is mutuality. The core-members receive the
generosity of the assistants while the assistants also receive the generosity of the core-
members—a perfect symbiosis! This exchange of generosity leads to a real encounter of two
or more persons where boundaries are broken down and the “other” is experienced in a
deep encounter. When this thing occurs, salvation is at hand!
Now going back to John, I hope that his presence in our school will give him the opportunity
not only of acquiring good education but also of meeting people who will accept him as he is;
consider him as their friend, and allow him to respond to the generosity of others.