Parishes are the home of the Christian community; they are the heart of our Church. Parishes are the place where God's people meet Jesus in word and sacrament and come in touch with the source of the Church's life.Footnote 1
The Church recognizes that every parish community includes members with disabilities, and earnestly desires their active participation … Catholic adults and children with disabilities, and their families, earnestly desire full and meaningful participation in the sacramental life of the Church.Footnote 2
An Invitation to Ever New Forms of FraternityFootnote 3
The opening quotations introduce the central premise of this paper. The church can and should be better at recognizing and welcoming people with impairments as sisters and brothers. Christ's gift of peace makes possible, desirable, and necessary a deep family unity among Catholics with and without impairments, to be lived out in the church and particularly in the local parish.Footnote 4 This covenantal unity becomes a sign and instrument of peace visible and active within the church as well as a witness and seed of shalom for the world. Embracing the peace of Christ intensifies the baptismal solidarity that exists among Christian disciples with and without impairments. The church and parishes are to grow into living out more fully this gift of peace with children and adults with impairments and their families. We all benefit. Conversely, to the degree that disciples with impairments are excluded or marginalized from the life of the church, the parish, and disciples—both those with and without obvious impairments—are deprived of the fullness of peace available in this world. We all lose out.
Our parishes will be immersed more deeply into shalom and testify more clearly to God's gift of peace when we pray, worship, dialogue, serve, and celebrate together with people of all ages and capacities. By recognizing the peace shared with each and every disciple, regardless of bodily or intellectual capability, we take up the challenge of life together as church and parish. The communal liturgical practice of the Rite of Peace, accepting and exchanging the beautiful gift of shalom from Christ, will be enriched as disciples with and without impairments join together more fully in all aspects of the life of the parish, and exercise full and meaningful participation.
Reflection on the identity of the church and of the parish as sharers in peace points to a specific imperative to seek out, recognize, and welcome people with significant impairments, in imitation of the Lord who so often sought out those on the edges of society, both offering and accepting hospitality. Our parishes are called to be places of mutual welcome.
The church in her wisdom emphasizes the personal and relational aspects of the human being, of discipleship, and of the parish.Footnote 5 This emphasis draws our attention to the peace bestowed by Christ that is to shape our relationships and provides a context for a powerful claim made by John Paul II:
In this world of ours … the difficulties of the disabled are often perceived as a shame or a provocation and their problems as burdens to be removed or resolved as quickly as possible. Disabled people are, instead, living icons of the crucified Son. They can teach everyone about the love that saves us; they can become heralds of a new world, no longer dominated by force, violence and aggression, but by love, solidarity and acceptance.Footnote 6
Active participation in the life of the church by Christians with impairments invites every disciple to contemplate the face of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, in new and fruitful ways. We can learn to recognize our own limitations, with a humility and poverty of spirit. Cultivating a spirit of contemplation and a virtue of meekness enriches our capacity as a church for peacemaking.
As church and as disciples, we have received a beautiful gift of peace from God that abundantly runs overFootnote 7 and that cannot be contained by any merely worldly method or attempt to “resolve the burden of impairment.” A dual challenge for the contemporary church and local parishes is first to approach the broad reality of human impairment from a theological, ecclesial, and sacramental perspective,Footnote 8 and second to avoid (unintentionally) prioritizing “worldly” approaches to impairment.Footnote 9 At the very least, Catholic service to and relationships with vulnerable people ought to be discernibly distinct from secular service efforts.Footnote 10 This in and of itself is a revolutionary claim, bringing us closer to the distinctive nature of peacemaking described in the Beatitudes, rooted not in the world but in the Word.
In response to these dual challenges, we can draw upon theologically informed considerations around the nature of the parish, the divine gift of the peace we are called to share, and the beauty of the parish, which becomes a welcoming home for all people, including those with significant impairments and their families.Footnote 11 Pope Francis offers a compelling reflection on such considerations:
The Church cannot be voiceless or out of tune in the defence and promotion of people with disabilities. Her closeness to the families helps them to overcome the loneliness that often risks closing them off for want of attention and support. This applies even more so due to her responsibility with regard to generating and forming the Christian life. The community must not lack the words and above all the gestures for encountering and welcoming people with disabilities. The Sunday Liturgy, especially, must be able to include them, so that the encounter with the Risen Lord and with the community itself may be a source of hope and courage in the difficult journey of life.Footnote 12
The Holy Father draws our attention to formation, encounter, and catechesis in Christian discipleship, as incarnated in the liturgy and in the life of the parish. For such encounters to flourish, Francis points out that we must look for beauty in the other person: “No physical or mental limitation should ever be an impediment to this encounter, because Christ's face shines in the heart of each person.”Footnote 13
Lest we mistakenly conclude that the reality of impairment is a narrow concern, we may consider that most if not all people are liable at any time to experience some degree of impairment, whether from birth or related to age, sickness, or accident. Many too are in relationships with people who have some kind of impairment. This is a present reality in our parishes, if we but look.
To build up the Body of Christ in peace, we cannot allow physical, emotional, intellectual, or societal barriers to blind us to the face of Christ in our companions on the Way who are impaired in body or mind. With divine grace, our limitations of understanding and of love can be overcome, as individuals and as parishes. We can create new ways of living together as Catholics that will better allow the divine image and likeness of each disciple to shine forth, by trusting in God's grace, learning from the witness of disciples with impairments as well as their families, following the example of effective catechists and using the tools of reason to create new and effective approaches.Footnote 14
Many avenues for parishes to become more welcoming homes for people with impairments and their families lie before us as a church: listening to the voices and stories of those with impairments and their families; actively seeking out individuals and families who feel left out, misunderstood, or forgotten; facilitating active liturgical participation of all parishioners regardless of ability; providing a strong voice in defense of the lives of those who are highly vulnerable in relation to impairment; developing catechetical approaches that welcome and form people of varying abilities; and seeing and embracing the potential for ministry by people with impairments.Footnote 15 These and other approaches may be profitably understood as means of building up the peace of the parish, contributing to peace in the world.
Person and Community, Disciple and Church
An essential foundation for a theological contemplation of the nature of impairment must be a Christian anthropology, and the anthropological question necessarily leads to an inquiry into community.Footnote 16 These are questions that exceed the intended scope of this article, but we can at least mention their relevance to the topic.
The helpful work of theologians such as Miguel Romero,Footnote 17 Thomas Reynolds,Footnote 18 Amy Jacober,Footnote 19 and Talitha Cooreman-GuittinFootnote 20 examine anthropological approaches aimed at a theological understanding of vulnerability and impairment.Footnote 21 We are created as unique individuals, and we are also social beings. The parish is a community that should recognize in her members the present realities of human vulnerability and impairment.Footnote 22 Only then can we truly take up the peace offered by Jesus that is not found in false notions of power or independence.
As noted previously, many if not most people in a parish know someone with some type of impairment. All parishioners are likely at some point to experience a level of impairment, whether related to age, sickness, accident, or a lifelong condition. One important step for parishes, and ordained and lay ministers, is to commit to seeking out those parishioners who have various kinds of impairments.
The human being is a social animal; in Jason Greig's words, “creatures made for networks of life-giving mutuality and friendship.”Footnote 23 We need family to grow and mature but also to develop relationships outside of family.Footnote 24 Disciples do best in human-sized and human-shaped community.Footnote 25 Theological writings on small Christian community or on basic ecclesial community generally reinforce the idea that human nature is suited to growing up in, being formed and nurtured by, and contributing to, a community that can be seen, touched, and heard. From a pastoral perspective, the aforementioned theological points indicate that disciples are more easily formed into the Body of Christ when part of some type of close Christian communality, and hence my focus on the parish.Footnote 26
At the same time, contemporary parish life, though necessary, is likely not sufficient for such deep formation of life in community, at least as it exists in some places in the world today.Footnote 27 As noted in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, we are created social beings, but this does not automatically lead to communion or the gift of self to another.Footnote 28 It is the rare parish that is forming disciples to practice welcome and hospitality in general, as well as specifically in regard to people with impairments.Footnote 29 As noted in a 2016 study by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, “While parishes in the United States have made large strides to include people with disabilities, especially physical disabilities, there is also a lot of work to be done.”Footnote 30 Furthermore, the practice of hospitality and welcome goes far beyond mere acknowledgment of rights. “We recognize that the bare assertion and protection of rights can become a sterile exercise whenever it lacks the Christian presumption of our common call to friendship with one another in Christ.”Footnote 31
Parishes may provide an inkling of Christian community, which by gospel standards would include people of varying abilities and ages, but they are not always providing the stable community that disciples need to mature in the Christian life.Footnote 32 The more that we are part of strong and nurturing parishes, the more we will be able to welcome, develop, and embrace Christian friendships with people with impairments—not as recipients of pity but as friends and companions in Christ. Pope Francis stressed the importance of belonging: “A person with disabilities … needs not only to exist but also to belong to a community.”Footnote 33
This point underscores a core reality: “The Church finds its true identity when it fully integrates itself with these marginal people, including those who suffer from physical and psychological disabilities.”Footnote 34 The US bishops are making a significant claim, namely, that the church is more truly the assembly of Christians when she is a home and a place of peace for those who are lowly in the eyes of the world. Although this is by no means an empty claim, it is not entirely obvious always and in every place that the church is actually living up to this identity.Footnote 35
Dorothy Coughlin knows exactly what it looks like when people with disabilities are left out of the church. She grew up in a large Catholic family with a younger sister who was born with a profound developmental disability. “We had eight kids in our family and all of us would go to church—seven of us could go, but not my sister. When we went to Catholic school, we all could go except my sister,” she says. “The church didn't hear disability, it didn't see disability. That reality was pretty much missing in my experience of the church.”Footnote 36
Rebecca Susag, a parishioner of St. Joseph Parish in Hastings, Minnesota, has felt her share of rejection through the years on behalf of her 32-year-old daughter, Marta, who has autism. “We really quit going to church for a while,” Susag says. “We've had nasty comments over the years, but we continue to stay involved. We had great difficulty getting her to receive her first communion, because she wasn't involved in any of the sacramental programs and there was no Catholic education for her. Marta was left by the wayside.”Footnote 37
Academic Wolf Wolfensberger describes the “normative lack of Christian communality in local congregations as the central obstacle to a proper relationship with needy members.”Footnote 38 He posited that parishes with a thin experience of communion and community will not be in a strong enough place to welcome those disciples who may in fundamental ways require more of the parish.
If this is true, how can the church continue to move toward its true identity, toward a more complete welcome, membership, and participation for, with, and by children, adults, and elders with impairments? The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council confirm that the church “is in Christ like a sacrament or as a sign and instrument both of a very closely knit union with God and of the unity of the whole human race … The present-day conditions of the world add greater urgency to this work of the Church so that all … might also attain fuller unity in Christ.”Footnote 39 Note the council's emphasis on unity as well as a recognition of the world as it is, which in light of our topic includes the twin realities of impairment and vulnerability.Footnote 40 What might this mean specifically for parishes, and for Christians with and without impairments? This article focuses on the following: welcoming and sharing the divine gift of peace, acting in loving service to fellow parishioners, living as exiles who are in the world but not of it, and cultivating an appreciation for true beauty.
The unity of the church is inherently mutual. Discussions of the church and disciples with various kinds of impairments can too easily slip into a one-way relationship (“What can we do for them?”) as opposed to reflecting on the broader and deeper question of how we together are gifted and called to be a church at peace. Each of us receives help from God; this is primary—all are dependent on God, not just those who are impaired in some way. The church together has received the gift of peace from Christ Jesus, not just those judged to be more competent or who do not seem vulnerable. These truths have profound implications for ecclesial identity, mission, and ministry as well as for relationships among disciples.
In the words of St. Augustine, peace speaks to “the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God, and of one another in God. The peace of all things is the tranquility of order.”Footnote 41 The understanding of peace as a divine order instituted by God and shared with the church is central to this study.Footnote 42 The fullness of peace is relational and directs our hearts toward redeemed relationships with God and with one another. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger stated that the “redeemed people will be people of peace,”Footnote 43 pointing out that Christian community involves mutual trust, participation, and dependence. Faith in God calls for communion with others: a relationship with God brings forth relationship with others.Footnote 44 How can parishes better embody trust, participation, and dependence in relation to Christians who have impairments?Footnote 45
According to Greig, “The church's telos is shalom”Footnote 46—in other words, her end or purpose is the fulness of peace. Shalom indicates a completeness or perfection.Footnote 47 The Scriptures are replete with descriptions of peace specifically in connection with the church, which is relevant to our focus on the parish. The nature of the church is peace, as we are reminded at every Mass through many liturgical prayers and actions, and the Rite of Peace itself. Throughout the Mass, the Good News of peace is revealed and incarnated. With the help of grace, the gift of peace moves from the eucharistic table out to the whole congregation. The words of Metropolitan John Zizioulas are particularly instructive: “This attitude which transcended not only social but also natural divisions (such as age, race, etc.) was portrayed in the eucharistic community par excellence.”Footnote 48 An understanding of the church, and by extension the parish, as a recipient of peace brings into sharper focus certain implications for welcoming people with and without significant impairments.
Commenting upon the international L'Arche movement, Greig connects weakness and vulnerability with peace: “L'Arche bears out the Pauline insight that weakness, not power or strength, represents the means of God's shalom. Humility toward others, not superiority, marks the way of peace.”Footnote 49 Although we should be cautious about holding up L'Arche or any example as a perfect model, the vision and often the general practice of L'Arche (apart from its founder or any single community member) can provide much needed wisdom for today, including for individual Christians, families, parishes, and the church as a whole. Zizioulas and Greig help us to consider that the peace of the church is richer, deeper, and closer to fullness when it is received and experienced more completely by a diversity of people; in this case, including people with significant impairments and their family.Footnote 50
Church as Sign and Instrument of Shalom
In what ways might a theological appreciation of peace as a divine gift of order, joy, tranquility, and harmony enrich an examination of impairment, contingency, and vulnerability, particularly as represented in and by parish life? In his study of disability and spirituality, William Gaventa writes thoughtfully of the importance of recovering a sense of wholeness.Footnote 51 This echoes the biblical concern with shalom and eirene. Kevin Ahern identifies a Thomistic emphasis on our ontological vulnerability and the ways that the virtues of magnanimity and humility can build up order and justice.Footnote 52
We can turn also to a theological understanding of the state of grace in which Adam and Eve shared in divine life, lived in friendship with God, and reflected the “inner harmony of the human person, the harmony between man and woman, and … the harmony between the first couple and all creation.”Footnote 53 This state of original justice represented a beautiful pattern—a fourfold shalom with God, self, others, and creation—and can function as a signpost in a parish community acting together to embrace peace in the midst of human vulnerability and limitation. The harmony of these four relationships was lost through the sin of our first parents. Our faith tells us that Christ is restoring shalom and rebuilding these four broken relationships, and furthermore that the church is called to join and continue this mission as sisters and brothers.
John XXIII sketched out a basic structure, teaching that order (peace) between human beings is founded on love, truth, justice, and freedom. Peace is a fruit of charity and rests on a recognition of the truth of God's transcendence and of each person's inherent dignity, whatever particular impairments or vulnerabilities exist. Peace builds on justice, the freely chosen promotion of the common good for all, not just for those with particular skills, competencies, or attributes.Footnote 54
Christ gives to the church—that community of disciples who recognize that they are good, fallen, and redeemed—a gift of order, rest, and peace.Footnote 55 The church at peace is not a uniform sameness but rather shalom in the midst of and incorporating a multiplicity of distinct individuals, including those with impairments. We can truly be ourselves, who God created us to be, because we are part of a larger Christian kinship. The sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist make this possible. Pope Francis has so often reminded us that we are sisters and brothers, and what this reality implies: “Fraternity is what allows the equal to be different people.”Footnote 56 Zizioulas similarly points out that the eucharistic community transcends divisions without erasing unique identity.Footnote 57
Christ inaugurated a fellowship of order and peace, where each and all can find a home, with all our gifts, differences, brokenness, vulnerabilities, and wounds. This peace is a gift, not a human achievement, though we are invited to receive and use God's gift of peace. A key emphasis is on invitation: each person must decide whether to accept this peace from Christ. Order and peace are simultaneously gift and responsibility. As we willingly enter into the peace of Christ, we are shaped by the divine gift of peace and we also mold its particular expressions in the world. This shaping and molding should incorporate those persons with various physical and intellectual impairments, and their families, as well as those Christians who are marginalized for a host of reasons.Footnote 58 This speaks to the purpose of ordained and lay ministry in a parish, as well as to the broader nature of a parish community.
This is a good point at which to remind ourselves that most of us will experience some level of impairment if we live long enough, and furthermore, that most of us know someone who has some type of impairment. As we contemplate the fellowship that Jesus created, we recognize that authentic Christian relationships with the “other” can help to build up shalom, a shalom that benefits each and all.Footnote 59 In finding that covenant home and freely entering into it, each disciple builds up the peace and order of the church in new and beautiful ways, more closely reflecting the eschatological peace of the church in heaven.
Christians who are vulnerable or impaired are called to be peacemakers, as are all disciples. Each baptized disciple can build up the church, regardless of whether others are ready or willing to see such contributions. How often in the Bible does God choose the lowly and weak to be His instruments of profound change? As quoted in the introduction, John Paul II recognized this truth about people with impairments: “They can teach everyone about the love that saves us; they can become heralds of a new world, no longer dominated by force, violence and aggression, but by love, solidarity and acceptance.”Footnote 60
The church on earth more faithfully reflects order and shalom when she more fully embraces the multiplicity as well as the vulnerability of God's daughters and sons. Greig compellingly describes this as a shalom made strange, a peace that appears strange to the world and yet “offers a bold counter-narrative to a culture that disdains those with intellectual disabilities”Footnote 61—and we could add physical and emotional as well. The very disciples too often overlooked in our parishes, perhaps because we wrongly judge by worldly standards, may be the ones who are contributing most profoundly to shalom, even when that is not recognized.
The shalom of a parish is a deeper, richer, and more complex reality than secular ideals of integration or of civil laws concerning accessibility to public buildings. These ideals and laws are mere glimpses of order and peace, and as such they possess an element of goodness, but they are certainly not the holistic vision of peace that the church has been vouchsafed. Parishes cannot rest satisfied if these standards are met. Such laws and ideals may provide useful points of dialogue between the church and world, but they are by no means the solid food of the gospel, and we as Christians should not limit our imagination or discourse to worldly frameworks.
Even with the gospel call and God's gifts of grace, too many of our sisters and brothers with significant physical and intellectual impairments, as well as various mental disorders, find themselves “outside the gates.”Footnote 62 The same is often true for their families. Historical, physical, attitudinal, educational, experiential, and societal walls still exist within Catholic parishes, schools, and dioceses.Footnote 63 David Perry wisely cautions of “a long history of disability serving only as an opportunity for non-disabled people to demonstrate their piety through service, a ‘charity model’ of disability that's kind, but ultimately still promotes otherness and exclusion. Religious leaders are especially prone to endorsing this charity model.”Footnote 64 We should not settle for this status quo in our parishes, clergy, and parish ministries, nor in our lives of discipleship.
Jesus provides the example, impetus, and sacramental graces necessary to take up this challenge: to begin to undo the walls of separation and segregation that keep Christians with impairments out or on the margins, or at the very least to shake these walls, lower their height, and diminish their depth so that we begin to glimpse and then embrace one another as sister and brother.
The church, and every parish, is called to incarnate both time and place for shared peace, particularly in the face of human vulnerability. This leads next to brief theological considerations of three relevant ideas: hupotassō, diaspora, and the transfiguring power of beauty.
Hupotassō: Be Subject to One Another out of Reverence for Christ
As noted previously, “The Church finds its true identity when it fully integrates itself with … those who suffer from physical and psychological disabilities.”Footnote 65 This does not primarily require clinical expertise, training, or outside involvement, but rather first and foremost entails disciples within the context of a parish who strive to live out the gospel in relation to the realities of human impairment and vulnerability. We do not come as those who see ourselves as strong or competent or the experts or helpers, but as those dependent on and subject to the same Lord and incorporated into the same church. “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph 5:21).Footnote 66 A repeated emphasis in the letters of Paul and of Peter on building up the church, and on mutual and humble service to one another, provides a solid foundation for responding to the challenges of integration laid out by the US bishops. Although the emphasis in the New Testament letters is not specifically about those impaired in mind or body, their lessons can provide a needed focus for parishes striving to be home for all disciples, regardless of capacity or age.
Fuller integration with and fuller participation by disciples with impairments will bring the parish closer to actualizing the gift of eirene given by Christ Jesus and will build up order in the church.Footnote 67 “Strive to excel in building up the church … For God is not a God of confusion but of peace … All things should be done … in order” (1 Cor 14:12, 33, 40). Paul is clear on this imperative: be subject (hupotassō) to one another out of reverence for Christ.
To freely and obediently place oneself in loving order under God's headship (Eph 1:22), and therefore in loving service to one another, is to build up shalom. This is hupotassō.Footnote 68 We are baptized as servants not as rulers. Jesus is Lord and we freely say yes to be immersed into the order and peace of the church inaugurated by Christ. Our standards are not set by the world. Accordingly, the US bishops point out that the church, dioceses, and parishes are to more diligently and with greater love welcome Christians with impairments. We are to be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. As we follow Christ and willingly place ourselves (hupotassō) under His lordship and order, we are enabled to truly serve our sisters and brothers—with and without impairments—and to be served by them.Footnote 69
The bishops remind the church and disciples that “we are one flock that follows a single shepherd,” and in light of “the unique gifts disabled individuals have to offer the Church,” we are to respond to “the need for their fuller integration into the Christian community and their fuller participation in its life.”Footnote 70 “For most Catholics, the community of believers is embodied in the local parish. The parish can be the door to participation for persons with disabilities.”Footnote 71 Starting in the parish, we will see peace dwell among us as each disciple, with or without impairments, cooperates with God to align him- or herself with the gift of peace ordained by God.Footnote 72 In light of creation in the image and likeness of God, and of the baptismal grace of immersion into the death and Resurrection of the Prince of Peace, each disciple can freely choose to build up the peace of the church. Each disciple, with and without impairments, offers a unique contribution to order and peace in the parish.
Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Hupotassō can be elucidated at least in part as a voluntary placing of oneself in the peaceful order created by the triune God, perhaps analogously like taking our seat at the family dining table or our proper chair as a musician in an orchestra.Footnote 73 Each disciple can contribute a distinct gift to the church. Hupotassō is not a passive stance but one that honors divine providence, truth, peace, community, and covenant. The practice of hupotassō can build up the peace, harmony, and order of a parish.
Sadly, many of our sisters and brothers with impairments are not reaping the benefits of shalom in our parishes, and thus cannot take for granted a seat at the table.Footnote 74 Whether intentionally or not, the actions of parishioners can result in the exclusion of those with impairments and possibly their families. Our peace is lessened when our sisters and brothers sit outside because of ignorance, fear, or apathy. To the degree that we subject others to our thoughts, desires, and actions (in opposition to hupotassō) rather than freely place ourselves in God's good order, we stand in the way of peace in the parish.Footnote 75 In what ways are we actively seeking to recognize and honor the strengths and talents of each parishioner, regardless of age or ability? When we fail to honor the gifts of others, including those with any kind of impairment, we run the risk of becoming an obstacle to shalom and hampering the spread of the Good News.
Wherever and however it exists, this ongoing gap undermines the coming to fruition of God's gift of peace to the church. Hupotassō challenges each Christian and every Christian community (including the parish) to cooperate with God to actively promote peace and tranquility, by reverencing Jesus as the Lord, striving to become part of the shared peace and order of the church, building up covenant relationships with our sisters and brothers in Christ, humbly exercising charity, serving as Jesus served, and not putting up barriers to others enjoying shalom. “Bridget Brown … wants others to know that each and every person is precious. ‘The world needs to know that I don't “suffer” from Down syndrome,’ she wrote in a letter to Pope Francis. ‘I have a full and wonderful life, and I am filled with joy to be alive.’”Footnote 76
This challenge is set before every disciple, regardless of whether she or he has any obvious impairments. Too often, persons with significant impairments are perceived and treated, even if unintentionally, as always receiving, and not as being able to contribute or achieve. The New Testament reveals that Christ did not see or treat impaired people this way, but rather He invited all to follow Him and to help in spreading the seed of the Good News.
The shared practice of hupotassō is one way of actualizing the eucharistic community, regardless of ability or social status. None of us through our body, mind, or soul can demand, or deserve, the Eucharist. It comes to us in our weakness and dependence on God. Hupotassō recognizes that Jesus is offering peace to every person of every ability in every situation at all times and in all places, and it demonstrates an appreciation of the reality that every Christian regardless of ability shares in the covenant.
Scripture offers a bold vision of hupotassō, a seeking to embrace the order and peace brought by Jesus: in our relationships with God, self, others, and creation. The gospel description of Jesus returning with the Holy Family in the second chapter of Luke may be the paradigmatic description of hupotassō, insofar as Jesus who is the only begotten Son of God accepts and embraces the good order and the demands of family. The very Son of God takes His place in a human family, coming into the world as a baby dependent entirely on others.
Are we ready to imitate Him in our parishes and covenant family, to recognize our own dependence on God and to embrace the goodness and the demands of shalom and order? In our parishes, to what extent are we intentionally practicing the good order of God's peace, given to us in and through the eucharistic sacrifice, by acting in ways that promote and welcome true participation and the contributions of disciples with impairments—in the Mass, in catechetical activities, in our prayer groups and Bible studies, at parish celebrations?
In a world of “insatiable greed,” which Pope Francis has warned about, the practice of hupotassō invites us to turn away from the idols of power, privilege, status, and wealth.Footnote 77 With the support of a parish as our true home, formed in the right order instituted by God, we can rightly see the weakness of human power, even when exercised by well-intentioned practitioners (in law, medicine, social services, etc.). This practice can inform individual acts, such as the examination of conscience, as well as communal penance services. Are we serving the Lord, and serving our sisters and brothers in Christ? Have we (unintentionally) marginalized or avoided those with significant impairments?
Hupotassō also cautions against some of the specific dangers of for-profit motivations in human service organizations and systems that are supposed to support vulnerable people. Are we unintentionally serving economic goals as false idols? By emptying ourselves, we can acknowledge Jesus as Lord and become more obedient to that authority which Jesus enables: the authority of loving service to the other rather than to the idol of greed. We so often start out with good intentions to serve the vulnerable but eventually come to see that they also serve us, in a Christian sense of the word.
Hupotassō is by no means straightforward, easy, or quick. It is a task that we must take up day by day. Yet it is possible, particularly when we are formed by and are part of a strong and close covenant community, and are sharing the work of liturgy and practicing hospitality. Do we see disciples with impairments in our Bible studies, prayer groups, or ministry teams? The practice of hupotassō emphasizes the personal in the communal: communalities that are small enough for Christians to know, love, and share peace with one another in a very intimate way. How open are we to friendship with those impaired in mind or body? Hupotassō is enabled through our immersion into the local church; we act for peace not by ourselves but as a member of the covenant community that welcomes and invites those with impairments.Footnote 78 Such a parish can shine as an example of Christ's peace when we help one another to develop such friendships.
Scripture affirms that Christ has reconciled the peoples.Footnote 79 Jesus reordered the covenant community in His time and place to restore those who had been excluded—the blind beggar, the daughter plagued by a demon—and invites His followers to enter into this same work of hupotassō.Footnote 80 As we look around our parishes, where are our sisters and brothers with impairments? Are they around the eucharistic table? In our sacramental preparation and formation classes? Serving on committees? Joining the parish picnic? Leading prayer?
Christian communities are called to a reordering in this world to better reflect the work of the “Spirit who is love and gives unity in diversity.”Footnote 81 Those gathered together by God's gift of peace in the local Christian community can no longer settle for implicit segregation based on (assumed) distinctions of ability or degrees of vulnerability. Dawn DeVries notes that “Whatever ‘orders’ of creation there may be, no individual part of the creation can claim ontological superiority … To this extent, the ‘able-bodied’ cannot claim an elevated status in creation … Ultimately, all stand, qua creatures, in the same creaturely relation to God.”Footnote 82 Hupotassō thus incorporates a recognition of each and every person's ontological vulnerability, and by extension, of the vulnerability of the Christian community gathered around the Good Shepherd.Footnote 83 We are not redeemed by our strength and intellect, nor do we build up shalom in the world through human effort alone.
Contemplation of a parish community should catch a vital glimpse of the moral order wrought by Jesus and extended particularly to those on the margins. To the world, this may seem startling. John Swinton notes that the peace exemplified in the Beatitudes is “upside down”—the last and the weak are actually the first and the strong.Footnote 84 To what extent is this true in our parishes, particularly in the ways that those with and without impairments live, celebrate, pray, contemplate, and worship together?
Hupotassō is not just an individual practice but can and should be taken up by the parish. Christian communities are called to a reordering, or more precisely to allow God to reshape us so that we more and more closely reflect the work of the Spirit. This is a more profound and a richer vision of diversity, one that goes beyond the typical parameters of what is counted as such in the world today. A church that more fully reflects the beauty of unity in diversity, including diversity of vulnerability, is a church that has embraced the gift of peace from Christ and that continues to strive to live out and to share that order and peace.Footnote 85
To sharpen this point, the shared practice of hupotassō can be understood as both pruning and growth: getting away from entanglement in the false norms and means of the state, society, and organizations (thus pruning), and simultaneously moving closer toward the Lord's peace (which demonstrates growth). The discipline of hupotassō calls us together and individually to put down those things (attitudes, practices, habits) that limit or weaken peace and to pick up those things that foster true peace. As disciples who are part of parishes, dioceses, and the church, if we put all of our hopes in laws around accessibility and education, or in a medical model of impairment, we are at risk of missing the true nature of shalom. If we acquiesce to the common worldly pattern of ever-increasing reliance on psychotropic drugs, on testing and genetic manipulation, or on selective abortion, we at the very least risk an idolatry of human intellect and power.
In many instances, communities of faith feel somewhat ill-equipped at knowing what to do or say to welcome a person with a disability into their faith community. They therefore respond by attempting to develop a program or activity for the individual rather than getting to know the person first and allowing the relationships within the community to develop naturally, allowing the individual's involvement to flourish on its own. In most cases, the need for special programs or activities may not be needed, and, in fact, may be viewed as efforts to exclude them from full participation in the life of the community.Footnote 86
This is not to underestimate the potential relevance and validity of approaches concordant with faith and reason. Pedagogical strategies can be very useful and good, for example, the power of role modeling and imitation in regard to people with and without impairments worshipping together; the teaching strategies built into the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd.Footnote 87 Psychology can help us to build on approaches that invite empathy and interpersonal identification between and among parishioners with and without impairments. Nonetheless:
Of primary importance is that the faith community takes positive steps to reach out to the individual with a disability, to engage them in a meaningful manner so that they can feel respected and valued as equal members of the community, and to view any adjustments or accommodations that are required for an individual's full participation as routine and not valiant or extraordinary.Footnote 88
To allow professional distance and expertise to govern our approaches as church and parishes is to risk setting aside our creedal affirmation that the Father is almighty, Jesus is Lord, and the Holy Spirit gives life. The best that the world has to offer is not principally what the church needs or indeed presents to the world, although the church can certainly learn from clinical or professionalized approaches that are concordant with reason. The church is not a social service agency but serves the lowly in response to her faith in Christ.Footnote 89 As noted previously, the shared practice of hupotassō embraces both growth and pruning. We are likely to be called to put down some things that we like (status, control of our time) and to take up some things that are demanding (patience, humility). This requires time and effort, rather than technological or material “fixes.”
In practicing hupotassō, parishes are enabled to envision authentic alternatives to more shallow methods established solely on human effort and intellect, and to enter more fully into shalom. Borrowing again from Greig, we might think of the practice of hupotassō as restoring a “strange order”; not the false and static order of subservience but the beautiful, growing, living order of discipleship and peace, an order rooted in the ever new, divine reality of the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Such reordering is only possible with God's grace.
Diaspora
To the extent that people with physical and intellectual impairments or mental disorders are vulnerable to marginalization, we might profitably reflect on this hurtful social reality in light of scriptural and theological understandings of exile and diaspora.Footnote 90 We can find in the Scriptures two expressions that sit side by side: diaspora as the pain of exile, and diaspora in the hopeful joy of living in this world while not of it. The first letter of Peter calls on Christians in literal exile (1:1) to live as strangers and sojourners (2:11) who are truly at home only with God (2:5). For our specific purposes, we might study the biblical concept of diaspora in at least two ways.Footnote 91 One, these biblical terms can provide a useful metaphor to consider deeply the experiences of many people with impairments and their families. Two, this metaphor can also inform the approach of parishes as they strive to build up peace and unity with and among disciples who are impaired in some way. Both ideas are further explored following.
First, so many people with impairments and their families have found themselves pushed out of, or never welcomed into, those social and communal places that comprise our public lives, including in the realms of school, work, leisure, and religious expression. Although this is not literally a dispersion from one's country of origin, this level of rejection may indeed be experienced as an involuntary expulsion from those spaces that make up the richness of so much of our lives, and thus as a kind of scattering. To see others enjoy home, work, friendship, and belonging while remaining on the outside carries the anguish of exclusion. Biblical accounts of diaspora can provide a way to comprehend these painful experiences, while simultaneously being reminded of God's providential love.
Those who are marginalized are in a real sense forced into exile, whether abruptly or more slowly, from belonging, community, and home. The oppressive reality of exile for the Jewish people reverberates throughout much of the Old Testament and continues to echo in the life of the early church described in the New Testament. In light of this scriptural background, consider the ways that individuals can be shunted to the social margins as a reaction to (perceived) impairment or disorder. In a materialistic culture that idolizes capacity and contribution, many people with impairments are in essence rejected by those around them rather than welcomed. Too often, they are not embraced by neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, or cultural institutions.
Francis explicitly used this biblical language when he reminded the church to “not forget the many ‘hidden exiles’ who live within our homes, our families, our societies. I think of people of every age, especially the elderly who, also due to disabilities, are at times considered a burden, a ‘cumbersome presence,’ and risk being discarded, of being denied concrete job prospects for the construction of their future.”Footnote 92 As noted previously, are we even aware of those in our parishes who have various impairments? Being overlooked can become a kind of relational exile.
Such profound rejection can wound the mind and soul of a person. Paradoxically, marginalization is often enacted and legitimized or at least reinforced by the very structures described as helpful, such as social and human service organizations and volunteer efforts, even if these predictable outcomes are unintended. The church is clearly called to respond to the needs of such (power and status) minorities, to seek out those relegated to the margins, and thus to imitate Jesus the Good Shepherd and the Good Samaritan.Footnote 93
Second, I borrow the language of diaspora as a reminder that the church can perceive the conditions and problems of the surrounding city while simultaneously living as a resident alien, maintaining fidelity to the ways of the gospel rather than getting caught up in the false solutions proposed by the city. In other words, though scattered far from our true home, we can continue to preach the Word.Footnote 94 Christians can draw upon the Good News and the grace of life in Christ to embrace her sisters and brothers with impairments, while avoiding any false paths and worldly strategies promoted by societal and service structures. This is a kind of diaspora, relying on God's grace to live as an exile, in but not of the world. Such diaspora communities can still help the world, as Jeremiah's letter to the exiles proclaims. Parishes can draw upon the grace of incorporation into the Body of Christ to act as a creative minority, building a true community of peace for all, regardless of ability or social status. This can act as an example to the world.
After all, the church herself is a diaspora community on the way—on pilgrimage in this world; seeking not the path of power or wealth, but rather of the Beatitudes. Depending on where and how they live, many Christians may find this idea of freely accepting diaspora as unimaginable or nonsensical.Footnote 95 Nonetheless, even before the necessity to go out to all the world teaching the good news, Christians and the church must walk the way inaugurated by Jesus. This path is a voluntary diaspora, a willingness to be scattered and sent by the Lord, to be pilgrim communities, and to live in a way that is not of this world.Footnote 96 The peace of the church lies predominantly in following this demanding diaspora, not a literal scattering but a spiritual path.
The call is not to build a city, a tower, and a name of our own making, as the Babel account in Genesis warns us, or to hide behind walls, rejecting God's command to go forth. Rather, we are to live in covenant relationship with God and to go out to all the world, be fruitful, and multiply. The gospels describe a vision of a shared life of grace that can embrace all. In letting go of worldly approaches, parishes can find the creativity to imagine and embrace faithful ways of living together as pilgrims inspired by the good news.
We might consider diaspora from the perspective of hupotassō, or at least as a kind of continuation of hupotassō. Freely placing oneself in the order of God, and being subject to one another out of reverence for God, is a taking of the Lord's way, which is not the world's way, and thus is a kind of scattering or exile from the familiar.Footnote 97 Once again, this path is not easy nor is it always straightforward.
The Lord took a distinctive and minority path, and called His disciples to follow Him. He did not follow the customary ways of excluding those with obvious impairments. We know from the gospels that Jesus sought out those on the edges, including those hidden exiles who were marginalized by society due to impairment or vulnerability. His actions continue to speak to us and inspire us today. Likewise, eucharistic community with vulnerable persons in a local parish will stand out as something strangely wonderful, beautiful, and peaceful. It represents a singular way, not one that many will take, and thus is a kind of diaspora: a voluntary going out where the Lord leads, not where the world leads. This may seem absurd to the world but, paradoxically, this embrace of our pilgrim status brings us to our real home.
All too often society creates separate, professional, supposedly specialized, programs that in essence keep children, adults, and elders who are vulnerable outside the gates. How often are those who are most hungry for human touch and relationship surrounded instead predominantly by professionals paid to be in their lives, and dominated by technologies and therapies? This imposition of exile in the name of helping and professionalism, even when it occurs in a parish, is not the way of the church.
An exilic community dependent on God, a stance of diaspora paradoxically brings the church a certain freedom to act and create, and to not be constrained by idolatrous notions of community or of service. Grounded in God's love, a parish can live out new forms of friendship with those often ignored or set apart by society, thus acting as leaven and as creative minorities in the world.Footnote 98 The world may rightly wonder at a church that does not unthinkingly adopt typical secular approaches: the laws and methodologies of rights or inclusion, for instance, but instead with faith and imagination creates more authentic ways of living and celebrating. We are not one because of laws but because Christ Jesus has redeemed and united us in His body.
The church sees what the gift of community is and how to embrace it. She relies not on her efforts but on God's love, wisdom, and grace. Diaspora may lead one in strange pathways, strange at least to the world, yet pathways that are peace and that lead to peace. When a parish takes this way together, with all of our weaknesses, dependencies, vulnerabilities, and impairments, we can also taste God's true peace together.
Parishes should be able to respond creatively and imaginatively to the identities and needs of companion disciples who are vulnerable due to impairment. Diaspora ideally allows the church to take on a pilot function in the world, showing the beauty of what is possible by lived example. Do our celebrations of Word and Eucharist, and our catechetical programs, stand out as a striking witness of the possibilities and the gifts of welcoming our sisters and brothers with impairments? Do others look at our Catholic schools and parishes, and the relationships between and among disciples with and without impairments, and say “see how they love one another”? Are we recognizing and honoring the fruits of ministry offered by those disciples with impairments?
The life and the witness of a parish community at peace, with all the members of the Body of Christ with their various differences and vulnerabilities striving to live in unity as a covenant family, can act as a beacon and an example that the world can learn from, at least in part. Not that it will be perfect, but the diaspora community can act as a beacon when it is a visible community, with a distinct identity and clear borders, open to new members, providing a viable alternative to the dominant ways of life in a particular society, and seeking to serve the world.Footnote 99
Beauty
One of the fruits of hupotassō and diaspora is that the church at peace grows in moral beauty. Such beauty can both bring joy to Christians and attract others to Christ. To enter freely into God's peace, to welcome those on the margins, to follow the way of the Lord and to act as a creative minority, contributes to the peace of the church and thus the world. Such peace has the marks of beauty: clarity, harmony, and integrity.Footnote 100 A deep family unity among Catholics with and without impairments, lived out in the church and parish, is an exercise of faith that will provide a profoundly attractive witness.Footnote 101 Beauty can inspire and motivate change. To see a parish of disciples of all ages, abilities, and economic backgrounds gathered around the one bread is to behold the striking beauty of harmony and order. Imagine your own parish on a typical Sunday, and then ask yourself if a visitor would see people with impairments of all ages in the pews and in the sanctuary. If not, imagine the beautiful witness if that were to become true, and ask yourself what it would take to bring about.
We might keep in mind a common refrain of the last three popes—that beauty will save the world, to echo Dostoevsky.Footnote 102 Disciples are called to welcome the harmonious integrity of encounter with the other: a recognition of shared weakness and dependence on the Good Shepherd, a depth of solidarity with our sisters and brothers in faith, the practice of humility in relationship and Christian friendship, the exchange of the sign of peace at Mass, and shared celebration both inside and outside of Mass among people of all abilities. Disciples too are called to take up, as necessary, the pain of walking side by side with those who suffer. This can mean metaphorically leaving our sense of security to journey with exiles hidden in our midst. What can be just as challenging, if not more, is to accept such accompaniment from others in the times of our own dependence, weakness, and vulnerability. These can be moments of beauty that can engender peace.
As a parish learns to intentionally embrace the multifaceted gift of peace, becoming a place of welcome for all who are wounded, it magnifies beauty in space and time. It will indeed take time. Hupotassō, shalom, and the witness of beauty require time, patience, and slowness if they are to bear good fruit. According to Hauerwas, “Peace creates time by its steadfast refusal to force the other to submit in the name of order.”Footnote 103 It takes time spent in prayer, in celebration, in friendship, and in sharing meals among disciples with and without impairments, as the witness of L'Arche so powerfully communicates.Footnote 104 Parishes too can dedicate time to foster such beautiful practices, shared by all parishioners with and without impairments.
John Paul II noted the iconic beauty and witness of vulnerable people, and the gift of peace that this beauty fosters, as noted at the beginning of this paper. As just one illustration, L'Arche communities ideally provide glimpses of a place for all people, those with and without impairments, to discover the integral beauty of who they are and to recognize that they are truly loved.Footnote 105 The focus at L'Arche is not fixated on impairment, but on the dignity and gifts that all people share. Our parishes also can grow to become places and times of transfiguration to the degree that we cultivate the faith and the ability to see the beauty and dignity of people with significant impairments.Footnote 106
We understand from the gospel accounts that the Transfiguration is a striking experience of beauty, a mystery that gives peace and that prompts worship.Footnote 107 Christ is gloriously transformed, and the Lord's beauty becomes visible to the disciples in its integrity, harmony, and clarity. We may have had the experience of truly seeing the beauty of a person with impairments in our midst. In a culture that so often portrays impairment, and thus by extension impaired people, as ugly, the gospel proclaims the real beauty of those whom others are so often ready to ignore or avoid.Footnote 108
Moreover, the Transfiguration speaks to us also of transformed faith. The faith of Peter, James, and John is transformed, and they can then see the beauty of the Lord. “The disciples’ ascent up Mount Tabor leads us to reflect on the importance of disengaging from worldly matters, in order to make a journey toward heaven and to contemplate Jesus.”Footnote 109 Our faith too can be metamorphosed so that we can more truly see what and who is right in front of us. Rather than being lured by the false brightness of physical attractiveness, Christians learn to see the beauty of vulnerability and dependence upon God, whether in the other or in ourselves.
Regarding transformation and shalom, the lived experience of many L'Arche communities demonstrates that walls built on fear, loneliness, and the absence of God began to disappear in the face of the beauty of shared peace, order, and harmony.Footnote 110 This lowering of walls may eventually open our eyes, and open the door, to the beauty of peace lived out in relationship with our sisters and brothers. Our communal experience of beauty can also clarify our vision, our ability to see the world differently—or rather to see the world truly, with the restored vision that Christ gives.Footnote 111
Our capacity as disciple, as parish, and as church to see truly is an essential building block of peace. Beauty brings a clarity that opens the human heart to truth and to goodness—values that resonate with John XXIII's description of order or peace as built upon the pillars of truth, justice, freedom, and love.Footnote 112 In recognizing the beauty of the other, both space and time—place and routine—are transformed.Footnote 113 The reality and the experience of the divine gift of shalom itself reflects clarity, harmony, and integrity.
Our relationship with others in our families and parishes can become moments of transfiguration, allowing us to glimpse the true beauty of our brothers and sisters—those with and without obvious impairments—as well as our own beauty in the midst of weakness and to truly enjoy together the gift of Christ's peace, the peace that breaks down the dividing walls of apathy, fear, and hostility.Footnote 114
Conclusion
In terms of full and meaningful participation in the life of the church for people who are impaired and their families, and the integration that our identity as church demands, much theological, intellectual, pastoral, and practical work has been done, and much remains to be done, over time and in parishes around the world. Many questions remain to discuss—such as around the nature of the relationship between parishes and families with adults or children who are impaired in some way. Further questions wait to be discovered. Nonetheless, even now, the relationships that we are called to in our parishes, and the ongoing transfiguration that is possible, are signs that the church today, as in the days of the Apostles, is still being built up in peace.Footnote 115 When we are gathered together by God into one body as a pilgrim people sustained by hope, then we can witness to ever new forms of fraternityFootnote 116 and to that strange peace that is our gift and challenge.Footnote 117
