On the edge of a village near Seville, southern Spain, at the end of a dusty road running through fields of sunflowers and olive trees, is a house which is home to a community of people. The residents of the House of Bethany work together, eat together, laugh together and cry together, celebrating the life that God has given them. Every member of the community is unique, yet each has come to the house for a reason ... even if they do not yet know what that reason is. The House of Bethany is a place in which people discover their second calling: a purpose so surprising, so far beyond expectation, that it can only be learned from each other. The Second Calling is a novel inspired by the life and work of Jean Vanier (recipient of the Templeton Prize in 2015) and the ministry of L'Arche, a worldwide network of communities in which people with and without intellectual disabilities live together. It was written by Hans S. Reinders (Professor of Ethics at the Free University of Amsterdam, and President of the European Society for the Study of Theology and Disability) after Jean invited him to write a book to introduce the work of L'Arche to a wider audience. This novel is based on the life and work of Jean Vanier as the founder and leader of the communities of L'Arche. The novel tells the interwoven stories of the residents of the House of Bethany, a small community in a little village near Seville. They live together as people with and without disabilities in order to celebrate the life that God has given them. The story begins with the arrival of Jonathan, a young American who has left home to escape the life his father had designed for him. Through Jonathan we meet other members of the community, all 'battered souls' in different ways: Lucie, a 'flittering bird', without speech and with only very little understanding; Fernando, a young man whose abandonment by his father left him speechless; Joaquin Morales, a blind boy who was found living alone in the streets of Seville; Sofia, wheelchair-bound yet living her life in agony to make her mother proud; and the community's founder Ramon, whose understanding of what the House of Bethany really means only becomes apparent when he is forced to re-evaluate his own life This beautifully-written novel is based on the life and work of Jean Vanier as the founder and leader of the communities of L'Arche. The fictional story it tells seeks to show the distinctiveness of L'Arche as a spiritual community grounded in the recognition of a shared vulnerability of human beings.
