Spirituality

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05-13-2021 A Letter From Our Servant Leaders
05-13-2021 A Letter From Our Servant Leaders 275 287 SVDP USA

Why should I care?

We all ask this at some point when we learn something new, and especially when it challenges our assumptions and what we think we believe. We want to stay in our comfort zone. We believe that we act as we always have, and may not realize that our views and knowledge change even when we don’t think about it. Little by little, it all then changes how we behave.

It feels that recently, we have all been asked to think more, and differently, about matters such as identity and race, health and safety, politics and citizenship, and rights and responsibilities. Even though we have been more isolated during a pandemic, media and new voices have brought us, or even forced us, together to see and perhaps to understand.

Why as Vincentians should we care about all this?

I suggest two reasons, both rooted in our mission. First, the way we accomplish our mission is through our relationships with, and service to people in need. Every time we hear of a new call for action, or a voice longing even simply to be heard, we should ask how this may be a part of our work with our neighbors. They don’t look the same, or come from the same cultural or personal backgrounds, even if they now live in the same neighborhood. What may be the impacts of personal identity, incarceration, citizenship, mental health, and so many other factors we hear in the news? If we learn more, won’t we be better able to communicate, have more empathy, and ultimately better serve others? We deepen our Vincentian relationships, and thus our ability to make real contributions to the lives of our neighbors, if we take the opportunities before us to understand.

Second, our Vincentian charism and mission call us to increase our own holiness. Sainthood is our goal. (To be clear, though, it isn’t a campaign!) In order to improve the lives of others, we need to better ourselves — in our knowledge, education, and then ultimately attitudes and personal actions. This set of improvements is not a one-time activity; it is lifelong learning. It leads to personal, spiritual evolution in our service to God and to others.

Today we often see any subject through one of two polarized lenses, especially in media and social media. I suggest we not choose just one, but try to absorb the topical points from multiple sources. As a college Journalism major, I was trained to read 6 – 7 newspapers (remember them?) daily, and was constantly surprised how the same story appeared so differently according to which paper reported on it. The media have changed today but the lenses remain the same. Yes, we could choose one that fits our current beliefs and remain comfortable. Or, we can seek out multiple, often contrasting views, and likely find the truth somewhere in the middle.

All those views out there may clash with each other, and with our existing view of the world in which we live. However, there is something stimulating about our ability to keep growing in our mindfulness and spirituality at any age. We can choose to hunker down in our mental caves, avoiding new discomforts. As Vincentians, however, we choose to listen and then discern, because we do indeed care.

Yours in Christ,
Dave Barringer
CEO

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Contemplation – Together Towards Holiness
Contemplation – Together Towards Holiness 940 788 SVDP USA

New friends are silver, they say, and old friends are gold. Maintaining our friendships during this long year of absence and isolation has been challenging.

As Blessed Frédéric Ozanam once explained, friendships, when we are separated, can be nourished via letters, which are a “truly an epistolary meeting where one always gains and never loses.” [Letter 142. 1837]

Surely our modern conference calls and videoconferences have served us as ably as the letters of another era, yet even in these modern days, “friendship being a harmony between souls…cannot subsist in a prolonged absence.” [Ibid]

As challenging as it is to maintain our friendships without meeting in person, it is nearly impossible to form new ones, as we are called to do with the neighbors we serve. On Home Visits, we learn not only from words and facial expressions, but from the full circumstances and surroundings; body language; interaction with others in the home; things we can only experience in person.

All friendships are strengthened by spending time together, whether sharing a meal, a conversation, a movie, or other recreation. But our Vincentian friendship is a special bond, whose “strongest tie… is charity… It is a fire that dies without being fed, and good works are the food of charity.” [Letter 82 1834]

This friendship is more than recreational, more than mere “silver or gold.” It is one of the Essential Elements of our vocation, formed, nourished, and strengthened at every Conference meeting and home visit.

Indeed, the first edition of the Rule in 1835 declared that “the unity of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul will be cited as a model of Christian friendship… which …will make of all our hearts one heart, of all our souls one soul…”

It is through our friendship that we answer our calling to “journey together towards holiness.” [Rule, Part I, 2.2] In our Conference meetings, where we gather together in His name; in prayer, where our voices joined; on our Home Visits, where we serve as He asked us to serve; there, as He promised, Christ will be in our midst.

As grateful as we are for technologies that have kept us connected during this time, one of the blessings we look forward to as we return to normalcy in coming weeks and months is the renewal of our living friendship. Vincentian friendship, like our relationship with God, is ultimately not intended to be a long-distance relationship.

Contemplate

When gathered with my Vincentian friends, do I look for Christ in our midst? Do I find Him?

Recommended Reading

Turn Everything to Love

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05-06-2021 News Roundup
05-06-2021 News Roundup 1200 1200 SVDP USA

Through the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Vincentians across the United States and around the world are finding spiritual growth by providing person-to-person service to those who are needy and suffering. Read some of their stories here:

NATIONAL

Help us share the good news of the good work being done in your local Conference or Council! Email us at info@svdpusa.org with the subject line Good News.

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05-06-2021 A Letter From Our Servant Leaders
05-06-2021 A Letter From Our Servant Leaders 150 150 SVDP USA

This week I visited a Council with a small film crew to record what Vincentians have been doing during the pandemic, and how it differs from pre-COVID practices to serve neighbors in need. Much more on this at a future date, but we look forward to sharing the Society’s year of  innovative love and caring with the country soon!

At the end of my time there, I met for a nice dinner with a few of the Council and Conference officers who were gracious in hosting us for the filming. Some of the leaders had not met in person for over a year. One president had not left her home since last March! I was happy to be their excuse to get together — safely — in Vincentian friendship.

Such Society of St. Vincent de Paul family reunions are taking place as they are able, all over the world. It is both a reunion and a reawakening!

What I see is a bunch of isolated test kitchens for innovative practices in Home Visits, food pantries, and other services that until last year were usually conducted in person. Often a Conference developed their own practices without a lot of coordination, best practice sharing, or outside resources other than prohibitions to stay safe. Now we are better able to come together and share how it all worked (or not).

Sure, we all learned Zoom and other technologies to meet virtually, and even to take Ozanam Orientations and other formation and training. Something, though, was lacking when we couldn’t actually see what was happening. Following a laptop view through the food pantry isn’t the same as being there.

Most of all, as I continue to see in visits, is that we missed each other. Our Essential Element of Friendship, at least among each other as Vincentians, has been sorely missed once it was removed from us. Perhaps we took this for granted? Absence truly does make the Vincentian heart grow fonder!

While we celebrate being together again, let’s be sure to record what we have been doing. We pray for no more serious and long-term disruptions in our work, but let’s remember what worked in case we need it, or those who come after us need to put it all again into practice.

Better yet, what did we change that should now be considered as more permanent evolution we wish to keep? No, in case one is tempted, we aren’t keeping virtual Home Visits unless safety demands it. But what have we done differently to stay safe that we want to keep doing? What efficiencies did the pandemic demand of us that now, when conditions have improved, we want to maintain? What partnerships and collaborations did we learn of and grow during this crazy time that have introduced us to more permanent relationships to help those in need?

None of us want a return to the conditions this past year that forced us to change. Now, though, we can look at this change and determine if it was a necessary short-term adjustment to keep our works alive. Did those conditions force us out of our comfort zones instead to think and serve differently, resulting in lasting improvements or at least new options?

St. Vincent himself said, “Love is inventive to infinity.” He didn’t say what might cause this creativity to happen! Let’s view each day, and each wrinkle in our lives, good or bad, as an opportunity to do better as we do good.

Yours in Christ,
Dave Barringer
CEO

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Contemplation: Our Labor of Love
Contemplation: Our Labor of Love 940 788 SVDP USA

On the very first page of our Rule you will find a truly remarkable statement: “No work of charity is foreign to the Society.” [Rule, Pt. I, 1.3]

All modern communities thrive by specialization; farmers farm, builders build, writers write, and so on. Within the community of charitable and philanthropic organizations, there also tends to be specialization; shelters for the homeless, food pantries for the hungry, utility assistance, legal aid — the list, especially in this generous nation, is nearly endless.

Through specialization, each of us contributing what we are best able to contribute, more needs can be met overall, and this is obviously to the good!

But the Society of St Vincent de Paul not only lacks a specialty, it would seem that we explicitly dismiss specialization.

Or do we?

Vincentians are called, above all else, “to follow Christ through service to those in need and so bear witness to His compassionate and liberating love.” [Rule, Pt. I, 1.2]

Our service, our works, are the means towards growth in holiness; we’re called to see the face of Christ in those we serve, to fulfill His teaching, and to draw others to Christ through our example of charity.

And so, on our Home Visits, when we observe not only additional material needs, but ways in which we might help to alleviate the causes of the neighbor’s distress, we eagerly seek to do so, through our individual efforts, and through our many special works, from Thrift Stores to disaster relief; from tutoring to prison ministries.

None of these works stems from an ambition merely to provide greater amounts of material assistance, but from a commitment to love our neighbors as ourselves.

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul, then, does have a specialty, but it is the charity, not the works.

We’re not, after all, the Society of Rent Assistance, or of Groceries; we are the Society of St Vincent de Paul, called by the example of our patron to “love God with the strength of our arms and the sweat of our brows.”[CCD XI:32] Charity itself is not a work; charity is love. No work offered in love is foreign to us.

And if we truly seek to serve Christ, how can it be otherwise?

Contemplate
Do I serve my neighbor for love alone?

Recommended Reading
Vincentian Meditations – especially 23. The Vincentian Witness

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04-29-2021 News Roundup
04-29-2021 News Roundup 1200 1200 SVDP USA

Through the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Vincentians across the United States and around the world are finding spiritual growth by providing person-to-person service to those who are needy and suffering. Read some of their stories here:

INTERNATIONAL

 AUSTRALIA: Vinnies 2021 CEO Sleepout will bring awareness to homelessness
AUSTRALIA: St. Stanislaus College students provide items of warmth to Vinnies’ appeal

NATIONAL

ATLANTA, GA: Social workers in Gwinnett libraries help residents with varied needs
BEND, OR: New village in Bend aims to provide shelter, aid to homeless people
BOISE, ID: St. Vincent de Paul hosts ‘Open House Days’
MEDFORD, OR: St. Vincent raises rent relief dollars
SEATTLE, WA: Specialized services help Latino immigrants and their young children
SOUTH BEND, IN: Jack’s Donuts partners with Sweet Dreams Ministry

Help us share the good news of the good work being done in your local Conference or Council! Email us at info@svdpusa.org with the subject line Good News.

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04-29-2021 Letter from Our Servant Leaders
04-29-2021 Letter from Our Servant Leaders 275 287 SVDP USA

We all learned something this past pandemic year. Individuals learned how much they can stand their family members in the house for long periods of time. They memorized the pizza carryout phone number. And they realized how much we miss airplanes, meetings with real, live people and the concept of breaking bread together – without a mask, closer than six feet apart.

Businesses and organizations such as the Society of St. Vincent de Paul are learning from the past year, too. Was it a better idea to have cubicles or private offices? Can workers be as effective, efficient, and even trusted when they aren’t in the office looking at each other every day? And we all learned new tech tools to bring us together — from a distance of course.

A painful lesson for some, including a few groups in the Society, is diversification of income streams. We learned the hard way. If all of our Conference revenues come from parishioners in the pews, and suddenly the parish is closed for public Mass, that income largely disappears. If a Council invested all their resources into thrift stores at the expense of fundraising and other incomes, and again, suddenly those stores can’t be open for business, that’s a serious scenario.

Costs don’t end when the income stops, unless you make intentional, serious decisions. This may involve staff layoffs, cutting programs, and otherwise reducing the footprint of the organization. Rent and utility bills, just as we see for those we serve, continue whether or not you have income. You may be a local restaurant or a multinational corporation, but having all of your income eggs in one basket was a painful place to be this past year.

The National Council has been blessed to be funded by member solidarity dues, and even more so this year when Councils continued to pay these funds amid their own uncertain incomes. Fortunately, the solidarity covers 30-40 percent of our operating budget, not all of it. Other income streams include traditional fundraising, bequests, member purchases of publications, event fees, and shared partnerships with vendors. That might seem an unwieldly combination of many inputs into an annual budget. The reality, though, is that this revenue diversification allows us to do much more on members’ behalf than permitted through only dues. Also, if the operating environment changes as drastically as it did this past year, some streams will fare better or worse, but we can manage through the challenging period.

As we all develop strategic plans and related financial conversations among friends, we should consider how this past year challenged our risk assumptions. Did we do well financially, but only because a major grant came out of nowhere? Many stores roared back to profits after the shutdown, in part due to federal stimulus payments and newly-cleaned closets full of material donations, but what if they hadn’t? How did our fundraising change, and perform, this past year? Overall, did we have a plan that worked, or were we simply lucky? In which ways did God bless our work and finances?

Looking at the present pandemic situation, we suddenly have millions of federal dollars available for rent and utility assistance due to COVID. By helping our friends in need to apply for these funds, we preserve our locally-raised dollars for other services, or we can help each person coming to us a bit more. Even though the Society does not receive these funds directly, this is revenue diversification to extend and expand our mission works.

We pray for God’s providence, and we trust Him to give us what we need. The first thing He gives us, though, is an ability to learn and adapt. What did we learn this year about our capacity to serve? What did we learn about our corporate, foundation, government, and other partners and collaborators? How much did our reputation grow, or get harmed, by our physical presence in our neighborhoods? How then did our reputation, mixed with prayer and respectful solicitation, help us raise the funds we needed to serve?

These questions could be ignored if we choose to try and forget the past year. Or, in response to God’s blessings and challenges to grow, we can assess, learn, and change. As with most Vincentian activity, this will be even better if we do it as friends serving in hope together.

Yours in Christ,
Dave Barringer
CEO

 

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New Conference With Special Tie to St. Gianna Beretta Molla
New Conference With Special Tie to St. Gianna Beretta Molla 680 583 SVDP USA

St. Gianna Molla Parish was erected by Denver Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila in 2018. Fr. Jason Wunsch, who was the Parochial Vicar at Ascension Parish, was appointed as pastor of the new parish.

Fr. Wunsch and Archbishop Aquila are pictured here with Gianna Emanuela Molla, St. Gianna Molla’s daughter, at her mother’s grave in Mesero, Italy. Gianna Emanuela has since come to visit the parish in Denver and gave her testimony.

Fr. Jason was instrumental in initiating a Society of St. Vincent de Paul Conference at the new parish in April 2021. The Conference was approved by the National Council of the U.S. on April 28, the feast day of St. Gianna. The St. Gianna Molla parish boundaries cover a large area, including Denver International Airport, multiple new housing developments, and a rapidly growing population.

About St. Gianna Molla

St. Gianna Beretta Molla (1922-1961) was an Italian pediatrician and the tenth of 13children in her family. At the age of 20, she entered medical school in Milan and was diligent as a student and as a Catholic. While a medical student, she became a member of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and was active in reaching out to the elderly and needy.

She specialized in pediatrics and received degrees in medicine and surgery from the University of Pavia in 1949. Gianna was devoted to babies and mothers and at the same time, the elderly and poor. She opened a medical office in Mesero near Magenta where she was born.

Gianna married Pietro Molla in 1955. Their fourth child, Gianna Emanuela Molla, was successfully delivered by Caesarean section in 1961, but Gianna died from complications. She insisted that the baby be saved at the risk of her own life.

Gianna was beatified by Pope John Paul on April 24, 1994, and officially canonized as a saint on May 16, 2004. Her husband and their children attended her canonization ceremony.

St. Gianna Beretta Molla’s feast day is celebrated on April 28.

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Contemplation: God’s Gift, Wrapped in Humility
Contemplation: God’s Gift, Wrapped in Humility 940 788 SVDP USA

Have you ever seen somebody, puffed up with himself, stride into a room, clearly expecting to be the center of attention? Sometimes we hear people mutter, “He thinks he’s God’s gift to us…”

It’s a shame that this expression is used as a derisive commentary on personal vanity, because, when you think about it, aren’t we all “God’s gifts?” That seems like an easy thing to understand when we refer to a newborn infant as a “gift from God.”

You, too, are “God’s gift” to your brothers and sisters. So am I. This is not a validation of our vanity — quite the opposite! In vanity, we make ourselves the center. By contrast, as God’s gift, I am not for me, I am for you. God is the center. He carefully created us, wrapped us, and sent us.

To be God’s gift, then, is a call not to vanity, but to our Vincentian virtue of humility in which we accept that “all that God gives us is for others and that we can achieve nothing of eternal value without His grace.” [Rule, Part I, 2.5.1]

Following Christ’s call to serve Him in the person of His poor, Vincentians seek to share not only our time, our talents, and our possessions, but also ourselves in a spirit of generosity. [Ibid]

And in giving, we receive.

As Fr. Hugh O’Donnell explains in an article titled Apostolic Reflection, “God is present in each person and in the community.”

In other words, while each of us is a unique creature of God, all of us together, as a group, also are a unique instance of God’s grace. The group does not change when a new person enters — it becomes an entirely new group, enriched by receiving another gift from God.

The vain man sees himself not only as the gift, but as the giver; the one who should be thanked. We are called to offer God’s gift, wrapped in humility, seeking nothing in return. Miraculously, when we do so, this gift of love will be multiplied.

What a wonderful exchange of gifts; what a wonderful celebration!

For we truly are the gifts when God is the Life of the party.

Contemplate

Are there times I try to keep this gift to myself?

Recommended Reading

Mystic of Charity

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04-22-2021 News Roundup
04-22-2021 News Roundup 1200 1200 SVDP USA

Through the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Vincentians across the United States and around the world are finding spiritual growth by providing person-to-person service to those who are needy and suffering. Read some of their stories here:

INTERNATIONAL

NATIONAL

Help us share the good news of the good work being done in your local Conference or Council! Email us at info@svdpusa.org with the subject line Good News.

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