Spirituality

“There is no act of charity,” St. Vincent once wrote, “that is not accompanied by justice…” [CCD II:68] We so often see the words “charity” and “justice” used together that we perhaps don’t often think enough about what these words mean, and what they mean for us to do in practice.

We know that charity, the greatest of the theological virtues, is love, and that our acts of charity are in turn the means by which we express and live this virtue: loving God and neighbor. [CCC, 1822]  But justice seems like a harder word, doesn’t it?

Our human justice, the legal system, seems focused mainly on punishment, and when we think of God’s justice we may think mainly of the Final Judgment. Yet it should be clear that St. Vincent is not asking us to pass judgment on anybody, much less to punish them. Nor is Frédéric, when he calls upon us to “to make charity accomplish what justice alone cannot do.” [Letter 136, to Lallier, 1836]

Taken in context, Vincent’s letter was to a missioner regarding a large donation that had been sent to him to support the religious, reminding hm to “use none of it for any other purpose under any pretext of charity whatsoever.” [CCD II:68] In other words, taking what belongs to somebody else, even to help the poor, cannot be an act of charity because it is unjust.

In a similar way, Frédéric was calling to “to make equality as operative as is possible among men; to make voluntary community replace imposition and brute force; to make charity accomplish what justice alone cannot do.” [Letter 136, to Lallier, 1836] It’s the Christian duty, in other words, for those who have much to give it away of their own accord. It is not our duty to try to force them. And if what each of us can spare is not enough, then we dig deeper, beyond what we think we can spare.

We sometimes say of convicted criminals that “they got what they deserved!” That is justice, but all persons deserve certain things. After all, God did not place us on the earth, living in community, so that some of us might starve. As John the Baptist preached, for the man who has two coats, one belongs to him, and the other belongs to the man with no coat. Having “two coats” was a sign of wealth 2000 years ago, but each of us can ask ourselves today “what is my second coat? To whom does it belong?”

As Pope Saint Gregory the Great explained, when we give “necessaries of any kind to the indigent, we do not bestow our own, but render them what is theirs; we rather pay a debt of justice…” [P.R., Bk III] Giving our time and ourselves is charity. Treating the poor with dignity is justice. Assisting them with money donated for that purpose is justice. That is why “Conference members should never adopt the attitude that the money is theirs, or that the recipients have to prove that they deserve it.” [Manual, 23]

Contemplate

What is my “second coat”? To whom does it belong?

Recommended Reading

Serving in Hope, Module IV – Our Vincentian Mission

Writing to his friend Auguste Materne, a 17-year-old Frédéric Ozanam tried to sum up his good points and his bad points. The bad side he reduced to “four predominant faults: pride, impatience, weakness, and an extreme meticulousness” which he went on to explain in more detail, then closed with an odd self-assessment: “Add to these faults that of despising the neighbor a little too easily and you have my bad side.” [Letter 12, to Materne, 1830] Less than three years before founding the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, whose members are dedicated to loving and serving our neighbors, this man, this role model of holiness, admitted to “despising the neighbor a little too easily”?

The younger Frédéric recognized his own pride and impatience, which sometimes led him to intolerance. He concluded that he thought he “could become either a very wicked or a very virtuous man.” Ozanam’s frankness may be a reminder that each of us has a saint within us, struggling to be set free from our human weaknesses, whatever they may be, and in order to achieve the holiness we seek, we all need help. As our Rule puts it, “Vincentians are aware of their own brokenness and need for God’s grace.” [Rule, Part I, 2.2]

Frédéric, whose beatification attests to the holiness he ultimately attained, found the grace to go beyond his own brokenness in the very place that we may find it, too – in the Society he founded for this very purpose. Indeed, only nine years after delineating his own weaknesses, he would write to Father Lacordaire, saying “I greatly fear to lose in useless efforts time I could more modestly and surely employ for my salvation and the service of the neighbor.” [Letter 211, to Lacordaire, 1839] His impatience had reversed itself, and he now urgently sought to serve the neighbor.

Each of us, Frédéric wrote, “carries within his heart a seed of sanctity”. [Letter 137, to Janmot, 1837] It is in the poor that we see God, and are able to serve Him and thus grow closer to Him; to nurture that seed. This is both the lesson of Frédéric’s life, and the example he leaves for us; an example of holiness attained, but more importantly, an example of growth in holiness.

Beyond even that, Frédéric shows us how to grow in holiness together, asking his fellow Vincentians to “not allow yourselves to be stopped by those who will say to you, ‘He is in Heaven.’ Pray always for him who loves you dearly, for him who has greatly sinned. If I am assured of these prayers, I quit this earth with less fear.” [Baunard, 386] In return, Léonce Curnier would say after his lifelong friend’s death that “I never think of Frédéric without an inclination to invoke his assistance… I seem to see him in Heaven between St. Vincent de Paul and St. Francis de Sales, whose faithful disciple he was.” [Ibid, 406]

May we continue to serve Christ, and to pray for each other’s salvation. Pray for us Blessed Frédéric!

Contemplate

Do I always pray for my fellow Vincentians, living and dead, and ask also for their prayers?

Recommended Reading

15 Days of Prayer with Blessed Frédéric Ozanam