Vincentians

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Contemplation: Old and Ever New
Contemplation: Old and Ever New 1080 1080 SVDP USA

With the rapid growth of the Society within its first two years, there arose a debate as to whether the first Conference, now grown quite large, ought to split in two. “Do you not think that our charitable society itself ought to make changes in order to survive,” asked Blessed Frédéric, noting that the change was necessary not to become something different, but to maintain our special character as a small group of friends acting and praying together. [85, to Bailly, 1834] To continue, then, it could no longer be a single conference, but would instead become many conferences.

In our Conferences, Frédéric later observed, “there is change as in all human things.” When the loss of members causes “some weakness … the cleared ranks are soon filled with newcomers … whose more ardent zeal, new ideas, and original insights prevent routine from setting in and the primitive fervor dying.” [141, to Ballofet, 1837] This is why we continue to welcome “all those who seek to live their faith loving and committing themselves to their neighbor in need.” [Rule, Part I, 3.1]

Founded in a time and place where the Church was far weaker, and poverty far greater than today, the Society had as its primary purpose the renewal of the faith — first among the members, then the poor, and finally throughout society. Challenged to show the good of the Church by those who believed that “modern” systems of philanthropy could do greater good by merely distributing bread, our founders recognized that there is no greater good than to do as our Savior did: to go to the poor, to encounter Jesus where he told us He would be, and to share His hope and His love through our person to person service.

Throughout our 191 years, the Society has adapted to many changes in the world around us. We especially try always to recognize and understand new forms of poverty so that we can truly “strive to seek out and find those in need and the forgotten, the victims of exclusion or adversity.” [Rule, Part I, 1.5] Time and again, we find that adaptations are necessary not to change who we are, but to preserve our essence; to renew, not to replace the vision of Blessed Frédéric and his six friends.

As Ozanam biographer Msgr. Louis Baunard explained, the Society “is not old, if you mean by that term superannuated, withered; but it is old, meaning thereby experienced, powerful; old and ever new; as with all things immortal and divine. It is, I admit, not modern, in the sense that a thing is the fashion for a particular time, or in a particular country. But it is, and continues to be, young with eternal youth, with the youth of Charity that knows not decay.” [Baunard, 416]

Contemplate

Do I take the time to recommit myself to growing in holiness through service to Christ’s poor?

Recommended Reading

Antoine-Frédéric Ozanam

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03-21-24 A Letter From Our Servant Leaders
03-21-24 A Letter From Our Servant Leaders 1200 1200 SVDP USA

In my mid-20s, I joined a recreational volleyball group that resulted in some lifelong friends (and even in meeting my wife). It was a group of mostly singles that played every Wednesday night, and then everyone went out for pizza and beer at the local pub. Newly arriving women were invited to the pub part right away; for us men, it might take a few weeks before new dating competition was asked to join in!

My first interest in the group was from reading about it in the local newspaper. I didn’t know anyone there, so it was a risky move for me to step outside my comfort zone to meet new people. For two or three weeks, I heard the side chatter about getting together afterward, but I didn’t speak up. I played and then went home.  Eventually a friendly guy asked me to join everyone and, despite my initial shyness, I accepted. Looking back decades later, that personal invitation changed my life.

Sound familiar? Despite our own examples of such invitations, some Vincentians still believe that prospective members will read about the Society in the parish bulletin and just show up. That does happen, albeit rarely — but is that our recruitment strategy? While we aren’t asking fellow parishioners to join us, we instead sit in the Conference meeting and complain that we don’t have enough help!

Perhaps even worse is when we take part in the parish ministry fair or have a table in the back of the church. We operate like a trade show booth, advertising our product and maybe even posting a sign about when we meet. We keep that table between us and our prospects, and the activity is a drive-by interaction. It’s no wonder that we see few (if any) new members from this form of recruiting.

Picture a huge funnel. At the tip (or bottom), there is a new member. At the widest part of the top, we can list advertising, posters, and other mass marketing tools and activities. The next level down is where we find the parish booth, and then the Invitation to Serve pulpit talks. (Check it out on our website!) The most crucial level is next, what we call the “close” — the personal invitation to join. In marketing lingo, we go from a broadcast approach to a targeted, specific call to action. That’s how it works. In fact, it’s almost the only way it works!

Ah, but there is also a hidden, second funnel. It goes in the opposite direction from the new member’s arrival. You see, the process should not stop when they walk in the door.

At the tip of this second funnel is the welcoming at the new member’s first meeting. Are they welcomed by name? Are they encouraged to participate? Do they receive a Member Handbook and/or other materials that explain who we are and what we do? Do we treat them like new friends?

The next part of the funnel is the Onboarding process. Granted, this can be different for each Conference, but it should involve getting the new member out with a team for a Home Visit. You might assign a mentor to answer all those initial questions. Please don’t forget to include all three of our Essential Elements of Friendship, Spirituality and Service in these orientation weeks. We want them to have a welcoming exposure to every part of our mission.

Notice that I did not include an Ozanam Orientation thus far in this funnel. This deserves specific attention. Some Councils only offer Orientations at set times throughout the year, so you may be held hostage a bit to the calendar. If you recruit enough new members, add a new Ozanam Orientation to meet demand! Otherwise, look to schedule this for every member, new and old, within a brief, reasonable time.

The widest part of the second funnel is the everyday activity of the Conference (and perhaps your Council). Where do the interests of each new member lie? Are some attracted to filling out paperwork (just kidding, no one ever chooses this one), food pantry work, systemic change classes, prison visits, or maybe, God bless them, do they only want to go on Home Visits? Let’s meet new members halfway, matching initial interests with anything we do, instead of forcing them into where we need them the most.

At the center of the funnels is the personal ask. Weren’t you asked at some point by a friend, priest or fellow parishioner to consider joining the Society? Why should we believe this ask to be unnecessary for others?

It’s always a good time to ask someone to join you for pizza and beer. It is likewise always a good time to ask someone if they would like to meet Jesus and join the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

Yours in Christ,
Dave Barringer
National CEO

 

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Contemplation: A Friend of a Friend
Contemplation: A Friend of a Friend 747 747 SVDP USA

Have you ever had a friend with very different interests than your own? Maybe he was a big baseball fan, and you just didn’t follow that sport, or he had a great appreciation for art, but you couldn’t stand museums. How did that affect your friendship? Often, over time, we find that our own interests start to converge with those of our friends; we begin to appreciate the art or the sport or the hobby that animates our friends. We go to a ball game, or watch it on TV, and even begin to cheer for our friend’s team. And why wouldn’t we? We are interested because they are interested. It’s one of the ways we naturally show our friendship and our love.

There is, Our Savior tells us, no greater love than to lay down one’s life for his friends. As a result, St. Vincent asks, “Can we have a better friend than God?” And if He is our friend, “Must we not love all that He loves and, for love of Him, consider our neighbor as our friend!” [CCD XI:39]

It turns out that God, our best friend, has a more fanatical love for the neighbor than any sports fan has for his favorite team. As St. Catherine of Siena put it, God is pazzo d’amore, ebro d’amore (crazy in love, drunk with love) for each and every one of us! If we can watch the game with our friend, we can love the neighbor for our God — it should be completely natural for us to do so. This is exactly what the words of our catechism mean when they call us to love God above all things for His own sake, and the neighbor as ourselves for the love of God. St. John even went so far as to say that “whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen”.

We may begin our service solely to fulfill our duty to Christ’s instruction, but if we love God, if we truly seek to make His will our own, we will find that we cannot help but begin to share His passions. God loves the neighbor; He is rooting for the neighbor; He is weeping for the neighbor. As His beloved friends, how can we not devote ourselves just as passionately to that same neighbor?

We see then, that it is our friendship with God that leads us to friendship with the neighbor; to what the Rule calls a “relationship based on trust and friendship”. [Rule, Part I, 1.9] Yet true friendships are mutual, and so, as Frédéric put it, the neighbor “whom you love loves you in return.” [O’Meara, 177] What is our passion that the neighbor might begin to share?

We often say that we evangelize through our actions, that we show the beauty of our faith through our example. If this truly is so, then our love for God should be as obvious as our friend’s team jersey on game day. In our manner and in our actions, the love of God and for God should illuminate every home visit, shining forth in our gentleness, simplicity, and humble service. Through us, God arrives as a friend of a friend, and we welcome each neighbor into our circle of friends.

Contemplate

Does my friendship invite the neighbor to friendship with God?

Recommended Reading

Turn Everything to Love

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Contemplation: To Do a Little Good
Contemplation: To Do a Little Good 1080 1080 SVDP USA

In Monsieur Vincent, the 1947 movie about our patron’s life, he is asked near the end of his life if there is anything he wished he had done. His reply is simple: “More.” This captures the indefatigable commitment to new and creative works that characterized his life, but perhaps does not fully capture his belief or his teaching.

In a 1657 report to the Ladies of Charity, Vincent took care, while praising their many good works, to caution them to “moderate these practices; for, according to the proverb, ‘Whoever embraces too much, loses his grip.’ It has happened to other Companies … that, because they took on things beyond their strength, they collapsed under the burden.” [CCD XIIIb: 437] More is not always more virtuous, bigger is not always better. In his turn, Frédéric also expressed this idea often, especially in defense of the Society’s works against those who criticized it as the “charity of a glass of water.” In other words, the critics only measured success in worldly terms, by pounds of bread, or vast numbers of people reached. The Society, on the other hand, measures success by the tears we dry, the hands we hold, and the hearts we touch with the love of God. We imitate Christ in celebrating each home visit like the shepherd who leaves his entire flock for the sake of a single lost sheep.

In a letter to his cousin Ernest Falconnet he elaborated on this idea, saying that “… it would be a thousand times better to languish in obscurity for half a century, edifying others with a spirit of resignation and doing some little good, than to be intoxicated for a few brief months with worldly pleasure, and then die in its delirium.” [Baunard, 349]

If our reward for our works is in heaven, so is our motive for pursuing them in the first place. We are not called by ambition, but by God to this vocation. Ours “is a work of God and not a human work. I have said this before; human persons would be unable to achieve it, so God Himself became involved in it. Every good action comes from God; He is the author of every holy work.” [CCD XIIIb: 431]

So we are bound not always to do “more,” but always to do His will, always to share His love, always to love Him in the neighbor. And when our work is done each week, we pray and reflect on it together, discerning together what God has told us through our Vincentian encounters, how we have grown closer to Him, and to hope, with Bl. Frédéric, “that this Society of St. Vincent de Paul … which has been allowed to do a little good, will continue to prosper under the divine benediction.” [141, To Ballofet, 1837]

Certainly, some of our works are, or may become great, but every one of us can do a little good. Then again, when you think about it, since all good is from God, there really is no such thing as “a little good.”

Contemplate

Do I try to pause and focus on the “little good” first?

Recommended Reading

The Frédéric Ozanam Story

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03-07-25 A Letter From Our Servant Leaders
03-07-25 A Letter From Our Servant Leaders 1200 1200 SVDP USA

This is the last in a series of three Servant Leader columns before next week’s Midyear Meeting that address VisionSVdP.  Today I’d like to explain a little more about how the process will work over the next year, and talk a bit about how you can get involved.

We will formally ‘kick off’ VisionSVdP at the Midyear Meeting in St. Louis with five Listening Sessions. All Midyear attendees will be randomly assigned to one of five groups and will meet for approximately 1 ½ hours. This will occur following a session by me on the process, and after a Keynote Address by the National Council President of Australia, who will speak about the process there, and a Spiritual Retreat by Archbishop Andrew Bellisario, CM, our National Episcopal Advisor.

At the Listening Sessions, Midyear attendees will have a free-flowing discussion about the Society. They will all begin with the same question: What does the Rule, Part 1, 1.6: “Adaptation to a Changing World” mean to you?

From there, they will discuss anything and everything that they want to. Someone at each table will capture everyone’s comments — because every voice matters. Two moderators per room (typically Regional VPs) will then attempt to capture the essence of the discussions; when the entire group reconvenes, we’ll have a conversation about the process. The goal is not to highlight any comments as more important than any other, but to debrief how people felt. Were their voices heard? Did they learn anything? Did anything ‘click’ from the conversation?

This process will repeat itself at the Regional meetings.

So, you ask: What about me? I’m not going to Midyear or the Regional Meeting. How do I get involved??

GOOD QUESTION!  You get involved because we want every Conference and every Council and every Special Work to do this as well. AND WE WILL HELP YOU!

Now, let’s be very open and very, very honest here. We will face many naysayers and people who just want to keep on doing things the way we always have, either because it’s easier, or because they fear change. Then we’ll have the inevitable organizational inertia that will never find the time to schedule the sessions — we’re too busy, we’re too important doing other “real Vincentian work,” etc, etc. They will all resist doing these sessions. WE CANNOT LET THAT HAPPEN.

Engage with the VisionSVdP process at your Conference and in your Council and Region. Become a Champion for the effort! Contact your Regional VP, contact your Council President, contact me. Make sure the process gets to you and is carried out. Because your voice matters.

After all these sessions are held in 2024 (including at the National Assembly in Phoenix), we will start a National Conversation process in 2025 about what we have heard and what it means for how we adapt and change.

Peace and God’s blessings,
John

John Berry
National President

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Contemplation: Guideposts on the Journey
Contemplation: Guideposts on the Journey 791 790 SVDP USA

To boast about our accomplishments in works of charity brings to mind a routine by the comedian Chris Rock, in which he jokes about people who brag when they do what they are supposed to do. (“I graduated high school!” “You’re supposed to graduate high school!”, etc.) We are Christians — we’re supposed to feed the hungry, comfort the sick, welcome the stranger; to seek and to serve Christ in the poor, just as he said we should.

Humility should remind us that no matter how great the material result of our works may appear, it is not our accomplishment anyway, for “all that God gives us is for others … we can achieve nothing of eternal value without His grace.” [Rule, Part I, 2.5.1] St. Vincent de Paul, whose works we know truly changed the world, often explained that they were not his doing, but God’s. “Worldly respect,” Frédéric warned, is the “greatest danger” to the integrity of our work. [Baunard, 297]

We undertake these works for one primary purpose: in order to “to journey together towards holiness.” [Rule, Part I, 2.2] This journey doesn’t happen by itself; we must take each step intentionally. We must strive consciously to connect our works to our growth; to discern in the people and experiences of our Vincentian vocation the face of Christ, the voice of the Holy Spirit, and the will of God in our lives.

We do this first by reflecting silently and prayerfully after each home visit, perhaps writing down in a journal the feelings and thoughts it brought to our mind and to our heart. We also take time to “re-read” experiences long past; like coming to the end of a mystery novel, and surprised by the ending, turning back to an early chapter where we find that the clues were there all along, we just didn’t see them before. In a similar way, we now see past experiences with new eyes, transformed by more recent experiences. God remains present to us in our memories, still speaking the word He meant for us to hear; ready for us to hear it and to understand it whenever we are ready.

Growing together in holiness also necessitates that we share our experiences and our insights with each other. We are created as social beings, meant to live in community, and our Conferences are our communities of faith. This is why our Rule calls us to spiritual reflection at every Conference meeting, where “members are always invited to comment as a means of sharing their faith”. [Rule, Part III, St. 7]  As the Catechism explains, it is “through the exchange with others, mutual service and dialogue with his brethren, man develops his potential; he thus responds to his vocation.” [CCC, 1879]

Sharing our faith, our insights, and our growth makes yours a part of mine, and mine a part of yours. In this way, we are privileged to act as guideposts for each other on our shared journey towards holiness.

Contemplate

Do I take the time to pray, reflect, and share the ways that I have grown spiritually through my service?

Recommended Reading

The Spirituality of the Home Visit – don’t just read it, use it!

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02-29-24 A Letter From Our Servant Leaders
02-29-24 A Letter From Our Servant Leaders 8335 2555 SVDP USA

Last week I announced the kickoff of VisionSVdP in an email to all Vincentians. Today, I’d like to spend a little more time discussing the reasons we’re launching this very important initiative at this time.

Let’s start by looking at why VisionSVdP is so important for us from the standpoint of all the great and positive things going on across the Society — things like these. (And there are a whole lot more!)

  • While we have seen declines in Conference membership as a whole (more on that later), we’ve also seen new Conferences being created, new membership growth in places, and even new Councils being formed. We need to talk about how and why that’s happening so we can capture the best practices; figure out how to support and scale those gains across the country; and help reverse the decline in membership we’re seeing in many places.
  • During COVID, many Councils and Conferences found an incredible surge of innovation and creativity in programs and services. New ways of serving people in need have been implemented and are now part of a better, more effective, and more far-reaching support system for our neighbors in need. We need to talk about those programs and help others implement them locally.
  • Councils and Conferences across the country have developed programs that are providing free medications to people with low income, moving people from the streets to homes, feeding thousands of people a day (yes, a day!) through kitchens, providing food via food pantries, doing so much more. We need to talk about how they’re doing these things, while other Councils and Conferences are struggling to answer the phone calls. What is making the difference?

And we also need to talk about the negative things. Here are just a few to think about.

  • Since 2016, we have lost almost 1,000 Conferences and nearly 10,000 members. Why? What can we do about it? Is it our structure? Do our meeting schedules make it impossible for working people, young families, and students to attend? Is it something else? Is it a combination of things?  We need to talk about how we make the Society a more welcoming and supportive community for people to serve, grow in spiritually, and grow in friendship and community.
  • The reality — and part of the answer to the question above — is that our Vincentians are getting ‘burned out.’ They are overworked, not fed spiritually, and burdened with necessary (yet still challenging) paperwork and reporting. We need to talk about all of these things. We must determine new ways to make being a Vincentian a joyful experience.
  • Face it, people generally run away when we ask them to consider Leadership roles in the Society. We need to talk about why. And then we need to talk about how we are going to fix it.
  • Our efforts to increase diversity have not kept pace with the growth in the diversity of the Church. While we have moderately increased the number of Hispanic, Latino, and African-American Vincentians, the percentage increases have not tracked with the increases in the Church.

So — that’s a bit of a deeper dive into why we’re launching VisionSVdP.

We need you to be part of it. For one simple reason.

BECAUSE EVERY VOICE MATTERS

Peace and God’s blessings,
John

John Berry
National President

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Contemplation: Not to Be Forgotten
Contemplation: Not to Be Forgotten 656 656 SVDP USA

There are thousands of agencies, organizations, and individuals who offer assistance to the poor. In our Conferences we often get to know them and refer neighbors to them when it seems they may be better able to provide for the needs we’ve encountered. We live in a very wealthy nation, filled with generous people. What is it then, that sets the Society apart? What do we bring to the neighbor?

In Frédéric’s time, also, there were other organizations, many of them better funded than the fledgling Society. Yet, he observed, “help is generally dispensed with such culpable indifference.” [1457, Report, 1834] Now, as in Frédéric’s time, our primary purpose in visiting the neighbor is not merely to bring them material assistance. Anybody can do that, and if we measured success in bread alone, it could probably be delivered more efficiently by Amazon, but if we believe as we say, that the hungry one is Christ, surely we are called to do more than toss a loaf of bread on His porch.

In a beloved scene from the 1947 movie Monsieur Vincent, the saint explains that “Only because of your love, and your love only, will the poor forgive you for the bread you’re giving them.” More important than what we give is the manner in which we give it – not carefully measured out from our treasuries, but poured out from our hearts. For Frédéric, this devotion is what prevented Conferences from “degenerating to welfare bureaus.” [182, to Lallier, 1838] The assistance we offer is guided by “the inspirations of the heart rather than the calculations of the mind.” [82, to Curnier, 1834]

And after all, a loaf of bread or an electric bill are only temporary comforts; bringing more of them doesn’t really make them less so. As Frédéric observed, “a donation of bread and money is very meager compared to the support our religion requires us to bring for the comfort of sick souls.” [1457, Report, 1834] As our Rule still reminds us, “Vincentians should never forget that giving love, talents, and time is more important than giving money.” [Rule, Part I, 3.14]

We are called to serve in hope; not the hope of a paid bill, a full belly, or a word of practical advice. All those things, as important as they may be in the moment, will pass. We are called to bring with us what Pope Benedict XVI called the “great hope that cannot be destroyed.” [Spe Salvi, 35]

The poet Maya Angelou once said that “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” So it is with the neighbors we serve. They will forget the groceries or the light bill; those things anybody can bring. But through our visit, they will feel no longer ashamed, no longer forgotten, no longer alone. They will feel loved — by us, and by the God who sent us.

Contemplate

Do I, in my actions and my manner, always reassure the neighbor of God’s love?

Recommended Reading

Faces of Holiness

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VisionSVdP: Because Every Voice Matters
VisionSVdP: Because Every Voice Matters 8335 2555 SVDP USA

Dear Vincentian Family,

Over the last six months you have likely heard and read about the launch of VisionSVdP, our “family conversation” that will occur over the next two years as we answer the call in our Rule to “Adapt to a Changing World.”

I first spoke about this in my remarks after my Installation as National President last year in St. Louis, and I have written about it often in the e-Gazette Servant Leader column and other places. Well, VisionSVdP will officially kick off at the Midyear Meeting in St. Louis March 13 – 16, so I wanted to provide some information and detail on what is ahead. There will also be more in next week’s e-Gazette.

The question that is probably first in many people’s minds is “What is VisionSVdP?”

Let me start by telling you what it is NOT. It’s not a program, it’s not a strategic plan process, it’s not a reorganization, it’s not a fundraising campaign, it’s not a make-work effort for already burdened Vincentians trying to serve people in need.

Well then… what IS IT, you ask? Well, it’s a conversation. That’s right, it’s a conversation. A Synodal (from the Greek for Journeying Together) conversation about the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. What’s good about it? What’s not so good about it? What are we doing right? What might we be doing better? What are we doing that we don’t need to be? What aren’t we doing that we should be doing? What’s enriching your spiritual life as a Vincentian? What’s stressing your spiritual life as a Vincentian? Why are we getting older and greyer even though we are trying to bring young people into our membership? Why can’t we move the needle on increasing diversity despite years of trying? Why are we still using pen and paper to complete casework forms when our grandkids are using tablets to do their homework in first grade??

Get it? This will be a conversation guided by, blessed by, and driven by God through the Holy Spirit.

The next question on your mind is probably “Why are we doing this?” There are a lot of reasons!

As I mentioned above, The Rule, written in 1836, call us to periodically “Adapt to a Changing World.” In Part I, 1.6 The Rule says: “Faithful to the spirit of its founders, the Society constantly strives for renewal, adapting to changing world conditions. It seeks to be aware of the changes that occur in human society and the new types of poverty that may be identified or anticipated. It gives priority to the poorest of the poor and to those who are most rejected by society.”

The last few decades in the United States (and in the world) have brought changing conditions that demand we look at how we must adapt and renew. Those changes were accelerated and exacerbated by the pandemic and the economic challenges faced here and abroad. We must look at the Society in the light of the reality of today and tomorrow — and we must change where change is called for.

Finally, how are we going to do this? We’re going to do it by talking, listening, respecting every person’s views, and then planning how we move forward. We are going to talk for a long time. We are going to talk for at least a year at every level in the Society — because EVERY VOICE MATTERS.

At the Midyear Meeting, we will hold Listening Breakout sessions. These are exactly what they are called — LISTENING Sessions. We are going to all listen to each other, because EVERY VOICE MATTERS. At the Regional Meeting we are going to hold Listening Sessions — because EVERY VOICE MATTERS. And then every Council and every Conference and every Thrift Store and every Food Pantry and every Special Work in the Society is going to hold Listening Sessions — because EVERY VOICE MATTERS.

And then we’re going to assimilate it and talk about it. But that’s next year’s work. This year we’re gonna talk — a lot!

Because EVERY VOICE MATTERS!

Peace and God’s Blessings,
John

John Berry
National President

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A Letter From Our Servant Leaders 02-22-24
A Letter From Our Servant Leaders 02-22-24 1200 1200 SVDP USA

God Answers

Imagine a young woman, 18 years of age, alone in solitude after her husband departs for work. She places her infant daughter down to sleep. A nudging from within prompts her to go and look upon her daughter, and she is obedient. She notices her firstborn turning blue. To the touch, she is cold. Breathing is absent. Immediately, she wraps her in blankets, sits in front of a space heater and begins to pray. Eventually she notices the blue fade, feels warm flesh, and hears her daughter cry for nourishment.

Imagine a call placed to a 43-year-old woman by her sister in the middle of the night to inform that their womb bearer had been in an accident, and death was believed to be imminent.

The words my mother spoke to God at 18 are not known to me, because she did not share them. I only know that she prayed for God to alter the circumstance, and He answered. I was embarking upon adulthood when my mother shared the experience. At the time of her sharing, I did not fathom sitting in the Intensive Care Unit of the University of Mississippi Medical Center, praying to God to deliver the same answer He gave my mother, and I don’t believe she fathomed me doing it. God answered me — but I did not receive the same answer.

There is a natural tendency to pray and ask God to alter circumstances. If the circumstances are not altered, there is an urge to state that the prayer was not answered. Indeed, I have often heard people say when the hindsight lens is in view, “I am glad God did not answer my prayer.” In truth, God answers all prayers. Consider the words of the Psalmist: “But God did hear and listened to my voice in prayer. Blessed be God who did not reject my prayer and refuse His mercy.” (Psalm 66:19 – 20.)

God need not alter the circumstances we pray about to answer. God’s answer to prayer could be changing us by allowing the circumstance to remain present. An even greater answer is the one which changes your relationship with Him.

Instead of giving me the answer He gave my mother, God chose to change my relationship with Him.

The mission of our society is: “A network of friends, inspired by Gospel values, growing in holiness and building a more just world through personal relations with and service to people in need.”

I was unaware of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul at the time of my mother’s death, but building a more just world through personal service to people in need was not a challenge for me. As a child, I watched and learned from my mother, great-great aunt, those residing in Shelby, Mississippi, and the Oblate Sisters of Providence who came to serve St. Gabriel’s Catholic School in Mound Bayou, Mississippi. Serving and giving to those in need was innate for me. It is innate for most Vincentians who accept the calling.

My challenge was intimacy with God. Is it a challenge for you? Growing in holiness is synonymous with intimacy with God. In my spirit, I knew that my mother’s earthly journey had come to an end before I offered the prayer. I offered the prayer because I had no desire to experience the inevitable sorrow. As a result of God’s decision to call me into holiness, I learned that the prayer offered by me was about my natural will. It did not consider God’s will, which is rooted in holiness. Jesus was cognizant of His natural will, but was governed by holiness when He said “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me, still not my will but yours be done.” (Luke 22: 42)

The Vincentian vision of a more just world is dependent upon our intimacy with God. So, let’s begin to pursue intimacy with God.

Carrie Johnson-Robinson
National Council Secretary

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