Vincentians

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A Week in Prayers October 10 – October 14
A Week in Prayers October 10 – October 14 940 788 SVDP USA

Monday, October 10

Lord, in Your glory,
Lord, in Your power,
You rule both heaven and earth.
Lord in Your mercy,
Lord, in Your love,
You heal my heart and soul.
Amen

Tuesday, October 11

God of mercy,
Grant Your mercy to me.
God of hope,
Grant Your hope to me.
God of love,
Grant Your love to me.
Fill my heart, O Lord,
Fill my soul to overflowing.
Amen

Wednesday, October 12

Holy Spirit, live within me!
Fill my heart with love, joy, and peace.
Join my heart to those in need
With patience, kindness, and generosity.
Soften my heart to serve
With faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Amen

Thursday, October 13

Lord Jesus, with every step I take,
I seek to follow Your way.
With every prayer and action
I seek to know the truth.
Through Your great love and mercy,
I seek eternal life.
Amen

Friday, October 14

I praise Your name, O Lord,
I seek to do Your will
At all times,
Even, and especially,
When it is difficult.
And with You at my side
I will not be afraid.
Amen

Daily Prayers are written by Tim Williams, National Vincentian Formation Director.
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10-13-2022 A Letter From Our Servant Leaders
10-13-2022 A Letter From Our Servant Leaders 1367 1520 SVDP USA

Dear Vincentian Friends,

Looking at the history of our Society, it is clear that the providence of God has given us the leadership we have needed at every point along our path so far. This month President Renato Lima de Oliveira declared the International Year of Jules Gossin, to honor the second President General of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. Gossin succeeded Emanuel Bailly and served as president from 1844 to 1847. Except for Bailly, our founders were young college students. Yet, when they selected his replacement, they looked to a man who was actually five years older than Bailly. The Society needed Gossin’s stable guidance for a few more years before it turned leadership over to a 28-year-old Adolphe Baudon, who would become our third and longest-serving President General.

We are in the process of electing our next national President. What is the leadership that we need next? You are each invited to participate in that discernment process through prayer and review of the material available on each of our two final candidates. Before you vote in your Conference meetings, I urge you to view the videos of the speeches John Berry and Brian Burgess gave at our recent National Assembly. You may even want to watch their speeches as part of a Conference meeting, and you should read their written platforms. We have two very qualified candidates; so please take the time to make an informed choice. We trust that in God’s providence we will be blessed with the leadership we need for the future.

Let me return to Jules Gossin and share a little about his contributions to our Society that are still relevant today. His presidency was a key bridge between our Society’s founding and its becoming a stable worldwide institution. Several years earlier, Gossin had founded another organization of Catholic lay people, the St. Regis Society, which was dedicated to regularizing the marriages of the poor. From the development of that group, he undoubtedly learned many lessons that were applicable to the challenges our Society faced as it grew.

Gossin’s most important contribution was the maintenance of a central governing structure that aggregated new conferences and required adherence to the Rule. Our first United States Conference in St. Louis was welcomed by Gossin with a letter dated May 25, 1845. The letter informed the Conference that its application for aggregation had been enthusiastically approved at the February 2 meeting of the General Council. The letter encouraged the Conference members in their work and their hopes for continued expansion in the United States. Today, some Conferences would prefer to act independently from the structures provided, but that would not be in keeping with the model passed on to us.

Even more interesting to me is that in the next letter from Gossin to the U.S. Conference members, he insists that they submit an annual report. At this time of the year, I hear complaints about having to file our annual reports. Some say that this is onerous and should not be required in our organization. Don’t look to history to validate your opinion. Gossin wrote to the new Conference in St. Louis on Nov. 16, 1846, “Dear Sir and Brothers, We have the pleasure of sending you herewith a report form for the use of your Conference and we beg you to answer it. We are asking this to enable us in the General Report for 1846, which shall soon occupy our attention, to give all information concerning your Conference. We hope that you will comply with our wish and that you will not only answer with the statistical sections but especially that you will give us details concerning the works which you are performing, their moral results and the good which you expect to accomplish. … Before leaving this consideration, may we add a few technical details. It is hoped that in totaling the amount of your income and disbursements you will terminate as of October 31st. Thus we will be enabled to give to the Conferences the exact amount of revenues for the year.”

Gossin continued, “We also pray you to send us the report by mail as soon as it is compiled. Each year we make greater and greater efforts to hasten the publication of the Report, and we hope this year to achieve our ambition.”

Our annual reporting requirements are important and have always been part of our tradition. I echo our second President General’s request: Please get your reports in by the deadline so that we can publish our National Council Annual Report in a timely manner. It is by this means of accountability that we can give testimony to the good we accomplish together for so many.

Serviens in spe,

Ralph Middlecamp
National Council President

P.S. I really enjoy history and will share a few more of Gossin’s insights during this year dedicated to his memory.

 

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Contemplation — Breathe Deeply
Contemplation — Breathe Deeply 940 788 SVDP USA

The word “spirit” has its roots in the Latin verb spīrāre, meaning “to breathe.” If we think, then, of the Holy Spirit as the breath of God, it seems easier to open ourselves to that spirit, to the wind upon the waters, and the breath of life. When we feel ourselves filled and moved by the Holy Spirit, we are literally inspired.

The founders of the Vincentian Family received a special grace from God, a charism. For St. Louise, her inspiration began following a period of great doubts, a dark night of the soul in which she began to doubt even the immortality of her soul. On the Feast of Pentecost, 1623, which commemorates the descent of the Spirit on the apostles, Louise prayed and felt herself suddenly relieved of all her doubts. [SWLM A.2]

This experience was so powerful that she wrote down all that she believed the Holy Spirit had spoken to her and carried that piece of paper, the account of her lumière (“light”) folded in her pocket for the rest of her life. It remains in the Motherhouse of the Daughters of Charity to this day.

The great peace that she instantly felt was threefold: first, that she would receive a new Spiritual Director (which would turn out to be St. Vincent); second, that she would one day fulfill her “first vow” to live a consecrated life in service of the poor; and third, that as long as she had her belief in God, the rest would be assured.

Importantly, nothing really changed in her daily life. She wouldn’t meet Vincent for another two years, the founding of the Daughters of Charity, in which she would live her religious vocation, was eight years away. In other words, she received a great interior peace solely through the movement of the spirit; not through an external event or change in her circumstances. Nothing that had been troubling her was resolved, but her heart had been changed.

The light she carried with her from that day forward helped her to see in the people and events of her life the Providence and Will of God; to further discern her charism – our charism – to serve Jesus in the poor and in each other.

Louise, “aware of [her] own brokenness and need for God’s grace” [Rule, Pt. I, 2.2] opened herself to the working of the Holy Spirit, exactly as we are called to do. Just as we breathe out only in order to breathe in again, we empty ourselves of self not to remain empty, but in order to be filled by God. And to be inspired, we breathe deeply.

Contemplate

How can I be more open to be moved by the Holy Spirit?

Recommended Reading

Mystic of Charity

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SVdP News Roundup October 1 – October 7
SVdP News Roundup October 1 – October 7 1200 1200 SVDP USA
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The Week in Prayers: October 3 – October 7
The Week in Prayers: October 3 – October 7 940 788 SVDP USA

Monday, October 3

Lord, I have seen You
In the ones who stop,
The ones who serve,
The ones who show mercy.
With Your help
I will go and do likewise.
Amen

Tuesday, October 4

Lord, strengthen me in conviction.
Grant me the vision to see You
In the poor, the suffering, and the deprived.
Help me to nurture the seed of sanctity
That You planted in my heart
I seek only to do Your will.
Amen

Wednesday, October 5

Father in heaven,
Fill me with the joy
Of making Your will my own
I give myself to You fully
As You gave Your Son to me
Amen

Thursday, October 6

Lord Jesus, I stand before the door.
I pray that You hear me knocking,
For You have invited me here.
Like the neighbor who invites me,
To give and receive,
In the great hope
That cannot be destroyed.
Lord Jesus, I stand before the door.
Amen

Friday, October 7

Lord, in Your name
Help me to cast out poverty
To cast out hunger
To cast out suffering
To cast out doubt and fear
To cast out all that separates
Your people from You
Replacing it with hope
And with the love of God
Amen
Daily Prayers are written by Tim Williams, National Vincentian Formation Director.
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10-06-2022 A Letter From Our Servant Leader
10-06-2022 A Letter From Our Servant Leader 1363 1363 SVDP USA

It is often said that history is written by the winners. For example, if our country’s Revolutionary War had been won by the British, our Founding Fathers would have been largely forgotten traitors and Benedict Arnold might be remembered today as a protector of the Empire. Perspectives are largely formed through the prisms of those who have benefitted from the experiences.

Let’s consider this, then, from a Catholic perspective. Who decides when something is the work of the Holy Spirit?

We hear this all the time when something good happens, right? When our position wins in a courtroom battle, when a storm misses our home, and when just the right leader has taken our parish or our Society’s Council to greater heights, we thank the Holy Spirit for being present and gracious in our lives. But hold on a minute. Does this mean that the Holy Spirit was actively working against that other position, those other homes that were damaged by the storm, and those other candidates who offered to help but who weren’t selected to lead?

Is the Holy Spirit really that personally involved, and indeed even that capricious? That doesn’t sound like part of the Holy Trinity to me.

We know from the Book of Isaiah that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, and neither are our ways the Lord’s ways. Thus, we can’t begin to understand the presence and plans of the Holy Spirit, except perhaps to believe that the Holy Spirit is always with us, from our worst days and most unspeakable tragedies and pain to our most joyous days and celebrations. It’s all part of God’s plans for us that we don’t, and may never, understand.

We can be defeatist about all this and assume that because it won’t matter anyway, let’s just sit and be God’s lump of clay, simply exist with as little effort as possible, and wait until He calls us home. Or, since you are probably a Vincentian reading this column, you have instead assumed that God put you here for a purpose. You may not fully understand that purpose, but you assume it is for good! You further understand that the Holy Spirit helps you develop your potential for that good.  The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is just one of the tools given to you to build your spiritual formation, to serve God’s chosen people the Poor, and to help develop the good in others, too. Indeed, how could the Society have blossomed around the world to more than 150 countries and 800,000 members without the Holy Spirit’s guidance?

Who decides when the Holy Spirit is at work? At times, at least, we do. Not only when, but where- in the streets, in homes, in prisons, in nursing homes, in hospitals and shelters, wherever we do our works of mercy and hope. It is there extensively, and consistently – every day around the country and around the world. We are the chroniclers of today’s presence of the Holy Spirit through our lives and service.

Yours in Christ,
Dave Barringer
CEO

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Contemplation: Falling Forward
Contemplation: Falling Forward 940 788 SVDP USA

There is a commonly used exercise in corporate training events called a “trust fall.” In it, one person stands with his back to the others, with arms crossed and eyes closed, then simply falls backward from a platform, trusting his team members to catch him. The point is not to overcome a fear of falling, but to build trust that you will be caught before crashing to the floor.

In a similar way, St. Vincent teaches us to “abandon all that we love to Him by abandoning ourselves to all that He wishes, with perfect confidence that everything will turn out for the best.” [CCD VIII:298] To abandon all that we love seems to be a very demanding call, but it is the same one to which Christ calls us.

As Vincentians, we are called to abandon ourselves to His will by hearing the cry of the poor whose calls often interrupt us, demanding that we abandon our plans for that evening, or our precious free day, or an activity we enjoy, in order to serve Christ in their persons.

Indeed, we are called to share not only our time, but our talents, our possessions, and ourselves. [Rule, Part I, 2.5.1] You might even say that we are called to share, to abandon, “all that we love” to God in the person of His poor. Sometimes, we pat ourselves on the back too quickly when we pay the bill, and sometimes we wallow in regret too deeply when our whole Conference treasury is not enough.

But the Home Visit is not a math problem – it is an encounter with Christ, and an opportunity to imitate Christ. We don’t know, before the visit, whether we have the means to meet the material needs that will be presented to us. All that we know is that Christ is calling, and we must answer – it is the call, and the will, of God. So, if we begin our works of charity with the understanding that we are doing God’s will, then we must accept that the outcome of those works also will be His will.

We serve not with resentment for what we have given up, nor with regret that we haven’t been given enough, but with the joy of knowing that we are serving Christ exactly as he asked us to do, with exactly the gifts we have been given to share.

We serve in hope not that the light bill will be paid, but in the hope of eternal union with Christ and with the neighbor, trusting that the gifts we have been given are enough. We serve in hope, we serve in faith, and we serve in love.

We don’t fall backward, but forward, our hearts and our eyes open, and our arms spread wide. Our whole vocation is a “trust exercise” – trust in Providence.

Contemplate

Do I sometimes place more trust in myself than in Divine Providence?

Recommended Reading

Faces of Holiness

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A Week in Prayers: September 26 – 30
A Week in Prayers: September 26 – 30 940 788 SVDP USA

Monday, September 26

Lord, I thank You
For the gifts You have given me
For all that I have
And all that I am
Given to be shared
Amen

Tuesday, September 27

Pray for us, St Vincent de Paul
That we may love God as You did
With the strength of our arms
And the sweat of our brows
Never hesitating to do the hard work

Pray for us, St Vincent de Paul
That we may always be gentle
With the neighbors we serve
Offering our smiles and good cheer
For in them we see and serve Christ

Pray for us, St Vincent de Paul
Amen

Wednesday, September 28

Lord Jesus, lead me
Away from worldly distractions
That tug at my sleeve
Or stand in my way,
Diverting my attention
From the kingdom.
Lead me, Lord Jesus,
I seek to follow.
Amen

Thursday, September 29

Lord, in Your name
I will seek out and find
The poor and the suffering
Lord, for Your sake
I will give my time, my talents,
My possessions, and myself
Lord, by Your grace
I will be a humble servant
And cheerful giver
Lord, with Your love
I will be filled
Even as I share it
Amen

Friday, September 30

Thank You, Lord,
For all that I am,
For the gifts I do not deserve,
Given by You
To be shared with all.
I will empty myself,
My Lord,
To be filled with Your light
And Your love,
Only to share that, too.
Amen
Daily Prayers are written by Tim Williams, National Vincentian Formation Director.
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09-29-22 A Letter From Our Servant Leaders
09-29-22 A Letter From Our Servant Leaders 720 720 SVDP USA

Dear Vincentian Friends,

It is the time of the year when hurricanes make headlines as they leave suffering and damage in their wake. I ask you, your Conference, and your Council to consider contributing generously this month to our National Council Annual Disaster Appeal. This is the best and most effective way to get disaster aid to our members working in the United States in cooperation with our Disaster Services Corporation and to provide disaster relief throughout the world through our international structure. This appeal allows us to respond quickly to requests. It also provides funds for disasters that may not make the headlines in your local media. Our Conferences in those areas often need our help just as much as those located where a major hurricane strikes.

Once again, this month in Puerto Rico, such a hurricane struck. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul will be working through our members there to provide assistance to their neighbors in need. We are just starting to get communications from our members in Puerto Rico and are waiting to hear how we can help.

But, as I was writing this, another hurricane was headed toward Florida — with unknown consequences. This illustrates the reason why we have one annual collection that can then be used as we learn the actual needs our Vincentians identify after disasters.

The Society’s Disaster Services Corporation (DSC) gives us excellent capacity to serve after a disaster. The DSC constitutes a knowledgeable team to provide training for our members and to secure private and governmental grants that greatly expand the ability of the Society to serve in these situations. The support the National Council provides for the DSC’s efforts is largely funded by this Annual Disaster Appeal.

In the past year, the DSC has helped Councils in every region of the country respond to floods, tornadoes, wildfires, and hurricanes. The success of this appeal last year meant that we did not have to keep sending out fundraising requests for every one of these efforts. I suspect you would become annoyed with the National Office if we did that.

This appeal will also support the international relief provided by the Society through the Commission for International Aid and Development (CIAD). My position as a vice president on the International Board of Directors is responsible for these grants, and I can assure you that this assistance is very much needed to support the work of our members throughout the world. I also can assure you that the use of the funds is monitored closely, with appropriate reports for accountability.

Again, a single appeal allows us to fund response to many disasters you will never hear about. The single appeal also avoids funds being designated to a country without the capacity of members there to use donations that well-meaning councils might otherwise send.

Before committing funds to a particular disaster, it is important to be certain the local Councils have the people and capacity to put our donations to work. Days before Hurricane Fiona stuck Puerto Rico, a Southeast Region team — led by John Berry, Isabel Darcy and Pam Matambanadzo — were on the island working with our members to strengthen our presence there. While they were in Puerto Rico, they observed that people still have not recovered from Hurricane Maria five years ago.

When major disasters strike, the need for assistance can last for many years. Long after the reporters have left, our Vincentians will be there helping their neighbors.

Please be generous in supporting this campaign. Frédéric Ozanam saw the Society as a network of charity. The network he envisioned has come to embrace the world. It is at its strongest and most caring when we support the work of Councils and Conferences of our Vincentian sisters and brothers faced with relieving the unforeseen suffering of a natural disaster. Finally, let us all be committed to praying regularly for the safety and emotional health of all those who are suffering from the results of these storms and those who are dedicated to bringing them aid.

Serviens in spe,
Ralph Middlecamp
National Council President

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Contemplation: Our Inheritance and Legacy
Contemplation: Our Inheritance and Legacy 940 788 SVDP USA

In studying our own genealogy, we first catalog the names and dates and places of our ancestors. Our understanding and our love for them truly comes alive, though, when we find photographs, objects they owned, and best of all, words that they wrote. In a similar way, the portraits, relics, and words of our Vincentian saints and blessed help us to understand and fulfill our place in our shared Vincentian Family.

A treasure trove of St. Vincent’s words is contained within the fourteen(+) volume Correspondence, Conferences, and Documents, from the mundane, such a real estate transactions, to the personal, revealed in letters that were intended originally only for one recipient, to the conferences in which he gave spiritual lessons to his followers. While Vincent himself did not want his conferences recorded, designated note-takers recorded them surreptitiously anyway, realizing that the words of this holy man would feed generations who succeeded them.

Coincidentally, we also see Christ admonishing people more than once in the gospels not to tell anybody of some of His particular words or works – yet there they are, written in the gospels.

Bl. Frédéric Ozanam’s words are collected for us (in English) in a volume called A Life in Letters, with translation of more of his work currently underway. It was Frédéric who said that we owe to our patron “a two-fold devotion… imitation and invocation.” He argued that we could escape our personal imperfections “appropriating the thoughts and virtues of the saint”. [Letter 175, to Lallier, 1838]

How, after all, do we truly imitate Vincent’s example without his words, his teaching, his very personality that is visible to us in the collections of his words? Vincent’s insights were meant not only for 17th Century France, but are, as Frédéric put it, “for all lands and for all time.” [Baunard, 275]

It has often been observed that the third generation of a wealthy family is the one that tends to squander that wealth; no longer appreciating the work that it took their ancestors to earn it, they no longer are inclined to work themselves.

“The poor,” St. Vincent taught, “are our inheritance.” [Gallican Church, Vol.2, 8] Through the words preserved for us, we receive from his spiritual estate our way of seeing, serving, and loving them, so that we will be better able to pass this along to future generations of our Vincentian Family.

Contemplate

How often do I pause to study the words of our Vincentian saints and blessed?

Recommended Reading

Frédéric Ozanam, A Life in Letters Letter 90

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