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Contemplation – May I Have A Word With You?

Contemplation – May I Have A Word With You? https://ssvpusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Contemplations-Image-1.jpg 940 788 SVDP USA SVDP USA //ssvpusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/svdp-usa-ssvp-int.png April 12, 2021 April 14, 2021

Blessed Frédéric, layman and primary founder of the Society of St Vincent de Paul, is considered the primary role model for members of the Society. In his words and in his deeds Frédéric leaves us with an example of charity and virtue. At the same time, his words can remind us of our own frailty and of the needs of the neighbors that we serve.

Writing from Lyon, where he was at the time starting out in the practice of law and living with his elderly mother, Frédéric shared with his friend Francois Lallier his experience of what has been called “one of the deepest forms of poverty”:

“At the moment,” he wrote, “I am suffering a malady which will appear strange in a town where I have so many relatives and friends; I mean isolation.” [Letter 173, 1838]

As a lawyer, he argued before the court, and spoke with colleagues and clients daily, but never shared personal conversations. He tended to his mother, who was ill, but could not unburden himself without upsetting her in her frail state.

And so, in the midst of a bustling city, the city in which he’d grown up, in a profession that required interaction and conversation, he nevertheless felt alone.

Don’t the poor whom we serve often live and work in some of the most crowded areas of our cities? Don’t they walk down streets filled with people? They walk right past us, in our coffee shops and restaurants, or we breeze past them, phones pressed to our ears, without so much as a glance, or a smile.

To whom can they speak? With whom can they share their thoughts, their needs, their hopes, their discouragements? Who will hear them? Who will listen?

Perhaps the increased isolation we all have experienced this past year will help us to better appreciate our Essential Element of friendship, meant to be shared not only with each other, but with our neighbors in need.

Perhaps, like Frédéric, we will “appreciate now by its privation the whole value of the spoken word, how much more it cultivates thought than the dead letter of the greatest writers.” [Letter 173, 1838]

In the poor we are called to see Christ, the Incarnate Word. With our words we share not just information, but what our Rule [2.5.1] calls us to share: ourselves.

Contemplate

How can I better offer words of comfort, healing, and friendship?

04-09-2021 News Roundup

04-09-2021 News Roundup https://ssvpusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/svdp-news.jpg 1200 1200 SVDP USA SVDP USA //ssvpusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/svdp-usa-ssvp-int.png April 9, 2021 April 9, 2021

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: Flood victims encouraged to access clothing and support at St Vincent De Paul on Lake Street, Laurieton
CANADA: St. Vincent de Paul seeks $3.5 million in fundraising for new facility
IRELAND: Cork EUROSPAR supermarkets supporting St Vincent de Paul

NATIONAL

BATON ROUGE, LA: St. Vincent de Paul gives hot meals and baskets for Easter
CONTRA COSTA, CA: St. Vincent de Paul of Contra Costa Announces Cycle 17 of Workforce Development Program – Paid Jobs-Training!
DALLAS, TX: Local Nonprofit Fills $3.4M in Free Prescriptions for North Texans in Need
LANE COUNTY, OR: Advocates Relieved To Finally Hold Vax Clinics For The Homeless
PHOENIX, AZ: St. Vincent de Paul will serve 4,000 Easter to-go meals to people in Phoenix area

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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SVdP National Council Welcomes Associate Director of Poverty Programs / Director of Immersion Program

SVdP National Council Welcomes Associate Director of Poverty Programs / Director of Immersion Program https://ssvpusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/HF-Headshot.jpg 300 307 SVDP USA SVDP USA //ssvpusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/svdp-usa-ssvp-int.png April 8, 2021 April 8, 2021

The National Council of the United States Society of St. Vincent de Paul is excited to welcome Heather Fullerton as the new Associate Director of Poverty Programs / Director of Immersion Program.

Heather will work collaboratively with Councils and Conferences to enhance and expand the Society’s Systemic Change programming, with a particular focus on Immersion, the Society’s national reentry program, and Back2Work, the national workforce development program.

Heather earned her bachelor’s degree in Science Education from the University of Missouri – Columbia and her master’s degree in School Administration from Lindenwood University.

For the past 15 years, Heather has used her skills as an educator and nonprofit manager to create equitable systems in which all people flourish by training and coaching others to build capacity.

As a teacher, Heather earned National Board Certification for excellence in innovative teaching.

Heather lives in St. Louis with her husband Joshua and their children Camille and Christian. They have a Dalmatian mix named Uno. In her free time, Heather enjoys sewing, gardening, and playing video games with her family.

“I am beyond grateful for the opportunity to serve alongside the National Council Staff,” said Heather. “I can’t wait to collaborate with this family of passionate, talented, and faithful individuals. Thank you for welcoming me with such open arms!”

Welcome Heather!

If you’d like to contact Heather, she can be reached at (314) 576-3993 ext. 217 or by email at hfullerton@svdpusa.org.

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04-08-2021 Letter From Our Servant Leaders

04-08-2021 Letter From Our Servant Leaders https://ssvpusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Ray-Sickinger-Picture-scaled.jpg 1829 2560 SVDP USA SVDP USA //ssvpusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/svdp-usa-ssvp-int.png April 7, 2021 April 8, 2021

This week’s letter was written by Raymond Sickinger, National Board Member

Recently I heard one of the members of my Conference comment that the pandemic had proven that we needed to look to the future to serve those in need better by offering better services. Although I absolutely agree that we must look to the future and discover better ways to help others, I was also a bit concerned by this remark. I was concerned because the focus seemed to be placed only on service and appeared to ignore the primary reason for the Society’s existence—growing in holiness by serving others as Christ would serve. Too often, with the best of intentions, we can confuse the means with the end.

In 1836, Frédéric Ozanam wrote to his friend, Louis Janmot, the following remarks: “Both men and the poor we see with the eyes of the flesh; they are there and we can put finger and hand in their wounds and the scars of the crown of thorns are visible on their foreheads; and, at this point, incredulity no longer has place and we should fall at their feet and say with the Apostle, ‘Tu est Dominus et Deus meus.’ You are our masters, and we will be your servants. You are for us the sacred images of that God whom we do not see, and not knowing how to love Him otherwise shall we not love Him in your persons?” (Letter of Frédéric Ozanam to Louis Janmot, Lyon, November 13, 1836). Frédéric knew how spiritually vital it was to meet those in need face to face.

From its inception, the Society has emphasized “person to person” service, whether that be at a food pantry, at a thrift store, or on a Home Visit. Of course, the home visit is a hallmark of our Society, and is an intimate part of our heritage. It is, so to speak, the ultimate person to person experience. In fact, many in the Society with whom I have spoken have missed visiting those in need in their homes during the pandemic. As one Vincentian told me, “I feel this great void.”

Person-to-person service of whatever kind must always help our members to deepen their faith and their friendships. As Frédéric Ozanam told his dear friend, Léonce Curnier, in 1834, “[T]he strongest tie, the principle of true friendship, is charity, and charity could not exist in the hearts of many without sweetening itself from outside. It is a fire that dies without being fed, and good works are the food of charity. So it is in our own interest first of all that our association has been established, and if we assemble under the roof of the poor, it is at least equally for them as for ourselves, so as to become progressively better friends.”

It was during visits to those in need in the streets of Paris that Ozanam and his friends became connected by bonds of charity to one another and to those in need. It was after such visits that they reflected on what they had seen and what special works might provide relief. They drew closer to Christ by seeing his face in those they served. They became better persons by imitating Christ, the Servant Leader. As the Catholic Catechism tells us: “Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God [1822].”

As we look to the Society’s future and the active role it will play, I simply caution us never to lose sight of the primary purpose of the Society, whose essential elements of spirituality, friendship, and service are intimately, and necessarily, connected. Otherwise, we chance losing the very soul of who we are and becoming simply another not for profit helping those in need.

Yours in Christ,
Raymond Sickinger
National Board Member

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Contemplation – Being That Kind of Person

Contemplation – Being That Kind of Person https://ssvpusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Contemplations-Image-1.jpg 940 788 SVDP USA SVDP USA //ssvpusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/svdp-usa-ssvp-int.png April 5, 2021 April 5, 2021

Why does it sometimes seem difficult to withhold judgment when we visit our neighbors in need?

In his famous essay “The Undeserving Poor,” [Serving in Hope, Module IV] the late Bishop Kenneth Untener explains how easy it is to serve a poor child, because they can’t help it if they’re poor, and they haven’t the ability to work their way out of it.

They are not the ones that are difficult to serve – it’s the ones who seem to be the cause of their own problems; the ones we help up only to see them fall again. You know – those kind of people.

In his biography of Sister Stanislaus Malone, Nun with a Gun, biographer Eddie Doherty recounts the story of Sister Helen, an older nun who once told an alcoholic to leave and not come back, saying “it would be a waste” of time and resources to keep helping him when he would only start drinking again.

The man left, but not before reminding her that she did not know the temptations he had faced.

After he left, Sister Helen sobbed at her own failure of charity, saying, “What right had I to assume he would succumb again to the evils of drink? How many battles has he won? Nobody knows. I think only of the battles he has lost – and the battles I myself have won.”

It is easy to remember that time we beat temptation, or pulled ourselves out of difficulties by our bootstraps, and to let it color our judgment of the failures of others. We forgive and forget our own failures of will or of virtue, because deep inside we understand that our failures don’t define us; that however our own stumbles may be seen by others, we are “not that kind of person.”

It was because of this human fallibility that St. Vincent taught that we should “get in the habit of judging events and persons, always and in all circumstances, for the good. If an action has a hundred facets to it…always look at its best side… even though intelligence and human prudence tell us the contrary.” [CCD XI:638]

Perhaps this is part of Christ’s meaning when he commands us to “love your neighbor as yourself.” [Mt 22:39] Love is offering not only our assistance, but our understanding, our patience, and the benefit of the doubt.

Because we are all made in His image, and we are all “that kind of person.”