contemplation - SVDP USA

Contemplation – The Whole Secret

“My kingdom does not belong to this world,” Christ said to Pilate, when asked if He was “King of the Jews”. Indeed, He went on to explain, if it were,…

Contemplation – Sufficient Graces

Servant leadership is the calling of every Vincentian, and term-limits for Conference Presidents ensure that every three to six years, somebody new will be invited to serve in that role.…

Contemplation – Where Charity is Practiced Cheerfully

Commenting on Conference meetings, President-General Jules Gossin wrote that “In France, what even the best men fear most is boredom; and, in that respect, the men of every country are…

Contemplation: The Best Way to Give Help

A central principle of Catholic social teaching, necessary for respect of human dignity and a properly ordered social life, is subsidiarity. [CSDC, 185-186] Naturally, the organization, governance, and traditions of…

Contemplation – Our Wordless Witness

Our Vincentian virtue of zeal is more than simply enthusiasm or evangelical fervor. It is, St. Vincent de Paul said, “a pure desire to become pleasing to God and helpful…

Contemplation – Christ in the Cellar

Born and baptized in 1786, it was under the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution that Bl. Rosalie Rendu’s earliest faith life was born and fed. Little Jeanne-Marie, called…

Contemplation – The Call to Imitation

Imitation, it is said, is the sincerest form of flattery – a distinction that must be made, because flattery is by its nature insincere. We flatter in order to gain…

Contemplation – The Robbers’ Victim

In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Christ tells of a man who stopped to care for a victim of a robbery who had been left naked and dying by…

Contemplation – Proof of Friendship

All of us have had many friends in our lives: childhood friends, work friends, teammates, Army buddies, fishing buddies, maybe you even have a “BFF.” Still, when we hear the…

Contemplation – From the Fullness of Our Hearts

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was a rash of people across the country who swore they’d seen the late Elvis Presley filling his gas tank or eating…