Contemplation

Contemplation — The Journey Together

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Vincentians,” the Rule reminds us, “are called to journey together towards holiness.” [Rule, Part I, 2.2] We repeat this often among ourselves, perhaps sometimes at the risk of it becoming a mere slogan. It is good to consider more deeply from time to time exactly what we are saying, and more importantly to ask ourselves: What is holiness? In what special way are Vincentians called to it?

Our church, of course, teaches that all of us are called to holiness, not just a few of us, not just the clergy or other religious – all of us, whatever our state in life. [LG, Ch V] Because of the great variety of gifts and talents we are given, we may walk different paths towards the perfection to which Christ calls us, and for members of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, this vocation is our special way of being Catholic, our special pathway to holiness.

But what, exactly, is holiness? The Church officially declares the holiness of men and women through beatification and canonization. These blessed people stand for us as role models and intercessors. Yet part of these ecclesiastical processes is a requirement for performing miracles. Does the “universal call to holiness” then require each of us to perform miracles? That would seem to be a fairly high bar!

Pope Francis assures us that there are “saints next door”. Perhaps you have met a few of those gentle souls whose kindness seems almost to touch you physically when you are in their presence. Perhaps this example of the virtue of gentleness is a small glimpse of the “heroic virtue” the church recognizes in our martyrs and saints. Can we journey towards holiness by living our virtues “heroically”? Can we be role models?

Yet, there is another aspect of holiness, and an important one, which is that “no one is saved alone, as an isolated individual.” Indeed, we “are never completely ourselves unless we belong to a people.” [GetE, 6] We not only are made to live in community, but to lead each other to holiness through community. This is why we understand our Conferences to be “genuine communities of faith and love, of prayer and action.” [Rule, Part I, 3.3] We grow in holiness not only by sharing one another’s presence and prayers, but by sharing the work, and reflecting together on God’s presence in the poor.

This, perhaps, is the special call to holiness the Society helps us to follow – that we may not only lead each other to holiness, but, through our works and our love, help to all welcome people to God’s saving plan, one person, one neighborhood, one community at a time.

Contemplate

How do I grow in holiness within my Conference? Within my larger community?

Recommended Reading

Gaudete et Exsultate

Contemplation — What’s the Difference?

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Speaking about the home visit in 1834, Blessed Frédéric said that it “is one of the best rendered charities and one that produces the best results, above all, in these times when help is generally dispensed with such culpable indifference...” [Unpubished] It’s useful to recall that the home visit was not the first or the only form of assistance to the poor in Frédéric’s time, just as it is not the only form of assistance in our own time.

Take a number. Have a seat. Fill out this form. Let’s see if you qualify. I’ll ask the committee for approval. These impersonal words and actions accompany so much of the material assistance available to our neighbors in need from various agencies they approach, hat in hand, sometimes taking time off work that they can hardly afford to take.

St. Vincent once mused that “there is great charity, but it is badly organized.” [VHJ 26.1] In our day, this observation seems at times to have been turned on its head, as the poor are drowned in “organization” when seeking whatever assistance may be available. As John Boyle O’Reilly so memorably put it in his 1886 poem, In Bohemia: The organized charity, scrimped and iced, In the name of a cautious, statistical Christ.

Under the guise of being politically correct or ideologically fashionable,” Pope Francis says, “we look at those who suffer without touching them.” [FT, 76] Material assistance doled out impersonally, or indifferently as Frédéric put it, is like exercise on a treadmill. Your body may be served, but you will not have gotten anywhere.

The Home Visit brings with it the understanding of a friend, the welcoming smile, and “to the bread that nourishes, it adds the visit that consoles.” [O’Meara, 229] Far from “culpable indifference,” we “must never take the attitude of merely getting the task done.” [SWLM, 773] Instead, as our Rule demands of us, we give generously of our time, our talents, our possessions and ourselves. [Rule, Part I, 2.5.1]

We’re not called only to write checks. We’re called to love our neighbor. That’s the difference.

Contemplate

Are my Home Visits more like an interviews, or conversations?

Recommended Reading

Serving in Hope, Module VII (with your Conference!)

Contemplation — Accompanied by Justice

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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

Contemplation — Between Vincent and Francis

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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

Contemplation — Hearts Filled with Joy

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The primary purpose of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul is the spiritual growth of its members. We seek, by serving the poor, to see His suffering and to grow closer to Him and welcoming the neighbor into His love. All this suffering serves a purpose in God’s plan, but that does not mean we serve in sadness!

Vincentians receive many dimensions of God’s grace as a result of our home visits, but perhaps the most important dimension is joyful grace. We are like children who have just cleaned up their rooms without being asked, racing to tell our parents what we have done! We are bursting with pride not only because know this will please our parents, but because in the course of our cleaning we saw for ourselves that it was good.

Similarly, we have sat in the pew and listened to the words of Gospel of Matthew many times, and many times we have nodded along as Christ explains the Judgment of Nations. It all makes sense – serve the least among us, feed the hungry, welcome the stranger…probably most of us can recite it by heart. But as Army General Norman Schwartzkopf once said, “You almost always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it.”

And so we are filled with joy as we fulfill God’s will through our works. But our hearts are doubly filled with this joyful grace of God as we realize that we have encountered Christ Himself – exactly as he told us we would.

We go to the homes of the poor and, as Vincent explains, we “find God there!” [CCD IX:199] This is a source of wonder not because it is so surprising, but precisely because it is not. Christ’s word is fulfilled through our actions and our hearts are filled with joy!

When we think about finding new members to join with us in our Conferences, or to form new Conferences, extending this worldwide network of charity, no “recruiting pitch” should be necessary. We have been in the presence of a loving God and have in turn shared His love with others. This joyful grace fills us to overflowing – why would we not want that for all of our friends? Why would we not invite them to share in our joy? Why would we keep it to ourselves?

Contemplate

Do I hesitate to share this great joy of God’s grace with my friends?

Recommended Reading

‘Tis a Gift to be Simple

Contemplation — A Ministry of Presence

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It is a deeply ingrained tenet of our charism that Vincentians are doers. We don’t just talk about serving, we serve. At the same time, we must always remember that we are not called to action for action’s sake, but for our growth in holiness. The more selflessly we serve, the more it benefits our own souls – the central irony, you might say, of our vocation.

It is easy to seek ways to more “efficiently” distribute assistance, either because the needs are truly great, or because we have personally become tired, but whatever the reason, when we turn our focus to the groceries or the light bills, we lose sight of Christ’s face.

In the earliest days of the Ladies of Charity, there was a proposal that the ladies might find somebody else to cook the food to be brought to the Hôtel-Dieu, but Vincent could see that once we parcel out part of our charitable works, an unfortunate chain of events is likely to follow, because when we relieve ourselves of the obligation to cook, “you will never again be able to restore this practice”; if you hire out the work, it will become too expensive, soon you will conclude that whoever cooks the food should deliver it, and “in this way your Charity will be reduced to failure.” [CCD I:70]

The Ladies were not managing a hospital cafeteria, they were bringing the love of God – the literal meaning of the word “charity” – to the suffering poor. It was their presence, members of the France’s upper class, welcoming the poor into this great community of faith, reminding them that God had not forgotten them, that was the real work.

And so it remains for us today. From time to time, circumstances may require us to compromise on our person to person service, meeting virtually or by telephone, but this will always be a compromise, a half of a loaf – better than no loaf at all, as the saying goes, but never equal to the whole loaf. We are called to “grow more perfect in love by expressing compassionate and tender love to the poor and one another.” [Rule, Part I, 2.2] Officers at all levels of the Society are expected to “visit the poor as often as possible.” [Rule, Part III, St. 12] We recognize, as Bl. Frédéric said, “ that visiting the poor should be the means and not the end of our association.” [Letter 182, to Lallier, 1838]

Vincentians serve for love alone, in the “hope that someday it will be no longer they who love, but Christ who loves through them.” [Rule, Part I, 2.1] Anybody can deliver a pot of soup, but we’re not Door Dash, we’re the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and ours is a ministry of presence.

Contemplate

Do I sometimes let my focus on the material needs cause me to lose focus on the person?

Recommended Reading

Mystic of Charity

Contemplation — Only Visiting

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When we think back on our experiences visiting the homes of our neighbors, we are justly proud of the many times that we “solved the problem,” often with a little money, or some food; sometimes with advice and encouragement. We may not always change the lives of the poor, but we can often check off one problem from the list, and share in their happiness at that. But this is not always the case.

Sometimes it seems that there is nothing we can do; the problem is too big, or the situation too complex; we don’t have money, or the expertise, or it’s just…too much. Often, we know this before we even schedule the visit. So why do we go?

St. Vincent taught about affective love and effective love. Effective love is not emotional, it is active. It is an act of will, to provide for another – to give them the things that they need. This is the love we think about when we commit ourselves to serving for love alone. [Rule, Part I, 2.2] So what happens when “effectiveness” is off the table?

Think, for example, of the neighbors we visit who have no homes, who live on the streets or in the parks, and who suffer from all of the health and wellness problems that often accompany long-term homelessness. In severe weather, we may sometimes be able to offer a shelter that will prevent death. We may be able to provide clean clothes and some food, and then…we send them off again.

Effective love, though, does not come at the expense of affective love. When we sit with the suffering, perhaps especially those who are suffering what we can barely comprehend much less alleviate, we may sometimes find ourselves overwhelmed with emotion. We try to choke it back, certain that we can be more comforting if we can remain more placid. But affective love, Vincent taught, “proceeds from the heart” making us “continually aware of the presence of God”. [CCD IX:372]

It is in your silent tear that you share the burdens and the pain of the neighbor. For so much of their lives, these suffering people are unseen by so many who avert their eyes when walking past. When we see them clearly enough to shed a tear, they know that tear is “an act of love, causing people to enter one another’s hearts and to feel what they feel”. [CCD XII:221] We share both God’s love and our own.

Ours is a ministry of doing, but it is first and always a ministry of loving presence. Just as Christ shared in our suffering, that we might suffer no more, we share the neighbor’s burdens that they might know the promise of His kingdom, where He will wipe every tear from our eyes.

After all, this world is not our home. We are only visiting.

Contemplate

Do I fully open my heart to both tears and joy with the neighbor?

Recommended Reading

Vincentian Meditations II

Contemplation — Spiritual and Religious

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Perhaps you have friends who say “I am spiritual, but not religious.” For Vincentians, our spirituality is not only religious, it is our very special and specific way of living our Catholic faith.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that there are many and varied spiritualities that have been developed throughout history, and that “the personal charism of some witnesses to God’s love for men has been handed on… so that their followers may have a share in this spirit.” [CCC, 2684] For us, that “refraction of the one pure light of the Holy Spirit” is the charism of St. Vincent de Paul.

Unlike many well-known saints, Vincent never wrote a treatise about his spirituality; there is no Vincentian Summa Theologica, Introduction to the Devout Life, or Spiritual Exercises for us to study. We can learn a great deal by reading the words he spoke in conferences and letters, but more importantly, we learn through his example, his actions, passed down to us through more than 400 years of Vincentian Family tradition, and especially through our primary founder, Blessed Frédéric Ozanam.

It seems only right that our spirituality is learned first through action. After all, as Vincent once said, we must “love God…with the strength of our arms and the sweat of our brows”. [CCD XI:32] Two hundred years later, Frédéric would found the Society by declaring “Let us go to the poor!” [Baunard, 65]

Ours a spirituality of action, of doing, of serving. At the same time, we pray “both at the individual and community level” with our own lives “characterized by prayer, meditation on the Holy Scriptures and other inspirational texts and devotion to the Eucharist and the Virgin Mary”. [Rule, Part I, 2.2] Our prayers always include reflection on our service, reminding us, as Frédéric put it, that “visiting the poor should be the means and not the end of our association.” [Letter 182, to Lallier, 1838]

We trust in Divine Providence, in the love and the abundance of God. We do not worry about running out of resources – everything that is given to us belongs to the poor already, and “members should never adopt the attitude that the money is theirs, or that the recipients have to prove that they deserve it”. [Manual, 23] We trust, with Frédéric, that to do works of charity, “it is never necessary to worry about financial resources, they always come.” [Letter 121, to his mother, 1836]

Finally, and most importantly, we see, we serve, and we love Jesus Christ in the person of the neighbor whom we serve. As St Vincent taught, “you go into poor homes, but you find God there.” [CCD IX:199] As Frédéric taught, the poor “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 [their] persons?” [Letter 137, to Janmot, 1836]

Through these actions, we grow closer to Christ. This is our spirituality. This is our religion.

Contemplate

How often do I share my Vincentian spirituality with other Catholics?

Recommended Reading

The Manual (especially 3.2, Vincentian Spirituality)

Contemplation — To Boldly Go

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The bold, five-year mission of the starship Enterprise was “to seek out new life and new civilizations” on “strange new worlds.” Vincentians, though constrained to our same old world, and not limited to a mere five years, are similarly called “to seek out and find those in need and the forgotten” in our mission of charity. [Rule, Part I, 1.5]

Our hands are full, it may seem, just answering the calls for help that arrive unannounced; our treasuries may strain to meet the needs presented to us. So why would we go around trying to find more? After all, don’t our neighbors find us, just as we receive donations, through God’s providence? Of course! But recall that trust in Providence is not a mandate to be merely passive. As Blessed Frédéric once wrote, “Providence does not need us for the execution of its merciful designs, but we, we need it and it promises us its assistance only on the condition of our efforts.” [Letter 135, to Bailly, 1836]

What greater or more important effort could we offer but to seek out those in need – especially the forgotten? After all, as both Moses and Jesus remind us, the land will never lack for needy persons and the poor will always be with us. The most needy may be forgotten by their neighbors and by society, but they are not forgotten by God, their Creator. It is exactly that message, that hope, that we are called to share on our home visits.

It is our respect for the dignity of every person that should motivate us to seek them, to find them, and to share God’s love in the form of bread, in the form of help, and most importantly in the form of our presence and love. We can never let the fear of a depleted treasury stop us from seeking out those most in need, because we know that “giving love, talents and time is more important than giving money.” [Rule, Part I, 3.14]

God does provide. He provides generously and lovingly. It is the will of God that our neighbors in need call us, and the will of God that enables us to help them. But as St. Louise reminds us, we must “never take the attitude of merely getting the task done.” [SWLM, A.85] We are not the Society of Bill Payments, we are the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, following the example of our Patron, as he in turn imitated Christ.

We are called to see the face of Christ. He is out there; not on a strange new world, but perhaps on a park bench, perhaps in a darkened apartment, perhaps in a hospital or prison. The world may have forgotten Him, but we hear His cry, and seek Him, unafraid.

Contemplate

Where can I go to find Christ, and how can I serve Him best?

Recommended Reading

Faces of Holiness

Contemplation: The Heart of the Matter

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There are times when the demands of serving the neighbor can weigh heavily on us, sometimes because there are so many calls to answer, and sometimes because our efforts often seem to be in vain; the poor remain poor, the struggling continue to struggle. We are called to serve in hope, but how do we raise our own spirits? How do we return to what Bl. Frédéric called “the rays of charity which at the beginning came sometimes to illuminate and warm our souls”? [Letter 90, to Curnier, 1835]

Our own physical rest and health, of course, is not only for our own benefit. As St. Vincent once explained to St. Louise in telling her to get some rest, “Increase your strength; you need it, or, in any case, the public does.” [CCD I:392] And as our Rule reminds us, “Vincentians are available for work in the Conferences only after fulfilling the family and professional duties.” [Rule, Part I, 2.6]

Resting our bodies is often enough to restore our energy, but not necessarily our zeal when we feel weighed down by the feeling that our work is not accomplishing enough; when the neighbor continues to struggle, no matter how much we help. It is at these times that it becomes most important to reflect deeply upon the nature of our works, and the purpose of our Society.

We are not the Society of Rental Assistance or Food Pantries. We serve in hope not only of offering some material relief, we serve in the hope of eternal life in Christ, and we visit the neighbor to share that hope through our friendship, our prayer, and our love.

In the history and traditions of the Society, and of the whole Vincentian Family, our visits have been not only to the poor in their homes, but to hospitals and prisons. As Chaplain of the Galleys, St. Vincent de Paul brought prayer, and hope, and the love of God to thousands of prisoners without freeing a single one. For the rest of his life, he could hardly speak about the galley prisoners without weeping.

The emotional burden we carry with us from sharing our neighbor’s suffering is part of our expression of love, and we can take great solace in knowing that we truly lighten their burdens by sharing them. And just as we share the neighbor’s burden, we pray that the neighbor may share our hope. We visit to show them that God has not forgotten them; that they too may share in the hope of everlasting life.

Knowing this hope in our own hearts, serving in His name and for His sake, may our hearts not be burned out, but on fire, and our souls “in a continuous state of joy and happiness”. [SWLM, A.14b]

Contemplate

Do I always seek first to offer the suffering of the neighbor to God, and the love of God to the neighbor?

Recommended Reading

The Spirituality of the Home Visit

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