Contemplation

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Contemplation: Abundance
Contemplation: Abundance 720 720 SVDP USA

“Why on earth would they do that?” we sometimes ask ourselves after a Home Visit in which the neighbors explain a decision they’ve made which makes no sense to us. Perhaps they’ve used their last dollars to pay a past-due cable bill, and the rent is due next week. They’ve quit a job in anger, despite having nothing to fall back on. Or they’ve used their tax refund on recreation when their electricity is already cut off.

In their book Scarcity, authors Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir examine how human decision-making and cognitive abilities are affected when resources become scarce. Whether it is money, food, or even time that is insufficient, or barely sufficient for our needs, we don’t tend to make rational decisions. It’s not a matter of wealth or education. Very busy people, for example, for whom time is scarce, often mismanage the time that they have.

For the poor, of course, scarcity is a constant in their lives. We should hardly be surprised that some of their decisions make no sense to those of us who have in abundance what the poor lack. Scarcity is not affecting our thinking. At the same time, while we set aside our judgment, as we are called to do, and set about trying to provide for whatever scarcity the neighbor faces, we may ourselves lose sight of the most important scarcity we can address: love.

“Man cannot live without love.” Pope St. John Paul II reminds us. “He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him...” [RH, 10] That is why our Rule explains that “Vincentians should never forget that giving love, talents and time is more important than giving money.” [Rule, Part I, 3.14] Of all the resources we may have at our disposal, love is the only one that is never scarce.

All the things of this world, after all, will pass; both scarcity and abundance of material things is an illusion. It is much easier to remember that life is more than food, and the body more than clothing when we want for nothing; it is more difficult when we are hungry and poor. The material assistance we offer is meant not to create false abundance, but to demonstrate God’s love; to be God’s instrument in providing what is needed, just as He promised it would be provided; and so, “by showing the vitality of [our] faith, affirm its truth.” [Baunard, 65]

It is the who poor evangelize us by sharing Christ’s suffering with us. In turn, we evangelize first by fulfilling Christ’s promise to provide for their needs, and through our works, offering the only true abundance, an abundance that sweeps away all scarcity: the abundance of God’s love, and His hope.

Contemplate

Do I let my love grow scarce enough to affect my thinking during encounters with the neighbor?

Recommended Reading

Turn Everything to Love

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Contemplation: Will and Grace
Contemplation: Will and Grace 653 653 SVDP USA

The word vocation, as we know, is from the Latin vocāre, meaning “to call. A vocation, then, such as our Vincentian vocation, is a calling, specifically a call from God. If you have heard the call, it is for you. What matters most to our own salvation, then, is not the call, but our answer to it.

God’s call can come to us in many forms — a nagging feeling that we cannot shake, a pang in our conscience, an event in our lives that seems to hold deeper meaning, or a person who raises new ideas. It is in times of reflection and prayer that we may feel most attuned to God’s voice, but His call is not bound by our attention to it. If you hear His call, it is for you.

Nevertheless, even having heard the call, we often question our fitness to answer it. “Am I holy enough?” we wonder, when asked to consider serving as a spiritual advisor. “Am I really a leader?” we wonder when the nominating committee asks to consider us as a future president. “Do I have the compassion, or the knowledge, to be a home visitor?” we wonder, especially as new members.

If you hear His call, it is for you, and if He has called you, He will give you the graces you will need to fulfill His will. With our friends, we can offer all the well-considered reasons why we cannot do things; we can list out our other obligations, our shortcomings, or our self-doubts. All these things may be reasonable and true, and they may be quite convincing to our friends, but God already knew all of those things before calling.

Yet He called, and we heard Him.

When Gabriel appeared before a young girl in Nazareth to tell her she would bear a child by the power of the Holy Spirit, he was asking her to do some very difficult things. She might believe she was carrying the Son of God, but who in her community would see it that way? What would her betrothed think? Was she capable of raising a child in those circumstances? How could she even be sure she could provide food and shelter for the two of them?

But the angel in his greeting, “Hail, full of grace”, made clear that God had already given her all the gifts, all the graces, all the ability to fulfill His will, and so, in her humble obedience, she answered “yes” to His call. We, like Mary, are called only to those things that God wills for us. He knows what we can do, even if we don’t, and we can take the same reassurance as the angel offered to her, to not be afraid, for the Lord is with us. He has given us sufficient grace. And God’s will does not remove His grace.

Contemplate

Am I sometimes hesitant to answer God’s call because I doubt my own gifts?

Recommended Reading

Faces of Holiness

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Contemplation: A Communion of Friendship
Contemplation: A Communion of Friendship 711 720 SVDP USA

We are called as individuals to the virtue of charity, expressed as complete love of God for His own sake, and love of the neighbor as ourselves for the love of God. [CCC, 1822] Charity is not only the greatest of the theological virtues, [1 Cor 13:13] but also the greatest commandment of Jesus Christ. [Mark 12:30-31] Our expression of this love requires us to share our personal graces, our individual charisms, in the service of one another, [1 Pet 4:10] united in this same love. Therefore, this virtue of charity, the central calling of our faith, is best expressed in communion – indeed, it is only expressed in communion – and communion is the heart of our Conferences, and our essential element friendship.

God’s people – each of us and all of us – also are called to share in the “threefold mission of Christ as Priest, Prophet and King” [CF, 14]. Since “God is love” [1 John 4:8], this necessarily means that our exercise of mission must be an embodiment of love, of charity, of agape. In Conferences, our works of charity are always works of the Conference, not of individual members. Even our home visits are always conducted in pairs, not alone.

It was Christ’s mission to enter into this world, where He “fully reveal[ed] man to himself”, [RH, 8] not only by taking on human nature along with His own divine nature, but by living in perfect communion with His creatures, especially His disciples. He expressed the call both to communion and to mission most clearly at the Last Supper, asking God the Father that the disciples might “be one” with one another, and be united in perfect union with God the Father. Just as importantly, He prayed the Disciples might lead others to be joined in this union. [John 17:18-23] This prayer calls us all to the mission of evangelization in communion with each other, with Him, and with all His creatures.

We all are parts of one body, as the apostle teaches, each with his own role, each with his own graces; part of not just a body, but of Christ’s body [1 Cor 12] which is His church. [Eph 1:22-23] Consequently, mission can only be fully realized in communion as one body, as one church, in the fullness of charity.

In His own mission, Christ was not alone. Who saw Him saw the Father, with whom He is fully united. Our model of communion, then, begins with the unity of the Father and Son, sealed by the Holy Spirit, whom He sends to strengthen and unite us. [John 14:16-17] The example of the Holy Trinity shows us that the Divine life is a shared life. United in perfect Communion with one another, the three persons of God also call us to communion. Our pathway, then, to the divine life, and our mission to call others to it, must also be shared. In this way, “The specific ministry of the Conference belongs not only to the Society, but to all Christian people.” [Manual, 16]

Our social nature, Christian charity, and individual gifts all are meant to be placed in the service of mission, in communion with our Conferences, and through the church which Christ founded.

Contemplate

Do I live my vocation in a community of friendship with both fellow Vincentians and the neighbor?

Recommended Reading

Turn Everything to Love

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Contemplation: Gifted
Contemplation: Gifted 1080 1080 SVDP USA

As members of the Vincentian family, we share in the great charism of our patron, St. Vincent de Paul. A charism, our church teaches, “whether extraordinary or simple and humble [is a grace] of the Holy Spirit which directly or indirectly benefits the Church, ordered as they are to her building up, to the good of men, and to the needs of the world.” [CCC, 799] Indeed, the very word charism derives from the Greek cháris, meaning favor, or gift. This same word from the Greek is at the ultimate root of eucharist, meaning thankfulness.

Similarly, both grace and gratitude comes from the Latin grātia, which means a favor or gift. It should not be surprising that gifts are so closely tied to gratitude. After all, saying thank you is a basic social obligation when we receive gifts. Gifts are not payment of debt; they don’t come with stings attached. They are gratuitous (another word from grātia).

We express our gratitude for Christ’s greatest gift, His sacrifice on the cross, in our celebration of the eucharist. Like all gifts, His sacrifice is not something we earned, but was instead freely given. In the same way, our Vincentian charism, and our individual charisms, are gifts from the Holy Spirit, unmerited and freely given. More importantly, they are given in order that we might share them.

This understanding of our own gifts, “that all that God gives us is for others and that we can achieve nothing of eternal value without His grace”, is at the heart of our virtue of humility. [Rule, Part I, 2.5.1] This beautiful Vincentian charism, this gift of the Spirit, shared across four centuries by generations of priests, brothers, sisters, and lay people, is given to us to share.

We do this by offering our presence and material support purely as gifts to our neighbors in need, “never adopt[ing] the attitude that the money is [ours], or that the recipients have to prove that they deserve it.” [Manual, 23] And because the gifts we share – our time, our talents, our possessions, and ourselves – are ultimately not our gifts, but God’s, all thanks for them goes only to Him; all glory for our works goes only to Him.

So let us share freely of our gifts, recalling always the words of St. Louise de Marillac: “I praise God with all my heart for the blessings His goodness bestows upon your holy works. I beg you to be most thankful to Him for them because you must not believe that these graces are merited.” [SWLM, L.368]

Contemplate

Do I seek always to give thanks for my gifts, by giving gratuitously and freely, in imitation of Christ?

Recommended Reading

Spirituality of the Home Visit – use this journal to reflect on this aspect of your Home Visits.

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Contemplation: The Chosen
Contemplation: The Chosen 576 576 SVDP USA

“It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you,” Jesus explained to the twelve at the Last Supper. This small and most loyal group of His followers, who had left behind home and family, dropped their fishing nets to walk with Him, were not there because they had figured something out about Him – they were there because He had called them.

In His call, they were invited not only to follow, but to be taught, nourished, led to become like Him, and to bear fruit that would remain. This is the calling of all Christians, indeed, of all people. It is our vocation.

It is no coincidence that our specific Vincentian vocation follows Christ’s words almost exactly. Our vocation, as our Rule puts it, is “to follow Christ through service to those in need and so bear witness to His compassionate and liberating love.” [Rule, Part I, 1.2] Like the Apostles, to “seek to draw closer to Christ.” [Rule, Part I, 2.1] Also like the Apostles, it is not we who chose Him, but He who chose us.

This Vincentian vocation is our particular and special way of living our faith, and it is all the more special when we realize that we were chosen and specially called to it by Christ. If we are tempted from time to time to instead credit ourselves too much, we receive regular calls from Him to remind us who is chosen, and who chooses. He may call us from a darkened apartment, with the electricity cut off. He may call us at our food pantries because He is hungry. He may call us from a park bench, seeking shelter from the cold.

Time and time again, we do not choose Him, He chooses us, and when He does, we hear again His words that “as I have done for You, You should also do.”

And what is it He has done for us? What is it He calls us to do in turn for others? What is it He seeks when He calls the Conference helpline? Yes, we surely are called to bring whatever relief we can for the material needs presented to us, but we also must “never forget that giving love, talents and time is more important than giving money.” [Rule, Part I, 3.14]

The poor cry out, and often their cries are unheard, or ignored. What a great gift it is when they cry out to us, when they call us, when they give us the opportunity to answer and to serve. This is what Blessed Frédéric called “the sublime vocation God has given us. Would that we were a little bit worthy of it and bent easily to its burden.” [Letter 90, to Curnier, 1835]

And why shouldn’t we bend easily to it? The poor do much more than just call us. They choose us.

Contemplate

Am I joyful to answer each time He chooses me?

Recommended Reading

The Rule, Part I and the Gospel of John, Chapters 14–15

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Contemplation: Faith, Hope, Love, and Trust
Contemplation: Faith, Hope, Love, and Trust 1080 1080 SVDP USA

In this vocation, we are called to trust, especially in two important ways. First, we are called to trust in Divine Providence. [Manual, 63] Second, we are called “to establish relationships based on trust and friendship” with the neighbor. [Rule, Part I, 1.9] It seems important, then, to examine exactly what it is to trust; what is the meaning of the word?

Our trust in providence is certainly an act of faith. We believe that God will provide. More importantly, we place this trust in Him fully understanding that what he provides may not be at all what we thought we needed; our trust is that He knows better than we do. As St. Vincent puts it, we “Trust fearlessly in Him who has called you, and you will see that all will go well.” [CCD III:136] Trust, then, overcoming fear, is also an act of hope.

God understands our weaknesses, but trusts us, also, and blesses us when we seek to do His will. In this way, we strengthen our relationship with God, and our trust becomes also an act of love. And so, in faith, hope, and love of God, we seek to serve the neighbor because we know this is God’s will.

We seek the face of Christ in the neighbor, we see His suffering in theirs, and, just as with our trust in providence, we seek to establish a relationship based on trust and friendship. This means not only trust in the neighbor; it means earning the neighbor’s trust. Relationships must be mutual. Offering our trust begins with an act of faith — extending the benefit of the doubt. Because we can never know any neighbor’s “whole story,” we always must decide not whether, but at what point, we will extend that benefit of the doubt.

It is helpful to remember St. Vincent’s reminder that “We do not believe a man because he is very learned but because we consider him good and love him.” He goes on to explain the mutuality of this trust, saying that “Do what we will, people will never believe in us if we do not show love and compassion to those whom we wish to believe in us.” [CCD I:276-277] The poor are accustomed to skepticism. By showing instead our faith in them, we earn their trust in us.

We know that there are often times we simply cannot provide the material assistance the neighbor seeks, but by earning their trust, by bearing witness to God’s love through our own, we offer something greater than bread alone: hope. The dictionary even suggests that a synonym for trust is hope, and for Vincentians especially, that makes perfect sense.

If we seek to serve in hope, we must serve also in trust.

Contemplate

How can I better trust, and earn the trust, of the neighbor?

Recommended Reading

Mystic of Charity

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Contemplation: The Measure of Success
Contemplation: The Measure of Success 975 975 SVDP USA

In Blessed Frédéric’s famous essay “Help Which Honors” he points out that when we focus on mere material assistance when there is no reciprocity, when we “give the poor man nothing but bread, or clothes, or a bundle of straw — what, in fact, there is no likelihood of his ever giving [us] in return” it can be humiliating. This is so not only because the neighbors cannot literally repay us for the assistance, but because without having earned it through their own work, they have lost some of their dignity.

Because we are accountable to civil authorities and to donors for the material resources that we give, we regularly (and rightly) report the totals. As a result, it can become easy to allow ourselves to begin measuring our works by people, dollars, loaves of bread, bills paid – the things that are easy to tally up. We can point to each of these things, patting ourselves on the back for all that we’ve done.

But nowhere in the Rule or the Gospels are we called to measure our success this way.

Instead, we are called to offer “any form of help that alleviates suffering or deprivation and promotes human dignity and personal integrity in all their dimensions.” [Rule, Part I, 1.3] To alleviate is not to eliminate. Like Veronica, we offer some relief, some temporary alleviation of suffering.

Certainly, we are called to identify “unjust structures” and to work towards eliminating the root causes of poverty, but we must remember always that justice cannot replace charity. [Rule, Part I, 7.1] After all, the seeking after justice, while it is to the benefit of all society, is not going to put food on a particular hungry neighbor’s table tonight. We are called, as Frédéric said, to “make charity accomplish what justice alone cannot”. [Letter 136, to Lallier, 1836]

Because suffering “can shake our faith and become a temptation against it” [CCC, 164], our service to the neighbor must above all demonstrate the care of a loving God who does not abandon us in our suffering. Ours is an association not only of works, but of faith. We serve the neighbor in charity – the love of God – and walk with him in friendship.

We cannot always know – in fact, we may rarely know – whether we have drawn another towards God, and so we can’t report that accomplishment. But the conversion of hearts is never really our accomplishment, it is God’s. The more we focus on the material, the more we risk robbing the neighbor’s dignity, rather than restoring it.

Instead, we are called to selflessly offer our time, our talents, our possessions, and ourselves; to gently offer our friendship and our prayers; to humbly demonstrate our faith through our works; and with zeal to “do all the good we can, and trust to God for the rest.” [Baunard, 81] Even if it doesn’t seem measurable.

Contemplate

How do I measure success?

Recommended Reading

A Heart on Fire

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Contemplation: This Sweet Business
Contemplation: This Sweet Business 714 714 SVDP USA

“Let us go to the poor!” was the stirring declaration which founded the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. Challenged to demonstrate the good of the church in their modern world, our young founders could find no better way than to imitate Christ, who descended from heaven to visit us in our poverty. [Baunard, 416]

As Christ Himself explained, He “did not come to be served, but to serve”, to give…to visit. The one that hosts is the one in the place of honor; the one that visits is the servant. Our Rule emphasizes this aspect of our vocation explaining that visits to those in need “should be made in their environment” (their homes). [Rule, Part III, St. 8] But where are they? Where is “their environment” except in their home?

Of course, we know that “home” may be usually, but is certainly not always, a house or apartment. Poor prisoners cry out from their prisons, the poor elderly from assisted living facilities, and the poor homeless from the streets. They cry out to us if we have ears to hear them.

Similarly, poverty takes many forms. “Blessed are you who are poor”, Christ tells in the Gospel of Luke. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” as Matthew recounts this teaching. Whatever the poverty in whatever the home, it is we who are the visitors, we who knock on the door, sit by the bedside, or go to the park bench. After all, as Pope Benedict XVI reminds us “one of the deepest forms of poverty a person can experience is isolation”, and that other kinds of poverty often are “born from isolation … by man’s basic and tragic tendency to close in on himself “. [Caritas in Veritate, 53] How better to alleviate material and spiritual poverty than to break the isolation which contributes to it?

“Home visits,” the Rule continues, “are always made in pairs.” [Rule, Part III, St. 8] By visiting in pairs we continue the tradition begun when Christ sent forth His disciples in pairs. In this way, we begin to evangelize through our “wordless witness”, as two friends in Christ, sharing their time with a neighbor, showing them by our presence that they are not forgotten, letting them know we are Christians by our love, gathering as two with the neighbor as a third, and Christ is in our midst.

Christ offered a gift on His visit: His very life. Although the gifts we bring in the form of food, or money, are much more modest than that, those material gifts also are not really the point of the home visit. Though we may not give our lives as Christ did, Frédéric calls us to give them a little at a time, through every action we take, to “smoke night and day like perfume on the altar.” [Letter 90, to Curnier, 1837]

We are called invest much, to pour our hearts into each visit. And yet, as Frédéric tells us “He who brings a loaf of bread to the home of a poor man often brings back a joyful and comforted heart. Thus, in this sweet business of charity, the expenses are low, but the returns are high.” [Address in Lyon, 1837]

Contemplate

What is my investment in charity, and what is my return?

Recommended Reading

Mystic of Charity (especially Home Visits in the Vincentian Tradition)

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Contemplation — Like Unto Him
Contemplation — Like Unto Him 1080 1080 SVDP USA

When he was eighteen years old, Blessed Frédéric felt as if he was not committed enough to living his faith, that he too often failed in charity. His spiritual director at the time advised him that his many distractions and temptations would fade away when he was formed. “When I am formed,” Frédéric lamented. “When will that day come?” [Letter 13, to Materne,1830]

For the young man, in a hurry to grow, this was an obvious question. When, exactly, can I check “formation” off my list? When will I be finished? When will I be what I am meant, and called, to be? These are questions every Vincentian, indeed every Catholic may ask.

Yet we know what we are called to be. Jesus said it quite clearly: we are called to “be perfect, just as Your heavenly Father is perfect.” Christ, of course, was only echoing the words of the Father, who said (more than once) that “you shall be holy, because I am holy.” Knowing that we are called to be like God, you would think we would be more patient with ourselves, more willing to “abandon ourselves to the providence of God and be very careful not to run ahead of it.” [CCD II:499]

The word “holy” stems from the same root as “healthy” and “whole”, meaning complete. Similarly, “perfect” also expresses completeness. As the Apostle explains, “when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.” When we are formed, we will be complete, fulfilling God’s plan and His will for us.

This is why, for Vincentians, our formation is not limited to training events, like the Ozanam Orientation, which serves the intellectual dimension of our formation. Instead, we feed our human formation by service to the poor, building habits of holiness by serving “for love alone.” [Rule, Part I, 2.2] Our spiritual formation is fed by our reflections, prayer, and sharing our insights and growth with each other. For our ministerial formation, we try to live our vocation in “every moment of our lives.” [Rule, Part I, 2.6]

When will we be formed? When will we be perfect? The two questions have the same answer.

The same God who called us to this vocation walks with us on our pathway, guiding our steps if we let Him. To continue this walk is not to confess our inadequacy, but to express our gratitude for having been called. Along the way, we are regularly reassured by our “devotion to the Eucharist” [Rule, Part I, 2.2], in which “God, seeing Himself in us, makes us, once again, like unto Him… thereby giving us the capacity to live in Him as He lives in us.” [SWLM, M.72]

We will be fully formed, fulfilling God’s will for us, when we are perfect. We remain humble in our incompleteness and patient in our pursuit of holiness, reminding ourselves that “Even the saints could be better since the Creator alone enjoys infinite perfection.” [Letter 515, To Amélie, 1843]

Contemplate

How have I become more holy this week?

Recommended Reading

15 Days of Prayer with Blessed Frédéric Ozanam

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Contemplation — Only to Be Shared
Contemplation — Only to Be Shared 1080 1080 SVDP USA

In a house in Reuilly, a district in the southeast of Paris, the Duchess of Bourbon had founded a hospice that served as a home for elderly and sick former servants of the royal family in their final years. It was here, in 1831, that a young Daughter of Charity was assigned. Sister Catherine, known to her family as Zoe, was 24 years old when she arrived. Born to a farming family, she was one of 17 children, ten of whom lived past infancy. Her mother had died when she was nine. By the time she was twelve, she had become the woman of the house, cooking, cleaning, and caring for her family. She never learned to read or write growing up, beginning her schooling when she was 18, mainly so that she could be admitted to the Daughters of Charity, which she was, in 1830.

Assigned to the Enghien Hospice as a novice, she was sent first to the kitchen, where she helped prepare meals for the elderly residents. Soon, she would be moved outside to care for the cows, pigs, and chickens, and later, to do the laundry. The work was tiring, but not too much for a young woman. Rising each day at 4:00, she was always diligent in her mending, washing, and folding.

After taking her vows, she remained at the hospice, continuing in her labors for 45 years, never complaining and seemingly never tiring of it. For a time, she had carried out the superior’s duties, but declined the title. She gladly relinquished these duties to a much younger superior. When others urged her to complain, she led them instead to follow her in humble obedience.

During many turbulent and dangerous times, Catherine’s calm reassured her sisters. When the Commune in 1870 arrested and killed clergy and religious, and threatened to burn down their house, Catherine somehow knew they would be safe. Indeed, throughout her life she shared small visions that later came to pass. She was so unassuming that people hardly noticed her prophecies until years later.

It was not until her final days that the great secret of Catherine’s life would become known. In 1830, at the Motherhouse on rue du Bac, young Catherine had been visited by the Blessed Virgin. She had laid her head on Mary’s lap and received instructions to have a medal struck. During Catherine’s lifetime, millions of medals had spread throughout the world – Catherine herself often gave them out. Stories of miracles and of the apparition were well-known, but nobody knew the identity of the young Daughter of Charity who had been chosen by the Queen of Heaven.

When it was revealed that Catherine had been the one chosen by Mary, nobody who knew her was surprised. Of course, it was her; of course, it was the one who washed laundry for 45 years. Of course, it was the one who had arrived as an illiterate farm girl, the one who asked nothing for herself. This vision had been her greatest gift, and like all gifts from God, she knew it was given only to be shared.

Contemplate

Do I make a habit of sharing generously the time, talents, and treasure I have received from God?

Recommended Reading

Sister Catherine LaBouré of the Miraculous Medal

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