Formation

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Contemplation — A Persevering Fidelity
Contemplation — A Persevering Fidelity 1080 1080 SVDP USA

As Vincentians, our primary purpose is our own growth in holiness. Achieving this is very closely tied to another core tenet of our spirituality, which is that our “ideal is to help relieve suffering for love alone, without thinking of any reward or advantage for [ourselves].” [Rule, Part I, 2.2] It only stands to reason that our ideal is also the greatest commandment, Christ’s express will that we love the neighbor as ourselves, for the love of God.

Saint Vincent de Paul once explained to the priests of the mission that in order to do this, we must make our intentions clear at the start. He suggested this prayer, which members of the Society might also consider offering before each home visit: “My God, I’m going to do this for love of You; for love of You I’m going to stop doing this thing in order to do something else.” [CCD XI:284]

Making this good intention, he said, is much like saying the words of the sacrament of Baptism – it isn’t the water that baptizes the child. Water is only matter; the prayer is the form. In a similar way, our charitable works, by themselves, are only matter if not expressly offered for the love of God alone.

There are many temptations that can distract us from this. Vincent described five vices that act contrary to our virtues: “(1) mere human prudence; (2) the desire for publicity; (3) always wanting everyone to give in to us and see things our way; (4) the pursuit of self-gratification in everything; (5) attaching no great importance to either God’s honor or the salvation of others.” [CCD XII:254]

So, for example, although we owe an accounting of our works to our donors, we can sometimes get too caught up in the narrative of our great successes, and even begin to see our works as achievements, forgetting “that giving love, talents and time is more important than giving money.” [Rule, Part I, 3.14]

Fr. Corpus Delgado, C.M., in a conference on St. Louise de Marillac, shared this great insight from her example: “To follow Jesus the Crucified Lord is to learn little by little that success is not one of the names of God, and that in our vocation and in our service, we are not asked for percentages of effectiveness but a persevering fidelity.” [CEME, Salamanca, 2010]

The home visit isn’t about the light bill, or the rent, or the groceries. If it were, we could leave those things at the doorstep. It’s about the love of God and the neighbor, which perhaps can’t be measured or reported but is exactly the thing that can lead to our growth in holiness, so that it is no longer we who love, but Christ who loves through us. [Rule, Part I, 2.1]

Contemplate

Do I make my intention clear to God before each work of charity?

Recommended Reading

The Manual

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Contemplation — On Our Way
Contemplation — On Our Way 1080 1080 SVDP USA

One of the central activities of the Conferences and Councils of the Society is formation. Because we often use this word as a synonym for “training” we can begin to think of it as an isolated event, something to check off on a list when we join the Society or enter into specific positions. But formation is not a single event – it is a lifelong journey of becoming…of becoming what?

As Vincentians, we have chosen a specific way of being Catholic, and this way, this vocation, forms us. The Foundation Document on Vincentian Formation, adopted by the Society more than twenty years ago, suggests four different dimensions of formation, closely mirroring the areas outlined in Pastores dabo vobis, an apostolic exhortation on the formation of priests.

Our human formation, the basis for all formation, begins with our actions, which are shaped by our virtues. We become by doing, we build habits of virtue in order to become virtuous. For Vincentians, these include the Cardinal Virtues, the Theological Virtues, and our Vincentian Virtues.

Our spiritual formation has to do with the transcendent aspect of our nature; the aspect in which we are truly made in God’s image. Our spiritual formation reminds us that we are created to live in community. The model of the Holy Trinity reminds us that the eternal life is a shared life, and that our path to it is also shared. As Vincentians, we pray and reflect together often. Our spiritual reflections and prayers in each Conference meeting are a vital part of our ongoing formation. Our individual prayers, retreats, Mass – and prayers shared with the neighbor are all part of our spiritual formation. We journey together towards holiness. [Rule, Part I, 2.2]

Our training falls within our intellectual formation. The efforts we make to learn the practical aspects of our vocation, to learn about poverty, and about specific works and programs. But our intellectual formation also demands that we take the time to read about our heritage, the words and deeds of our saints and blessed, as well as to devote time to personal study of Holy Scripture.

Finally, ministerial formation comes from a commitment to our vocation as mission, accepting our service as a means to our growth, and remaining open to all ways to serve, including servant leadership.

Our particular way of being Catholic, our particular process of becoming, is our Vincentian vocation. We follow, in every part of our lives, our Vincentian pathway towards becoming what Christ calls us to be, “perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Contemplate

In what way was I formed today? How did I grow closer to holiness?

Recommended Reading

Faces of Holiness

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Contemplation — He’s Right Over There
Contemplation — He’s Right Over There 1080 1080 SVDP USA

Vincentians are people of prayer – it is central to our vocation. Equal to it, though, is our commitment to go out and do. In the doing, we receive God’s transformational grace; we grow closer to perfect union with Christ by serving Him exactly as he has asked us to do, in the person of the poor.

St. Vincent once offered an interesting analogy for the balance between contemplation and action, likening it to the dove that eats its fill, then chews more food only in order to feed it to the little birds. In the same way, he said, we “gather light and strength for our soul in meditation, reading, and solitude on the one hand, and then to go out and share this spiritual nourishment with others.” [CCD XI:33]

Yet we also acknowledge the truth that it is really we who receive. And so, our person-to-person service becomes mutual, as Frédéric taught that it must be. From us, the neighbor receives not only some material relief, but the assurance that God has not abandoned or forgotten them; that He loves them so much he sends us to listen and to pray with them. We, in turn, receive a true revelation and a conversion of our hearts.

In the life of St. Vincent, we note several important moments of conversion, transforming him from the young, ambitious priest seeking benefices and connections, to the humble servant of the poor. In 1617 especially, when he received the confession of the poor farmer in Gannes, and later that year encountering the poor farming family in Châtillon. Like most of us, he was not converted in a blinding flash on the road to Damascus. Instead, through a series of experiences, some of which he may not have even noticed at the time, his heart was turned fully towards Christ.

Spiritually, he had been influenced strongly by the teaching of several mystics, especially Benet of Canfield, whose Rule of Perfection would be echoed fifty years later in the Common Rules of the Congregation of the Mission. Yet he could be somewhat dismissive, at times, of mystic visions of God.

What Vincent came to understand viscerally through his own encounters with the poor is that if you wish to have a vision of Christ, well, he’s right over there! He is asking for food, or shelter. He is begging to be seen. If you want a revelation of His will, listen; listen with your ears, your eyes, and your heart to the cry of the poor.

We give our time, our talents, our possessions, and ourselves; we serve the will of God and of the poor in providing material assistance and prayer. When we do so, two or three of us together, the Christ who sent us is, as He promised, there with us, making every encounter a moment of revelation and conversion if we seek it.

Contemplate

When did I last see Christ, and what did He reveal to me?

Recommended Reading

Mystic of Charity

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Contemplation — Enough
Contemplation — Enough 940 788 SVDP USA

We are called to see the face of Christ in those we serve. In imagining His face, it is easy to imagine the peaceful face portrayed in so many great works of art over the years, or the glorified Christ, or even Christ crucified on a clean cross at the front of our churches.

Which Christ, then, are we called to see? Christ, our Lord, risen in glory? Jesus of Nazareth, carpenter? Jesus the condemned, bloodied, and humiliated? For St. Vincent, the great lesson of the incarnation was that “Since Christ willed to be born poor … he made himself the servant of the poor and shared their poverty.” [Manual, 54] Through Vincent’s vision, we are called to see the carpenter, the unemployed, the single mom – all those neighbors who so regularly call our Conferences for help. He is there.

Blessed Frédéric’s vision reminds us that in the poor before us “we can put finger and hand in their wounds and the scars of the crown of thorns are visible on their foreheads…and we should fall at their feet and say with the Apostle, ‘Tu est Dominus et Deus meus.’” [Letter 137, to Janmot, 1837] We serve Him, and we also share in His suffering.

Who is Frédéric’s Jesus in our neighborhoods today? In whom can we see Christ’s scars? Who is wrapped in tattered clothing, wounded, unwashed; who sleeps in the cold, and on the street? From whom is it sometimes easier to turn away?

Do we “[speak] about them with euphemisms and with apparent tolerance”? Do we “look at those who suffer without touching them”? [Fratelli Tutti, 76] Do we offer them our prayers but not our hearts, wishing them to go in peace, but not providing for their needs? Are we sometimes paralyzed into inaction not by lack of charity, but by the fear that their needs are too great for our efforts?

As he walked towards Golgotha, Jesus stumbled under the weight of His cross. Veronica stepped forth, offered Him a cloth with which He wiped away the blood, sweat, and tears, and then continued on His way. Should she have held back, knowing she could not save Him from the cross?

There is not a Jesus of Frédéric or of Vincent. There is only one, and if we seek to see and to serve Him, we must remember that our smiles, kind words, handshakes, consolations, and prayers [O’Meara, 177] are not an extra thing for the neighbor without electricity, they are the most important thing we offer – especially to the neighbors who have nothing.

Do not be afraid. As He promised He will be with us to the end of the age.

Contemplate

Do I believe in my heart that my friendship, prayers, and love are enough?

Recommended Reading

500 Little Prayers for Vincentians

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Contemplation — The Vincentian Tradition
Contemplation — The Vincentian Tradition 940 788 SVDP USA

The Catholic Church teaches the importance of tradition in addition to Scripture. It is through tradition that the divine revelation is passed along from the Apostles to us. Tradition and Scripture “form one sacred deposit of the word of God”. [Dei Verbum, 10] It should be no surprise then, that the Society of St. Vincent de Paul is governed by both the Rule and by the traditions of the Society. [cf Rule, Part II, 7.4]

The Rule, of course, has been revised from time to time over the past 187 years, often in order to incorporate accumulated traditions into the Rule itself. One of the changes made to Part III of the Rule in the most recent revision (in 2018), was to slightly change the wording of Statute 7 to allow Conferences a little more flexibility in conducting their meetings, specifically so that they might have meetings wholly dedicated to spiritual reflection, but not necessarily including the “business” items of the agenda every week.

After all, “the end of the Society is especially to rekindle and refresh … the spirit of Catholicism,” Bl. Frédéric wrote, explaining further that “fidelity to meetings, and union of intention and prayer are indispensable to this end”. [Letter 182, to Lallier, 1838] In other words, while our home visits are the primary means to our growth in holiness, we cannot achieve that growth without meeting together regularly in prayer and reflection.

The Manual further explains our Rule and is one of the best resources for understanding our traditions. In the case of the meeting agenda, for example, the Manual makes clear that “Every Conference meeting includes a spiritual component that promotes active participation and discussion.” [Manual, p. 18] While there is not a prescribed form for the spiritual reflection, both the Rule and Manual explain that the center of it is discussion and sharing between members.

Writing about the meetings of the first Conference, Bl. Frédéric related that they were reading and discussing The Imitation of Christ, and the Life of St. Vincent de Paul in their meetings, for example. [Letter 175, to Lallier, 1838] More recently, using tools such as the Spirituality of the Home Visit booklet, many Conferences have begun using home visit reports as the basis for their reflections. In this way, all members, not just the visitors, benefit from the visitors’ experience. In turn, by adding their own insights, they enrich everybody’s growth.

Through our spiritual reflections, we seek to explicitly connect our service, spirituality, and friendship. This is one of our most precious traditions, if we believe, as Bl. Frédéric did, “that visiting the poor should be the means and not the end of our association.” [Letter 182, to Lallier, 1838]

Contemplate

How can I better foster shared growth in holiness in my Conference?

Recommended Reading

The Manual

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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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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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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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Contemplation — Seeking Help From the Neighbor
Contemplation — Seeking Help From the Neighbor 940 788 SVDP USA

The parable of the Good Samaritan is a Vincentian favorite. In Christ’s command to “go and do likewise”, we hear the call to our lay vocation: to tend to the helpless, the hungry, the sick, and the lonely with acts of both corporal and spiritual mercy.

For Frédéric, the robber’s victim represented all the “humanity of our days” which had been robbed not only of its possessions, but of its “treasure of faith and love” by the “cutthroats and robbers of thought”. [Letter 90, to Curnier, 1835] In Frédéric’s retelling, the priest and Levite had not passed by, indifferent to suffering. Shaped by his own experiences with widespread rejection of the church, the priest and Levite had instead been rejected by the traveler, who did not recognize them as helpers.

Because of this, the task of tending to the wounds of “the great sick one” was left to us, “weak Samaritans” whose task was not only to tend to the necessities of the body, but to offer “words of consolation and peace” so that he might return to the church. In this interpretation, Frédéric echoed the commentary of St. Augustine, who had taught that the innkeeper represented the church. [Quaestiones Evangeliorum, II]

We can hear this idea repeated in Frédéric’s later essay on “Help Which Honors”, in which he explains that to give material help only, without our love and friendship, is humiliating. Instead, we honor those in need by offering those things that we may need ourselves – a handshake, consolation, kind words. “Help then becomes honorable,” he said, “because it may become mutual.” [O’Meara, 229]

When you consider it this way, it would seem that when we “weak Samaritans” crouch down at the side of the road to offer our help, we also are seeking help from the victim, in whom we see the suffering Christ. [Rule, Part I, 1.8] Our service to the neighbor, given freely and generously, is a means to the end of our own growth in holiness. We grow closer to Christ by serving Him.

After all, the question Christ was answering with the parable was about what we must do to inherit eternal life. How could we do anything but to “go and do likewise”?

Contemplate

Do I feel gratitude to the neighbor for drawing me closer to Christ?

Recommended Reading

15 Days of Prayer with Bl. Frédéric Ozanam

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