Monday Contemplation

Contemplation: The Bashful Poor

Contemplation: The Bashful Poor 800 800 SVDP USA

By Timothy Williams, Senior Director of Formation and Leadership Development 

Effective Conferences, our manual explains, are “reachable.” [Manual, 26] While most Conferences make every effort to ensure that their phone number, along with perhaps a website and email address, are well-publicized and shared with other community organizations for referrals, our Rule calls us to do more than that. It calls us “to seek out the poor.” [Rule, Part I, 1.5]

On its face, this might seem unnecessary. After all, if the neighbor has fallen behind on rent, is facing a utility cutoff, or has hungry children to feed, why would they not actively seek out our help? Yet so many wait until the very last moment to call; they exhaust all possible alternatives to avoid calling us; they apologize for having called and are concerned that assisting them might deprive somebody “who really needs help.”

For each person we meet who tells us this, how many more are there who never call, fearful that they would be taking from somebody “who really needs help?” It isn’t that they are in denial about their immediate needs. They simply do not see themselves as “the poor” because their needs are only temporary. When there is a little more month than money, they often choose to just “tough it out.”

In an 1848 letter to his brother Alphonse, a priest, Bl. Frédéric explained that the church must concern itself “not merely with the poverty-stricken, but with the working classes who do not need alms.” [Baunard, 261] To “not need alms,” of course, is not the same thing as needing no assistance at all. In Frédéric’s time and ours, there are many people who work very hard to support themselves and their families, but simply come up a little short from time to time. For that proud working person, their first instinct simply is not to call a church for a “handout.”

These are the same people that St. Vincent de Paul called “the bashful poor” – people who were temporarily impoverished by war or natural disasters, who were ashamed or embarrassed to ask for assistance. [CCD XIIIb:2] How do we find the “bashful poor?” And what do we offer them?

Frédéric believed that they would be best reached by “special sermons, by charitable associations, and by sympathy, which will touch them more than is generally believed.” [Baunard, 261]  In other words, it is our friendship, understanding, and advocacy that will make clear to all that we are here for all of our neighbors.

Unlike an agency, we don’t ask the neighbor to “qualify” or to prove they are poor enough to be deserving of help. No work of charity is foreign to the Society. Sometimes that is a handout, sometimes it is a hand up, sometimes it is a helping hand, but always it must be a handshake of respect, of understanding, and of welcome.

Contemplate

Am I so content with waiting for the desperate poor to call that I don’t reach out to the working poor? 

Recommended Reading

A New Century Dawns

Contemplation: The Way to Peace

Contemplation: The Way to Peace 800 800 SVDP USA

By Timothy Williams, Senior Director of Formation and Leadership Development 

Our little human minds and hearts can sometimes become so bound up in worry and anxiety that we find it difficult to act, difficult even to know what actions to take. We pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and then wonder, with even more anxiety, when our prayers will be answered. This is no less true for us than it is for the neighbor, whose troubles often greatly exceed our own.

Jesus understood this tendency of ours. He understood us, telling us to “let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day,” not to be anxious about material needs, but instead to concern ourselves first with God’s kingdom. But what about the neighbor, whose troubles are many times beyond our ability to alleviate, at least in any permanent way? We’re called to share their suffering, which naturally leads us to share in their anxieties. Over time this can weigh on us, making our hearts heavy, filling us with discouragement. How can we let their troubles also be enough for our day?

In sharing the face of Christ, we are called also to share the great hope that Christ offers. How can we offer this hope to the neighbor when we allow ourselves to lose hope? St. Louise de Marillac offered this advice to the Daughters of Charity, who also suffered what we now call “compassion fatigue” telling them “you will see a great amount of misery that you cannot relieve. God sees it as well …do all you can to provide them with a little assistance and remain at peace.” [SWLM, l.353]

So, we seek a way to the peace that will soothe our anxieties, but there is no way to peace. Peace is the way. God’s peace is already in our hearts, for peace is the God who made us in His image. Letting go of our anxieties and fears, abandoning ourselves to God’s will rather than our own, trusting fully in His providence; in these ways we let go of all the noise and clutter of worldly cares that disturb His peace within us. In turn, we share this peace with the neighbor through our virtue of gentleness; “our friendly assurance and invincible goodwill, which mean kindness, sweetness and patience in our relationship with others.” [Rule, Part I, 2.5.1]

When one person is angry, it can lead others to anger. Laughter, too, is contagious. We are created to live in community, and it is only natural for us to rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. At the same time, as our hearts connect with the neighbor, we cannot help but share God’s peace when we allow it into our own hearts.

The kingdom of God is peace in the Holy Spirit,” St. Vincent taught. “He will reign in you if your heart is at peace.” [CCD I:111]

Contemplate

Do I allow “the day’s own troubles,” mine or the neighbor’s, to crowd out God’s peace?

Recommended Reading

500 Little Prayers for Vincentians

Contemplation: True Presence

Contemplation: True Presence 800 800 SVDP USA

By Timothy Williams, Senior Director of Formation and Leadership Development 

Vincentians are doers, we are people of action. We love God, as St. Vincent said, “with the strength of our arms and the sweat of our brows.” [CCD XI:32] We believe, as Frédéric did, that “religion serves best not to think, but to act.” As central as our prayer life is, our Conferences are “communities of…prayer and action.” [Rule, Part I, 3.3] And yet, as we often emphasize in our home visit training, ours is not a ministry of constant motion or problem-solving, but is instead, in its heart, a ministry of presence.

In our person-to-person service to those in need, we seek to “establish relationships based on trust and friendship.” [Rule, Part I, 1.9] We seek to be like the friends we call in our own times of distress, who come to us not to find us new jobs, or heal our sick family members, or bring the dead back to life, but to sit with us, to feel the sadness that we feel, and by sharing it, to lighten our burdens.

We are called to see the face of Christ in those we serve, but also to share Christ’s face, His love, and His presence. Just as He told us the poor would always be with us, so also He assured us that He would be with us Himself, until the end of the age, and He connected these two truths by reminding us that how we treat the poor would be judged as if done to Himself.

Our ideal is to serve the neighbor for love alone; not the love of romance, but the love of God, the love that is called charity, the love that Vincent said is “inventive to infinity.” [CCD XI:131] It was in Christ’s inventiveness, Vincent said, that He found a way, after his earthly life had ended, not to remain a carpenter, but to remain truly present to all who believe, and to all who seek Him, in the Eucharist.

The primary purpose of the Society is our own growth in holiness, and while our person-to-person service is our primary means towards this growth, our spiritual practices, like Vincent and Frédéric before us, include “devotion to the Eucharist” [Rule, Part I, 2.2] And how could it be otherwise? In the poor, as in the Eucharist, we see Christ’s true presence, and our service itself becomes sacramental.

We are called not only to stand with the poor, but on our Home Visits, to sit with them; to be present with them. It is through our presence, not simply our actions, that our Home Visits, like Eucharistic Adoration, become acts of love and devotion to God’s beloved Son.

Jesus, Son of Man, was sent by the Father to share our humanity fully, to be present with us, among us, and finally, through bread and wine, in us. To share Christ’s love as Vincentians, then, is to be truly present, going to the neighbor as Christ came to us, bringing within us Christ’s true presence through the Eucharist we have received. Ours is a ministry not only of presence, but of true presence, for on the Home Visit, as in the Eucharist, He will, as He promised, be truly present, too.

Contemplate

How can I be more present to the neighbor?

Recommended Reading

‘Tis a Gift to Be Simple

Contemplation: To Wait for God’s Own Time

Contemplation: To Wait for God’s Own Time 800 800 SVDP USA

By Timothy Williams, Senior Director of Formation and Leadership Development 

The church calls the laity to “fulfill their prophetic mission by evangelization” which has “peculiar efficacy because it is accomplished in the ordinary circumstances of the world.” [CCC, 905] Our Vincentian vocation, our special way of living our faith, also defines our special way of evangelizing.

And what is that way? It is plainly true that our visits to the neighbor, particularly the first visit, are not an appropriate time to evangelize by word. The neighbor is in a very vulnerable position, and while likely to listen very politely to what we say, they are equally likely to resent that we have made them feel, despite our best intentions, that coming to Mass may be the price of our assistance.

As the first Rule put it, “All fervor is not holy or accepted of God. All times are not suitable for instilling new and Christian teaching into the heart. We must know how to wait for God’s own time, and to be patient as He is.” [1835 Rule, Intro] We evangelize first and foremost not by preaching, but by the witness of our actions; by our selfless works, performed for love alone.

Blessed Frédéric made this same point, explaining that while we hope to share the saving word of Christ with the poor, “the poor are hungry, so we must first give them bread.” [1457, Report, 1834] Saint Vincent similarly advised his missioners (whose mission was to evangelize) to “be more reserved in their presence, more humble and devout toward God, and more charitable toward your neighbor so that they may see the beauty and holiness of our religion and be moved to return to it.” [CCD VIII:208]

Naturally, we do not hide who we are or why we are visiting, and one of the ways we bear witness to our faith is to pray to God for the neighbor. That is why it will often be the case that as we form relationships based on trust and friendship, it will be the neighbor that starts the conversation about our faith, precisely because our charity, our love, has stirred “irresistible questions” in their hearts. [EN, 21]

Though most of our visits begin and end with material assistance, we are never simply bearers of bread, because, as Frédéric reminds us, “Charity does not consist so much in the distributing of bread as in the manner it is distributed.” [1457, Report, 1834] We seek first to attain holiness, for without that how can we lead others to it? We pray that our kindness, friendship, and love will transform the hearts of the neighbors we serve, just as their suffering transforms ours.

In our annual reports, we record the assistance our Conferences provide. We hold in our hearts the memory of tears we have dried and hope we have shared. But we will never know how many souls our works may have saved. That is up to God, not us, and “We are not commissioned to perform the good which it is out of our power to effect.” [1835 Rule, Intro]

Contemplate

Is my zeal for the salvation of souls tempered by my humility and faith that God is working through me?

Recommended Reading

This week, let’s watch a video about Our Vincentian Virtue of Zeal

Contemplation: The Challenge of Modern Times

Contemplation: The Challenge of Modern Times 800 800 SVDP USA

By Timothy Williams, Senior Director of Formation & Leadership Development

Blessed Frédéric and his friends founded the Society in 1833 in answer to a challenge posed to them by another group of students in a discussion group called the Conference of History. The other students, adherents to San Simonianism, a form of utopian socialism, believed the church’s day had come and gone, and that poverty and other social problems could be best addressed with modern, scientific methods. Yet their challenge to Frédéric was not a challenge to show how much bread or firewood could be distributed, or how many poor families could be assisted. Their challenge was simpler, but more difficult. “Show us,” they demanded, “the good of the church in the modern world.”

To show the good of the church remains our core mission, our evangelical mission, and the good of the church is the same as ever: to bring all people to eternal life in union with a loving God. And so Frédéric and his friends could see no better way to answer the challenge, no better way to demonstrate the good of the church than to “do what Our Lord Jesus Christ did when preaching the Gospel. Let us go,” Frédéric declared, “to the poor.” [Baunard, 65]

Since the beginning of time, God has loved us, awaited us, and answered our calls, but for one moment in human history, He put on the cloak of humanity and came to us. He visited us, walked among us, shared our pains and our burdens, and called us friend; He came not to be served but to serve.

Our primary purpose is to grow in holiness. This is the good of the church. Our secondary purpose is to share Christ’s love with the neighbor. This, too, is the good of the church. The good of the church was shown to us by our Heavenly father, who so loved the world that He sent His only Son to establish His church. And because “love is inventive to infinity” He further found a way to remain in our presence in the Eucharist. [CCD XI:129]; to be present, to act for love alone, as our Rule calls us to do. [Rule Part I, 2.2]

The good of the church is first to lead us to Christ. We do not summon Him to us. Rather, we seek Him exactly where he tells us He will be found: in the hungry, in the thirsty, in the naked, the prisoner, the stranger, the poor. We seek out and find Him in the poor. [Rule, Part I, 1.5]

By coming to us, in person, God established His church and all its goodness in the world. He went to the poor, He went to the hungry, He even went to the sinners, sinners that many others of the day thought were undeserving. Vincentians seek both to encounter and to imitate Christ. We go to the poor, not because it is efficient, not because it is modern. It was neither of those things in 1833, nor even in 30 AD. We go to the poor to bring Christ’s love, and to share the hope of the living Word.

This was and remains the good of the church, and the mission of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

Contemplate

How can I better show the good of Christ’s church in the modern world?

Recommended Reading

500 Little Prayers for Vincentians

Contemplation: To Discern, Not to Decide

Contemplation: To Discern, Not to Decide 800 800 SVDP USA

By Tim Williams, Senior Director of Formation & Leadership Development

In the Society of St Vincent de Paul, “all decisions are made by consensus after the necessary prayer, reflection and consultation.” [Rule, Part I, 3.10] In other words, we don’t simply vote the minority “off the island,” but instead ensure that every voice is heard as we seek to arrive at a solution that everyone can support. The process of prayer, reflection, and consultation that we follow to arrive at consensus is discernment.

Discernment, in turn, is not simply a decision-making process, in which we tally up the plusses and minuses, or offer arguments for our positions. It is instead a search for truth, and that truth, for us, is always the will of God. To truly discern requires that each of us let go of our attachment to our own ideas, keeping our minds and hearts open not only to the ideas of others, but to the idea that our purpose is not to choose from among competing alternatives, but to find the one truth that is God’s will.

Our first Rule explained the importance of self-denial in this process, saying that “The man who is in love with his own ideas, will disdain the opinion of others… We should, therefore, willingly acquiesce in the judgment of others, and should not feel annoyed if our own propositions be not accepted by them. Our mutual good will should proceed from the heart and should be without bounds.” [Rule, Intro, 1835]

These words echo St. Vincent de Paul, who said that we should “deny ourselves totally for love of God, to bring our judgment into harmony with that of our neighbor… and conforming to God’s judgment of things!” [CCD XII:175] For Saint Vincent de Paul, the will of God was always the center of holiness, and always the guiding light for his works and his plans.

Discernment is not a contest to determine whose will is strongest, but instead is always a seeking of God’s will to guide us, whether discerning our individual pathway, discerning the best way to help a neighbor, or discerning a plan for new special works. If we truly believe that God called us to this Vincentian vocation, we must also believe that the God who called us here is here; that he is within and among us; that each of us individually and all of us as a group were called here by God; and that it is His voice and His will we are called to continue to serve. He makes His will known to us through Holy Scripture, through the Rule and traditions of the Society, and through the people and events in our lives. To deny ourselves in this process doesn’t mean refusing to say what we think. It means offering our reasons, but not our judgment. It means having the humility to recognize that we do not know all the answers, and being willing to accept God’s will as it is revealed to us, even – and especially – when it contradicts our own preconceived notions.

In other words, if we truly wish to hear His voice, we must first lower our own.

Contemplate

Am I sometimes too attached to my own opinions at Conference meetings?

Recommended Reading

Serving in Hope, Module VII – especially 7.4 “Discerning With a Vincentian Heart”

Contemplation: Another Advocate

Contemplation: Another Advocate 800 800 SVDP USA

By Timothy Williams, Senior Director of Formation & Leadership Development

In 1833, President (and Spiritual Advisor) Emmanuel Bailly opened the first meeting of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul praying “Veni, Sancte Spiritus…” We continue this special devotion to the Holy Spirit today, beginning our Opening Prayers at Conference Meetings with the very same invocation, but now in our own language: “Come Holy Spirit, live within our lives, and strengthen us by Your love.”

The Holy Spirit, Jesus told His disciples, would be sent to them after His ascension to heaven as “another Advocate” – in other words, to represent the continued presence of Christ, the first Advocate, on earth. In this way, He introduces us to the Third Person of the Holy Trinity. The word used in the Greek is paraclete, which carries the same meaning as the Latin advocatus, a term that referred to legal counsel, but in our use refers to one who provides counsel, comfort, protection, and much more.

The Paraclete, the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, then, is our protector, our comforter, and our mediator with God the Father. As Vincentians, we seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our discernment, the fire of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in all of our works.

Interestingly, many Conferences and Councils refer to members of Home Visit teams as “advocates.” Whether or not your Conference uses this term, it is a helpful way to understand our role in serving the neighbor. We are called not only to “see the suffering Christ” in the poor, [Rule, Part I, 1.8] but to hope that it is Christ who loves through us, so that “the poor may catch a glimpse of God’s great love for them.” [Rule, Part I, 2.1] In other words, we seek to be “another advocate,” sharing and showing the face and the love of Christ, offering not only material assistance but prayer, comfort, and counsel. We are called to share the face of Christ, and to be a channel of the Holy Spirit.

We’re further called to be a “voice for the voiceless,” sharing “the perspective of those we visit who suffer” in order to address issues of justice in our wider community. [Rule, Part I, 7.4-7.5] This is a role the Society has played quite prominently throughout our history, beginning with Blessed Frédéric himself. In 1898, for example, Edmond Butler, who later served as National Council president, served on New York’s Committee on Dependent Children where he advocated the natural rights of parents, informed by the understanding gained through the relationships the Society had built with the poor.

Today, our advocacy continues not only through formal programs, such as Voice for the Poor, but also, and more importantly, in every conversation we have with friends and neighbors, giving voice to the struggles of the poor, and seeking solutions in collaboration with others in our communities.

Give me the gentleness to offer comfort, the hope to offer prayer, and the zeal to be a voice for the poor. All this and more is what we mean when we pray “Come Holy Spirit, live within our lives.”

Contemplate

How often do I pray specifically for the Holy Spirit’s guidance and inspiration?

Recommended Reading

Antoine-Frédéric Ozanam – especially Chapter 6

Contemplation: With All Our Strength

Contemplation: With All Our Strength 800 800 SVDP USA

By Timothy Williams, Senior Director of Formation & Leadership Development

As Vincentians, we understand this to be a calling, a vocation. Each of is called to serve God as a member of the Society, seeing Christ in the neighbor, and growing in holiness through our service. While the meetings and the works of the Society demand much from us, our Rule tells us that our vocation asks much more than that; that it is a “vocation for every moment of our lives.” [Rule, Part I, 2.6]

How could it be otherwise? Our Vincentian vocation is simply our specific way of living the universal vocation of all Christians, to seek holiness, to “be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” This is not a call to be perfect only at Sunday Mass, or Monday Conference meetings, or on home visits. It is a call to be reborn, to be transformed, to be like Christ, fully united with God in eternal life.

So how do we seek holiness in “every moment?” How do we live our vocation, for example, at work? In Christifidelis Laici, Pope Saint John Paul II explained that “in discovering and living their proper vocation and mission, the lay faithful must be formed according to the union which exists from their being members of the Church and citizens of human society.” [CF, 59] In other words, we seek to be in the world, but not of it, as Jesus prayed.

We need look no farther than Blessed Frédéric to find a model to follow. For Frédéric there was no demarcation between Sunday and the rest of the week, no boundary between his prayer and his action, no separation between the secular and the spiritual life. In his teaching, he saw it as his duty to serve the university, but always to serve God in doing so. “I belong both to the church and the university,” he explained, “I believe that I have partly succeeded when, in a public lecture to an audience of every belief and party, I profess Christian teaching with simplicity.” [475, To M Soulacroix, 1843]

While he “proudly professed our faith and refuted contrary systems, striving to fulfill our vocation as professors in a Christian manner and to serve God in serving wholesome teaching,” he also believed it important “that our lectures not be looked upon by our colleagues as provocations demanding a reply and that, if some are strangers to the faith, they not be made its enemies.” [516, to Foisset,1843]

He prayed before every lecture for the Holy Spirit to guide him, and his dedication to his students was total. Hearing of criticism for missing too many classes during his illness, he was unoffended. Instead, he literally arose from his deathbed, and walking into the classroom with assistance, began his lecture saying “Gentlemen, our age is charged with selfishness, and professors are stated to be affected with the general complaint. Yet, it is here that we wear out our health, and use up our strength. I do not complain, our life is yours; we owe it to you to the last breath, and you shall have it. As for me, if I die, it will be in your service.” [Baunard, 358-359] He loved his students as he loved God, with all his strength. It was his last lecture, and perhaps his finest.

Contemplate

Do I seek to serve God in all that I do?

Recommended Reading

Antoine-Frédéric Ozanam

Contemplation: Under the Cross

Contemplation: Under the Cross 800 800 SVDP USA

Amélie Ozanam, Blessed Frédéric’s widow, had a brief invocation, or perhaps a motto, that she often added to notes and letters that she wrote. It was “et sub cruce, Hozanna!”, meaning “and under the cross, Hozanna!” in Latin. This was a play on her maiden name, Soulacroix, which is French for “under the cross,” along with her married name, Ozanam, which is from the Hebrew, hoshi’a na, or hosanna. We sing praise under the cross!

For Vincentians, the idea of a life “under the cross” is central to understanding our vocation. Saint Vincent often reminded his followers of the importance of bearing their crosses, just as Christ had asked of all who wished to follow Him. For Vincent, our suffering, our challenges, our crosses, should be borne with happiness, because “He sanctifies souls by crosses, just as He has redeemed them by His own Cross.” [CCD IV:180]

As Vincent understood, we all have different crosses; some as simple as temptations or bad habits, some as serious as illness, addictions, or poverty. Whatever they may be, our crosses are not meant to defeat us. To give in to temptations, for example, is to attach ourselves to the worldly; to resist them, to bear the cross, is to remember the greater joy that awaits us in the next life. We should take comfort, then, in our crosses, and bear them willingly, even cheerfully. As St. Louise said, “your sufferings will be changed into consolation because of the crosses you are privileged to bear.” [SWLM, L.393]

Our crosses, in this sense, are an extension of Christ’s own cross, a share in His suffering, an invitation “to cooperate in all the great works,” Frédéric explained, “which can be done without us!” After all, he went on, Christ could have summoned “twelve legions of angels” when He was condemned, but instead “willed that Simon of Cyrene, an obscure man, carry His cross and so contribute to the great marvel of universal redemption.” [173, To Lallier, 1838] The crucifix, a sign of great suffering and pain, is for us instead a sign of great comfort. We see beauty in that image of pain because we see it with “hope-tainted eyes,” knowing that Christ’s story does not end there.

Each of the neighbors we serve bears a cross, and we are called to see in them the suffering Christ. [Rule, Part I, 1.8] Like the crucified Christ, they suffer, they thirst, and they cry out in abandonment. Bearing our own crosses cheerfully helps us better to walk with them, like Simon of Cyrene, easing their burden, but more importantly, offering them the hope that sees past suffering.

It is our presence that shows them God’s love, our comfort that reassures them they are not forgotten, and our actions that say, along with Saint Vincent, “I shall share in your consolation, as I intend to share in your cross…” [CCD III:234]

Contemplate

Do I gladly bear my own cross along with the neighbor’s?

Recommended Reading

The Book of the Sick, by Blessed Frédéric Ozanam

Contemplation: Chosen From All Eternity

Contemplation: Chosen From All Eternity 1080 1080 SVDP USA

By Timothy P. Williams
National Director of Formation

Virtue, our catechism teaches, is a “habitual and firm disposition to do good.” [CCC: 1833] The good deeds themselves are not the virtue; they are, or should be, the fruits of our virtue. From our virtue of charity comes our practice of generosity; from our virtue of gentleness comes our practice of kindness and patience, and so on. Attaining virtue, though, can come from performing the acts – we become by doing. As Aristotle put it, if you want to become a builder, you build. By extension, if you want to attain virtue, you behave virtuously. Perhaps that’s just a fancy way of saying “fake it until you make it.”

Is it necessary, though, to practice and attain every virtue? Is that even possible? St. Francis de Sales, a friend and mentor of St. Vincent de Paul, argued in his Introduction to the Devout Life that “Every calling stands in special need of some special virtue… and although all should possess every virtue, yet all are not called upon to exercise them equally, but each should cultivate chiefly those which are important to the manner of life to which he is called”, and that from among the other virtues, we should “choose the most excellent, not the most showy.” For example, he explained, most people will choose material almsgiving rather than spiritual, or choose fasting rather than gentleness or cheerfulness, even though in both cases, the latter choice is the better one. [IDL, 126-127]

St. Vincent reinforced this point in a conference for the Daughters, asking, “Do you think, Sisters, that God expects you simply to bring His poor persons a piece of bread, a little meat, some soup, and some medicine?” Certainly, the bringing of food is virtuous, but is that our primary calling? Is that enough? “Oh no,” Vincent answers, “that wasn’t His plan in choosing you from all eternity to render Him the services you do for Him in the person of the poor. He expects you to provide for their spiritual needs as well as for those of the body.” [CCD IX:189] We are chosen, we are called, into this Vincentian vocation to attain not only virtue, but holiness. As our patron Saint teaches, we do this by dedicating ourselves to the interior virtues, the higher virtues.

St. Vincent gave to us our five Vincentian Virtues, the ones that St. Francis would tell us are important to the manner of life to which we are called. We seek first to practice simplicity, humility, gentleness, selflessness, and zeal in all of our works in the hopes of becoming truly simple, humble, gentle, selfless, and zealous in our passion for the full flourishing of every person. This is our calling, our vocation. Our Home Visits, as Frédéric often explained “should be the means and not the end of our association.” [182, to Lallier, 1838]

Holiness is a lofty goal, and if it feels overwhelming, we will do well to “reflect on the grandeur of God’s plan for you: that He wants you … with little ability or education, to cooperate with Him in communicating His Spirit!” [CCD IX:189]

Contemplate

Do I sometimes focus more on my external acts than on my inner formation in virtue?

Recommended Reading

Faces of Holiness

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