Servant Leader

Mom passed away years ago, but she left each of us a cookbook of family recipes. Over the Christmas break, I prepared to bake her blue ribbon-winning coconut pound cake for one night’s dessert.  I laid out all of the contents in front of me, followed the directions and eventually had the cake batter ready to put into the oven. That’s when I noticed that I had left out one ingredient – the flaked coconut!

I had used some coconut extract, which is a great invention if you otherwise would need to squeeze actual coconuts, so there was some flavor. And it was still a pound cake. If needed I could have explained that “generic pound cake” was the original intent, not the county fair recipe, but Mom might have struck me down with a spiritual rolling pin! Fortunately, there was still time to add in the flakes, re-stir, and pop it into the oven. Dessert and many calories ensued.

How often do we start on a project, have something change on us, and then we just “make do?” As Society members, we get a great idea, and lay out all of the plans and “ingredients.” Then real life happens, and we no longer have the time, talent or funds we originally envisioned. Or we get so excited about one of the specifics that it changes the nature of the original project. The result is still good, and maybe even very good. What it might not be, however, is Vincentian.

The omission or change of one detail may have had us drift from the parameters of our charism or our Rule. That event may still be an excellent service project, but it became one that any social service agency or nonprofit could have conducted. Sometimes we leave out, or forget, one of our Essential Elements of Spirituality, Friendship, and Service. Yes, it’s a committee meeting, for example, but if it doesn’t have all three Elements, it isn’t a Vincentian meeting.

Fortunately, we have a Society of St. Vincent de Paul recipe and all the basic ingredients right in front of us. It’s called our Mission Statement. Check off the ingredients with me: A network of friends. Gospel Values inspiration.  Growth in Holiness. Build a more just world. Personal relationships. Service to people in need. These are all just as vital as flour and eggs are to a cake batter.

Need some extra flavorings? Look no further than our Society’s seven Cultural Beliefs, and sprinkle as many of them as possible liberally throughout your recipe.

Maybe you are the Bobby Flay of Society activities and don’t need a written recipe. Most of us, however, aren’t master chefs as much as we are technicians who (usually) are good at following directions such as a recipe. We refer as needed to the wisdom and successes of our founders and others who have come before us to create, or re-create, what still works in today’s many local neighborhood “kitchens.” There is always room for new innovations, but we agree as members to stick to our Rule just as bakers rely on their basic formulas to make bread rise. We hope to rise, too!

Just as mom left us her family cookbook so that her descendants could enjoy the fruits – and meats and veggies and desserts – of her labors, trials, and errors over a lifetime, our Society founders and other leaders wrote down for all of us members today what they learned, experienced and envisioned. In my case I can’t remember mom’s recipes, nor can I recite our Rule. I can, however, tell you where it is all written down for me to review when I need it.

When I pulled mom’s cookbook off the kitchen shelf, I could not help but remember her and smile. When I quite regularly pull the Society’s Rule off my office shelf to look up a particular Statute, I smile in memory of Blessed Frederic and all the others who have left us such a rich and powerful legacy of good governance and Vincentian values. Neither are just books; they are blessings!

May your Conference cook up something wonderful, and wonderfully Vincentian, in 2023!

Yours in Christ,

As we prepare to celebrate the wonder of Christmas once again, we often are flooded with glowing memories of Christmases past. Impatiently waiting as a child for Santa to bring us toys. Sitting down with family and friends for a joyous meal. Going to Midnight Mass, smelling the incense and hearing the bells. Decorating the house and stringing up outside lights. Feeling the joy and beauty of the season. Realizing the nearness of God!

One of my earliest memories is waking up from a nap at the age of three, coming out into the living room and looking with absolute wonder and amazement at the Christmas tree, radiant with lights and ornaments. I had never seen anything so beautiful in my short life! Another Yule-tide memory was at my first priestly assignment, St. Anthony Parish in Menomonee Falls, a classic country church which had had a suburb grow up around it. My first Midnight Mass, both as a priest and at that parish, was packed with people standing up the side aisles. The choir offered a beautiful concert at 11:30, and then, with all the lights off, everyone held lit candles and sang “Silent Night.” We all have glowing Christmas memories that linger in our hearts as signs of God’s great love for us.

During this Advent season, I have meditated often on the power of hope. “Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit … (Hope) keeps man from discouragement; it sustains him during times of abandonment; it opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is preserved from selfishness.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1817-1818). Because of Christmas and all the spiritual gifts, which the Lord has entrusted to us in Christ, we dare to hope that we will live forever with God, know forgiveness and love, and rejoice even now in our identity as beloved children of the Father.

Hope is different from optimism. The latter is a vague, naïve expectation that things will somehow get better, we know not how. Tragedy, suffering and death crush optimism, making it seem foolish and false. Hope is made of sterner stuff. Hope can look the darkest nights of evil fully in the face and still rejoice, because it knows that God has already gained the victory, that Christ has entered the world as savior, that, if we are faithful to the Lord, we will overcome every obstacle and come into the kingdom of heaven forever, and that there is no sin or death which has the final word on us. Hope relies on the promises and power of Jesus Christ. As the saying goes, “I do not know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.”

These past years have been difficult ones. I do not need to recite the litany of woes which afflict us; we have all lived through them. In the midst of pain and challenge, we can all lose hope, focus, perspective and even faith. We can give in to sadness and despair, and even give up on the Lord, thinking that we are abandoned and alone. How important it is for us to retell the ancient story of Christmas in order to recharge our hope and faith. Mary giving birth to Jesus in a humble stable. Angels appearing to shepherds at night, bathed in heavenly radiance. The Christmas star guiding mysterious astrologers to the Child. The Son of God stepping into the pages of human history, born on the fringes of the Roman Empire, quietly and humbly coming into His own creation, unnoticed by the important personages of the world, yet ready to redeem and save this world forever.

The hope of Christmas rekindles our wonder and astonishment in a world grown old and jaded by broken promises, sinful failure and empty selfishness. Can we look at God, the Church, our families and friends, our work and responsibilities, our home and possessions, and even ourselves with new eyes and grateful hearts, renewed by the glory of God shining on the face of Christ? Hope enables us to do so!

My profound prayer for every member of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society, is that this holy season of Christmas may renew us in faith, hope and love, filling our hearts with a deeper desire for God, and that the peace which flows from the Christ Child will give us strength in every difficulty and challenge. In Christ, God has promised to be with us until the end of time, and so we rejoice in hope!

“A God who became so small could only be mercy and love.” – St. Therese of Lisieux

Merry Christmas
Bishop Donald J. Hying
SVdP National Episcopal Advisor

Many of us have tried out a store or restaurant because of great and appealing advertising, only to have an unsatisfactory user experience once we arrived. Maybe it’s a price we didn’t expect, unfriendly or even rude personnel, or simply a feeling that the reality just didn’t live up to the expectation. Perhaps it is even worse when we walk into a favorite establishment to find it isn’t what we remember, but now only some shadow of its former glory and our former fondness.

As we think about inviting a friend or fellow parishioner to join the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, are we unknowingly guilty of the same bait-and-switch between how we sell the Society to others and what they experience when they come to our meetings or otherwise encounter us? In marketing terms, we often think of promotion first to attract new members, when perhaps we need first to review and change the product. We may need to change who and what we are – not the Rule but our behaviors – before we can promote ourselves.

Do we only meet during the day, making it nearly impossible for working people to join our meetings and become an Active member? Could we meet once a month during the day, and another time at night or on the weekend to allow for more people to join based on their comfort and other commitments?

Likewise, do we conduct Home Visits only when convenient for us, but not for others who would like to help, or even for the friends in need who may not have our flexibility?

Are our meetings full of Conference business (Service), and don’t offer much if anything in the Society’s other Essential Elements of Friendship or Spirituality? Do we take the time to pray and reflect? Do we even take the time to enjoy each other’s company and make new or better friends among fellow members?

Is everyone invited to participate, or is it often the case that just 2-3 leaders or salty old vets dominate the conversations, planning and meetings? Do we follow term limits, and create leadership posts that don’t require experience, just interest and dedication?

When someone new attends, how do we treat them? Do we give them an opportunity to serve? Do we give them a Member Handbook and then review it with them? Or do we shunt them to the sidelines, don’t let them speak, and don’t follow up after the meeting to gauge their interests or ideas?

Do we quickly train and engage prospective members in our Home Visits, food pantry, or other works? Do they learn how these works are Vincentian faith in action, or are they just another service project?

How quickly do we begin Formation activities from introductions to Ozanam Orientations to Conference use of Vincentian Reflections? Is this a coordinated Conference priority, or is it left to individuals to figure out on their own?

Are young adults and people of color invited, and made to feel welcome? Or do we focus our recruiting and our meetings only on those who look like those already in our ranks? Does our membership reflect the parish demographics? The community’s?

All considered, are we who we say we are? Are we even who we think we are ourselves?

Between fall recruiting season for parish ministries and the added activities many Conferences take on during the holidays, it’s a good time to step back and assess the “product” of our local Society’s offering to prospective members. There may also be good value in asking someone from the outside to attend and tell us what they think of the Society from that experience. We might be surprised to learn how we have drifted toward certain behaviors and habits that make our Society less attractive, even less accurate, than who we say we are. Before we spend resources of time and money to advertise our product, let’s be sure it’s the product that we want to be and indeed, God calls us to be!

Yours in Christ,
Dave Barringer
CEO

Dear Vincentian Friends,

Almost 40 years ago, I was part of a group that started a free community meal program. In the beginning, many of our guests were homeless and living on the streets. On one occasion, one of my fellow organizers pulled a man aside to address some behavior issues and concluded by telling the guest, “You only have one job here and that is to be grateful, and you are not doing that very well.”

As the years passed, this friend and I realized that the pithy comment we once thought was on-target no longer matched our hoped-for relationships with meal program guests. How different that comment is from what our Rule tells us in the section titled “Gratitude to those we visit.” This is where we read, “Vincentians never forget the many blessings they receive from those they visit. They recognize that the fruit of their labors springs, not from themselves, but especially from God and from the poor they serve.”

Often, we think of being grateful for material things – the stuff we have. That’s maybe why we often expect those we serve to be grateful; we are providing “stuff” for free. We eventually learn, however, that what we are most grateful for are the relationships we have with family, friends, and those we serve, and – most importantly – with our God. I am grateful for my daily bread, for a warm place to live, for meaningful work and for beautiful sunsets. I think all of these blessings are more meaningful, however, when I have someone with whom I can share them.

Giving thanks is not just for a once-a-year holiday. It is something we should do always and everywhere. Those are words we hear at Mass to begin the Preface to the Eucharistic Prayers. “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right and just. It is truly right and just, our duty and salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks.” What are we thanking God for? Is it for food, clothing, or the beauty of the earth? No, the Eucharistic text goes on to tell us that we give thanks for Jesus, who was sent to us to restore our relationship with God, and that we should be grateful for this always and everywhere.

This Thanksgiving week I hope you give thanks not only for the material blessings we enjoy but also for the relationships that enrich our lives. I appreciate the gifts I have received from everyone I have met this year, and I am grateful for you and the relationship we have in the network of charity that we have inherited from our founders.

Serviens in spe,
Ralph Middlecamp
National Council President

On occasion we will be asked by the media, or by Catholic interest groups, to show the impact of the Society on the community and how we measure our success.  I love to be asked about this, but I also hate it.

How do we measure our success as the Society? This is more difficult than you might first think.

For example, our mission states that we are a network of friends, growing in holiness and building a more just world. We do this through personal relationships with, and services to, people in need. No doubt, these are very good intentions! How, though, do we put a yardstick to “growing in holiness?” This is a lifetime journey, and the graduation certificate is earned when you are called Home. Our, ahem, graduates never write back with their alumni experiences!

We can measure services, but here we see a bit of Vincentian Paradox. We can grow, for example, the number of families that come to our food pantries. We can feel good that more people therefore receive some emergency help, and perhaps we can measure what percentage of those in need are helped. (That’s the impact study so much in vogue.) But hold on, our goal should not be to serve more people; in fact, a systemic change goal might be to serve fewer people! If we can help someone to take care of themselves and not need a food pantry, that’s a better result, right? We can instead aim to serve all who need us, but also work to reduce the number who need such emergency help. Don’t fret with how that makes our “numbers” appear – just do the right thing for that family.

When asked what the Society does to combat homelessness, there is an expectation that our answers reflect the numbers of houses we build and people we place into more permanent housing. Yet the larger service the Society provides is in homelessness prevention, by helping people to stay in their home with rent assistance. Even this is an incomplete number. When we help someone with a utility or food bill, this frees funds that can now be spent for their rent bill (and vice versa). Any wonder now why we drive the statisticians crazy?

Outsiders also find it perplexing when we tell them “We don’t count that number” for some of their usual statistics. This reflects our Rule in not being judgmental. Because most Vincentians also have a natural aversion to paperwork, preferring to serve rather than to count services, we count only the most need-to-know numbers. Often this is because a funder or food bank demands it.

We really appreciate that nearly all Councils and Conferences provide some common measurements such as those in our annual national reporting process. This counting tells the story of the Society to the rest of the nation, and most especially our Bishops, which in turn provides us with even more support. We try to keep the requested measures to a minimum, and they do tell a wonderful story of how the Society helps our neighbors in need across the United States. Thank you for completing these annual requests!

What can we reasonably do to measure our success? I propose that first, it is entirely legitimate in our case to measure intent. In an organization that serves people, one at a time, aggregations don’t always work but our individual intentions are charitable and even Holy. We can’t measure how many times someone in need sees the Face of Christ in our Home Visits. We pray that we provide that outcome in every encounter through our smile, our relationship, our prayers. Let’s therefore measure these encounters as outcomes, not just process, with intent in mind.

Further, we may not always measure outcomes, but we can measure excellence. We can work to provide more with less, ensuring that donated funds are spent wisely. Make no mistake, our goal is not to serve the poor efficiently! That thinking leads to impersonal interactions and one-size-fits-all services that often don’t work for the real, live people coming to us not just for material assistance but for prayerful empathy and God’s love. The decisions we make and services we provide through our Home Visits and Conference meetings may not be efficient, but we can assess and work to have truly helpful results for those we serve.

Let’s review annually what we measure and ask if it’s required by outside sources, meaningful to our goals, or just “nice to know,” and then revise to have confidence not only in how we measure but why we measure.

By the way, Vincentians also see the Face of Christ when we serve others. We hear this all the time from Vincentians, who often say that they get so much more out of their Society effort than they put into it. This aggregate result is something I would not dare try to measure. Let us be confident and satisfied that God sees this outcome in each one of us personally, and that He is well pleased.

Yours in Christ,
Dave Barringer
CEO

Dear Vincentian Friends,

I have spoken and written frequently this year about the need to build our capacity to serve. The first focus area of our Strategic Plan is to “Expand and Strengthen our Network of Friends,” with an underlying goal to “Strengthen organizational capacity at Council and Conference levels.” Our service to people in need depends on our organizational strength and capacity.

One of the objectives of this goal in our Strategic Plan is to reintroduce the Standards of Excellence, which were created about 15 years ago as a tool for councils and conferences to evaluate themselves. Those standards included the requirements necessary for our Councils and Conferences to be in compliance with the Rule and their bylaws and also offers best practices that are in place in our most successful locations. Our Governance Committee, with input from our Board of Directors, has dusted them off our Standards of Excellence and has updated them. We are asking every level of our organization to use them to evaluate their structure and operations.

“No work of charity is foreign to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul” is a slogan of our founders that is captured in the Rule. If we are faithful to the basic structures our Rule provides, we have unlimited opportunities to follow the leadings of the Holy Spirit and use our time and talent to meet the challenges we encounter in our communities as we serve those in need. The Standards of Excellence process will help us address those challenges while allowing us to remain faithful to the foundational wisdom of our organization. Referring to the Rule of the Congregation of the Mission, St. Vincent de Paul said, “If you take care of the Rule, the Rule will take care of you.” His counsel certainly also applies to the Rule of the Society that bears his name.

Most of us bristle a bit at the suggestion of compliance, but St. Vincent suggests that we should see following our structure and the guidance contained in our Rule as liberating. It may be why those who came before us used the title of “excellence” as the goal of this process. It is a blessing that the structure of the Society has been laid out for us, and our time and talent don’t need to be spent in changing that.

After being your president for five years, I can tell you that the best Councils in our country have practices we can all learn from. They all will score high on the questions offered in the Standards of Excellence. Part of my duties include working with Councils and Conferences experiencing problems. From what I have seen, those problems are always rooted in issues that would have been identified if these Standards of Excellence had been applied and led to plans for change.

I suggest you go to the National Council website and review the Standards of Excellence documents for Councils and Conferences (click here). For each level there is a Questionnaire, a Reporting Document to be shared with the next higher Council, and a Notes Document that provides background for each of the questions.

You will notice each questionnaire is organized into three sections – with questions about required practices, standard operating procedures and practices, and recommended best practices. Special attention needs to be paid to anything that is not in keeping with the required practices, and a plan for improvement should be made. The other two sections will give you an opportunity to consider recommended best practices for future planning.

I hope this Standards of Excellence exercise will be embraced by your Conference and Council. Keeping our house in order and planning for the future are important for the well-being of our organization. We know many changes are happening in our parishes and communities. Let’s be prepared as a well-organized network of friends to meet the challenges we know are coming.

Serviens in spe,
Ralph Middlecamp
National Council President