Spirituality

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Contemplation: One Who Lives Differently
Contemplation: One Who Lives Differently 800 800 SVDP USA

By Timothy Williams, Senior Director of Formation and Leadership Development 

Serviens in spe, reads the Society’s motto, Serving in Hope. Hope can be a powerful feeling, a state of mind that keeps us going through great difficulties. It is a light at the end of the tunnel, the silver lining behind the cloud, and the gain we seek to receive from the pain of our efforts. But the hope in which Vincentians serve is much more than a feeling or a motivation – it is a virtue and a grace to be shared.

There is no doubt that the material support we offer to the neighbor is important. Sitting in darkness and heat with the electricity cut off in the middle of summer can lead to hopelessness, and hunger and thirst can lead to despair. As Bl. Frédéric cautioned, we must “beware of despair most of all, for this is the death of the soul.” [42, to Falconnet, 1831] The money, the food, the furniture and the clothing – all the things we can provide to offer some small relief for the neighbor’s suffering is vital. As St. James reminds us, if all we do is wish the poor well, but “do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”

Yet, as important as these works are, they are not enough by themselves; works without faith are no less empty than faith without works, and “Vincentians visit not merely to drop off groceries or pay a bill, but to form relationships based on trust and friendship.” [Manual, 20] Our visiting, our encouragement, and our prayers serve most importantly to bring true hope.

We work tirelessly not only to help the poor, but to help them move out of poverty. At the same time, we recognize that the hope in which we serve must not be so limited that it is restricted to a hope that the lights will be turned back on, or the rent will be paid, but is instead “the great hope that cannot be destroyed.” [Spe Salvi, 35] It is the hope that is the light of the world, the hope that fills our hearts, the hope that transcends all worldly cares; it is a hope that grows from the love of a God who holds each of us precious in His sight, and does not abandon us in our despair.

It is important to eat, but it leaves you hungry again later. It is important to pay the rent, but the bill comes due again next month. God’s love is eternal, and our first responsibility in serving the poor is to do so for love alone, in the hope that through our caring “the poor may catch a glimpse of God’s great love for them.” [Rule, Part I, 2.1]

Life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Those things are consumed in an instant and then we need them again, which sometimes leads us to worry too much, or to store up more than we need, but “the one who has hope lives differently.” [Spe Salvi, 2]

Contemplate

In relieving the neighbor’s suffering, do I also offer hope?

Recommended Reading

Spe Salvi

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Contemplation: Providing What is Needed
Contemplation: Providing What is Needed 800 800 SVDP USA

By Timothy Williams, Senior Director of Formation and Leadership Development 

One of the central tenets of Vincentian spirituality is trust in Divine Providence. We are called to trust that God will provide what is needed for things to work out for the best. In theory, this sounds quite simple, because we know that God is good and that He loves us. In practice, though, we slowly come to realize that our trust is needed not because of what we know, but because of what we do not know.

Every Conference probably has some miraculous story about a time when, just as they had offered their last dollar in assistance, an entirely unexpected donation arrived. It happens often enough that we can hardly call it “unexpected” anymore. These stories offer comforting reassurance for our trust in Providence. God, after all, has so often provided “what is needed” to our treasuries that we, along with Bl. Frédéric, can happily conclude that “to do works of charity, it is never necessary to worry about financial resources, they always come.” [121, To his mother, 1836]

It’s easy to trust when we receive what we think is needed. We are called to trust not only that God will provide what is needed, but that He knows what is needed even when it makes no sense to us; that He alone knows the best way for things to work out.

Reflecting years later on the founding of the first Confraternity of Charity at Châtillon-les-Dombes, which marked the beginning of the Vincentian Family, St. Vincent saw something other than his own achievement in response to a sick family in his parish. Instead, he insisted that it was entirely God’s idea, for it was not Vincent who had made that family sick.

Sometimes we can only see in hindsight the good that comes from events in our lives. It would have been very easy for Vincent to simply lament the family’s troubles or decide it would be too hard to help. It would also have been very easy for him to congratulate himself for having taken action. But Vincent understood that we are all called to help, and in that instance, God’s call came in the form of a family in need. God provided not funding but suffering which in turn led to a great flowering of charity among His servants who trusted in Him and sought to do His will.

Providence is not merely a generous donor, nor is it the cavalry arriving in the nick of time. To trust in Providence means abandoning ourselves to God’s will, trusting fully that if we act in accordance with His will, then the outcome, however it may appear to us, also will be His will. As St. Vincent reminds us, “the Will of God cannot be made known to us more clearly in events than when they happen without our intervention or in a way other than we requested.” [CCD V:459]

Contemplate

Do I allow myself to become frustrated when things don’t work out as I’d planned?

Recommended Reading

Mystic of Charity

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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? 

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A New Century Dawns

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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

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Wayne Bugg shares his story as a Vincentian -Video-
Wayne Bugg shares his story as a Vincentian -Video- 1080 1080 SVDP USA

Wayne Bugg shares his story as a Vincentian

Hear what Wayne Bugg has to say about his experience with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul from a young age, and how his encounters with Vincentians over the years guided his path in life to become the Vincentian that he is today and serve as the Associate Executive Director of St. Vincent de Paul Twin Cities.

Wayne Bug, Associate Executive Director for St. Vincent de Paul Twin Cities: 

My name is Wayne Bugg, and I’m the associate executive director for St. Vincent de Paul in the Twin Cities. Around the age of 15, my next-door neighbor worked for St. Vincent de Paul. He invited me to come and hang out with him and move some furniture. At the time, I was a high school dropout and I needed to make some legal money. I needed to make some changes in life. So this was like a divine intervention that this young man reached out to me. So I originally started off as a neighbor in need.

As I came on working for the thrift store, it was culture shock. So I came here to make money and have come to find out that people that are volunteers are working for free. I couldn’t understand the concept and so I found out over a period of time that it was their love for God and their love for people that had called them to do this and this level of love. After many, many conversations, they began to pour into me. I think I had issues with my image as an image bearer of God. I really didn’t see that, but they saw that in me. And in one particular person, Darrell Bach, the Council president, began to talk to me and told me how unique and special I was and how I needed to go back to school because at that point I was a high school dropout, and so that right there I think endeared me to the Society.  They kind of do sometimes what we do with items at the thrift store. We give them a second chance. People donate them to us because they feel that they have no value and I felt like I didn’t have any value. But they were able to take me in, kind of shine me up a little bit and then represent me.

So I work during the day and went to school at night and eventually I got my GED and so I show back up with this piece of paper. I’m thrilled. Not many people that I grew up around, you know, have that or achieved that. I was ready to retire education wise, but Darrell said no it’s not enough. He was thrilled, but he said I had a greater capacity than me and so he talked me into going to college, and so I signed up for the Community College down the street.

Darrell was near retirement age and so they had just hired executive director Ed Curran and he came along. I felt as though there was like, there’s this agreement between the two that he will continue to mentor me, and so here I am hanging out with Ed and watching Ed from you know, from afar, watching him be a husband and a father and some of those things that I didn’t know that they were possible. I saw a lot of broken relationships and things of that nature, so I was encouraged by his lifestyle.

So I finished school, I got my associates degree. And I came back to Saint Vincent and showed Ed, and he says, great, let’s finish. You can do more!  And so he talked me into going to get my bachelors degree and so I signed up for classes and eventually I got my bachelors degree.

And even more so to me I got married, and I never thought as a kid that that would be something I wanted to do. But being able to see Daryl and see Ed and some of these other Vincentians, these couples, that came and volunteered changed my perception about marriage and that you can be happily married. So this is one of the things that kind of impacted me. And along that path, my wife eventually she got pregnant and we had twins. One of the Vincentians, Margaret Kuznia, she said Wayne, while your wife is in these early stages I will come to your house three to four times a week and just cook, whatever else that you need me to do. This is one of those things that communicated the Vincentian virtues that demonstrated the gospel, how Jesus and his level of intimacy that he had given to people. So these are some of the things that kept me there at the Society even after getting my diploma.

Now the roles have kind of changed where I was the mentee and I was receiving all this mentorship and to a degree I still do, but now I have an opportunity to engage with our employees. They have similar stories and situations where they feel that they’ve been abandoned, that they’ve been broken and so I am able to pour into them these same truths about God and his ability to redeem and recover. And then also our neighbors that come in and some of our neighbors are in distress and they come in and they are in the midst of a situation and they don’t have anywhere to turn. But we get to be the beacon of light, the lighthouse in the community. It’s a thrill and a privilege for me to be able to serve in that capacity. Everything has been poured into me. To establish relationships and to love people in a way that so many people yearn for is one of the reasons why I continue to stay with Saint Vincent de Paul and continue to be marveled by all the individuals in this wonderful organization.

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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

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The Home Visit: An Encounter with our Neighbor -Video-
The Home Visit: An Encounter with our Neighbor -Video- 1080 1080 SVDP USA

The Home Visit: An Encounter with our Neighbor

Hear what three Vincentians – Kat, Ray, and Tim – have to say about their experiences during a Home Visit with a neighbor, and how that has shaped their time with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

Kat Brisette, SVDP Rhode Island:

Home visits are one of my favorite parts of the Society of Saint Vincent DePaul. Just being able to, you know, put yourself in an uncomfortable position, just like our neighbors are in an uncomfortable position and being able to just listen to them and talk with them. My favorite home visits are when there’s kids. Maybe it’s just because I like to fool around, and so it’s fun to interact with them. So a lot of times we’ll bring like a coloring book or things for them to play with while we’re meeting. So a lot of my favorite interactions have been, you know, when you bring the coloring book in and two siblings on the floor and they’re coloring it in while you’re talking with mom. And before they go, they put a big heart on it and give it to you. And so I have plenty of coloring pages that I have framed and I keep with me because it just reminds us of what we do and why we do it.

 

Raymond Sickingar, SVDP Rhode Island:

Years ago, my wife and I went on a Home Visit together. There’s a trailer park where we live – we deal with rural poverty where we live and sometimes that can be even more insidious than urban poverty because it’s less visible and there are less resources – but this one woman was in a trailer park, so we went and visited her and she was out of gas or propane. She also needed to rent the land that the trailer was on. So there were a few needs that she had so we were going over to talk to her. And it was a rainy night, I remember, it was raining pretty bad and we got to the door and she invited us in and we sat down. And I don’t know what made us do it that night, I’m not sure we had done it a great deal before, but we just said “What’s going on? What’s your story?” 45 minutes to an hour later, the woman stopped and took a breath.  And she said. “Oh, I feel so light,” she says. “I have not been able to tell that story to anybody.” And we helped her. We actually got her into a sustainable position, but really what she needed most was somebody to listen. And what my wife and I learned that night, was to first stop and take the time to listen. The stories are powerful, and people need to feel like they’re human.

 

Timothy Williams, SVDP USA:

One is one of the first visits my wife and I went on and it was a man who rode his bike to work every day and back 7 miles. Because he didn’t have a car but he had ten kids. There’s always more mouths than money, even with food stamps, and so he called us for help with food, it’s the end of the month. And so we come with the groceries and all these kids come tumbling out the house to help with carrying them. This one little girl grabs a gallon of milk. She turns around towards that house, and she danced back to the house – this gallon of milk. Gandhi once said there are some people so poor they can only see God in a piece of bread. But I was looking at her and the only thing I could think was “the Kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

 

Kat Brisette, SVDP Rhode Island:

The Society is such an awesome way that we’re able to live out our faith and be that example of what it truly means to be a Catholic and a Christian in today’s world.

 

Timothy Williams, SVDP USA:

When we go to visit the neighbors in need in their homes, we see Christ, and you really receive this Grace from God.

 

Raymond Sickingar, SVDP Rhode Island:

I found it very easy to see the face of Christ and those we serve over the years that I’ve served. But we also have to reflect that loving face back to Christ. That’s the part of that Vincentian charism, that an incredible gift of the Holy Spirit, that speaks to me most.

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Why Am I a Vincentian? -Video-
Why Am I a Vincentian? -Video- 1080 1080 SVDP USA

Why Am I a Vincentian?

Hear what three Vincentians – Mike, Pamela, and Marge – have to say about why they joined the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

Marge McGinlly, Society of St. Vincent de Paul of Mt. Holly, New Jersey:

It’s fun. It’s a lot of fun, yes.

 

Mike Flynn, Society of St. Vincent de Paul Seattle:

What happened to me was I went to a ministry fair in our parish. I thought it was going to be doing Liturgy and this guy captured me and said you need to become a Vincentian. I said, what is that? He said, well, we help people, and I thought I’d like to help people. And so I went to a meeting and discovered how much more it meant to be a Vincentian than just helping people.

 

Pamela Matambanadzo, Society of St. Vincent de Paul Chicago:

Why do you keep coming back? What brought you here? And I think for me… we talk about service, we talk about spirituality and we talk about friendship. And it’s just the enrichment of all of those on the people you meet. You know the relationships you build. Just being able to serve, you know whether you’re at a soup kitchen or whether you’re at a home visit.

 

Marge McGinlly, Society of St. Vincent de Paul of Mt. Holly, New Jersey:

I’m a Vincentian because when I found the Vincentian family it spoke to my heart. It was a place where I fit. I have this love of people, especially the poor and the sick. And when I found the Vincentian charism it fit who God made me. So it was like finding a second family for me.

 

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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

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06-20-24 A Letter From Our Servant Leaders
06-20-24 A Letter From Our Servant Leaders 1200 1200 SVDP USA

My last Servant Leader column on Encounter generated quite a few comments and discussions. That is great, because these columns should be opportunities for us to exchange thoughts and ideas, not just read what someone else has to say.

I wanted to continue the discussion for another week, with a few thoughts and clarifications generated from the exchanges from two weeks ago.

Some people mistakenly got the impression that I was advocating the elimination of the term Home Visit completely and replacing it with Encounter. That is wrong. Home Visits are what they are: Home Visits. All Home Visits are Encounters with those we serve.

But not all Encounters are Home Visits, and that is the point. Our service to people in need goes well beyond the Home Visit, and therefore, we must speak in a more inclusive way about what we do to make sure that we make ALL Vincentians feel welcome and valued in the work they do.

Some people asked why I am even advocating for this new “weird” term. Why do we have to change?

This is my answer.

As Christians, we are called not just to act with charity, but to infuse our actions with the love and presence of Christ. This calling goes beyond mere acts of kindness; it requires us to engage deeply and spiritually with those we serve.

When we talk about charity, the first image that often comes to mind is giving: giving food to the hungry, clothes to the naked, shelter to the homeless. These acts are indeed vital, and Jesus emphasized their importance in the Gospel of Matthew 25. However, Jesus also calls us to a deeper level of engagement. He calls us to see His face in those we serve, to recognize the divine image in every person we encounter. This is the essence of a spiritual encounter in charitable relationships.

A spiritual encounter transforms charity from a transactional act into a relational and sacramental experience. It is not just about what we give but how we give it — and the spirit in which we engage with others. When we allow our acts of charity to be infused with prayer, compassion, and genuine love, we offer more than just material assistance; we offer the healing presence of Christ.

The spiritual encounter in charitable relationships also enriches the giver. When we open our hearts to truly see and engage with those we serve, we too are transformed. We begin to understand the depth of human suffering, resilience, and the beauty of human dignity. This transformation fosters a deeper connection with God, as we become more attuned to His presence in the world around us.

Spiritual encounters in charitable relationships help to break down barriers of prejudice and indifference. When we see others through the eyes of Christ, we can no longer categorize them as “the needy” or “the less fortunate.” Instead, we recognize them as brothers and sisters, equal in dignity and deserving of our love and respect. This recognition compels us to address not just the symptoms of poverty and suffering but their root causes, striving for justice and systemic change, as called for by Blessed Frédéric Ozanam.

In our work as Vincentians, we can engage in these spiritual encounters through all our many services (not just Home Visits) by being present, listening with empathy, and praying for and with those we serve.

We must understand that every act of charity, no matter how small, can be a conduit for God’s love if done with a pure heart. Blessed Frédéric said, “No act of charity is foreign to the Society.”

As Saint Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 13:3, “If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” Love is the soul of charity, and it is through love that our actions become transformative.

We must strive to make our charitable actions more than mere transactions. We must seek to encounter Christ in those we serve and allow these spiritual encounters to deepen our faith and love. By doing so, we will not only fulfill our Vincentian vocation, but also become true bearers of God’s love in the world, creating a network of charity, grace, and compassion that embraces the world.

That is why I advocate for using the term Encounter when we refer to our work. By calling a meeting between two people an Encounter rather than a Visit, we highlight distinct nuances in the nature and impact of the interaction. An Encounter implies a deeper level of engagement, where the individuals involved might experience a transformative or enlightening moment. Encounters are often seen as pivotal, potentially altering perceptions, emotions, or relationships.

In contrast, a Visit denotes a more planned, routine, or casual interaction. Visits are typically structured and can be social, professional, or obligatory, often lacking the depth of an Encounter. While a visit can certainly be meaningful, it does not inherently suggest the same potential for profound impact or unexpected significance as an encounter. For instance, a visit to a friend’s house might involve catching up and enjoying each other’s company, whereas an encounter with a long-lost friend in an unexpected place might lead to a heartfelt reconnection and emotional revelations. Therefore, the word Encounter emphasizes the extraordinary and potentially transformative nature of the meeting, while  Visit emphasizes the intention, regularity, and social aspects of the interaction.

In the Catholic faith, the concept of an Encounter transcends mere physical meeting to embody a profound spiritual connection graced by God. This belief is rooted in the idea that when two people come together in faith, God’s presence enhances their interaction, transforming it into a sacred moment. This encounter is not just an exchange of words or gestures, but a divine engagement where God’s grace becomes manifest.

If we are honest, we will admit that many of our interactions with the people we serve have become transactions. They have lost all semblance of Encounter, becoming a purely obligatory visit to get in, find out how much the rent/utility/medical/insurance/ bill is, get it paid, and move on to the next one.

At the top of this column, I said all Home Visits are Encounters. The reality is, that is not 100% true. Far too many Home Visits and other special works services, have become no more than secular visits with the sole purpose of getting someone off the call list.

That is why I am so passionate about us understanding the term Encounter and using it to describe what we do.

Because if we do not, we are just going to be another social service agency doing good for people in need — but not doing much to grow spiritually in our service to those people.

Peace and God’s blessings,
John

John Berry
National President

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