Tim Williams

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Contemplation: Neighbors in Deed
Contemplation: Neighbors in Deed 940 788 SVDP USA

Although we do not mean it to, giving material assistance to people puts them at a disadvantage; they “owe” us something they likely will never repay. The fear of indebtedness often makes asking for help more difficult. Even when we are in very dire straits, we don’t want to impose, we don’t want to be burdens, and we don’t want to be indebted.

Yet on nearly every home visit, we meet a neighbor with a light bill, rent, or other need, and not enough money to pay for it. The math is simple; what else can we do?

“Help honors,” Blessed Frédéric taught, “when it may become mutual.” [O’Meara, 229] He went on to explain that this means offering not only material help, but a kind word, a handshake, some encouragement – all those things that we may one day need, as well.

As our Rule puts it, “Vincentians should never forget that giving love, talents and time is more important than giving money.” [Rule, Part I, 3.14] Or, as Blessed Rosalie Rendu put it, “They will appreciate your kindness and your love more than all else you can bring them.” [Apostle in a Top Hat, 57]

How many times can we hear “you are the only ones who called me back” before we realize that this personal connection is the whole point?

In other words, a home visit is not a math problem. It is the beginning of a “relationship based on trust and friendship.” [Rule, Part I, 1.9] This is why we don’t visit “clients.” There is nothing mutual in a relationship with a client; it does not “honor.”

It is good to use the right words, but using the words is not enough. After all, in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Christ did not ask us simply to call each other neighbors, but to be neighbors, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

To have a neighbor, you have to be a neighbor. To have a friend, you have to be a friend. To have a brother or sister, you have to be a brother or sister. Our brothers, sisters, neighbors, and friends don’t owe us a dime. They repay us fully with their handshakes, their prayers, and their friendship.

And for those things, we are all neighbors in need.

Contemplate

How can I become a better friend?

Recommended Reading

Mystic of Charity – especially 6. Home Visits in the Vincentian Tradition

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Contemplation: The State in Which We Were Created
Contemplation: The State in Which We Were Created 940 788 SVDP USA

Our five Vincentian virtues come from St. Vincent’s five “Characteristic Virtues,” with one difference: what Vincent called mortification, we call selflessness. While the distinction between the two is not trivial, he also talked about the “spirit of mortification,” which is a good way for us to understand our call to selflessness. [CCD XII:249]

The word “mortification” comes from the Latin mortificāre, meaning “to put to death,” which is the same image our Rule uses, calling selflessness “dying to our ego with a life of self-sacrifice.” [Rule, Part I, 2.5.1] And isn’t this what Christ taught? “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

Through mortification, we may physically separate ourselves from earthly needs, as with fasting during Lent. But the purpose of mortification is not physical; it is not exterior, but interior, “to mortify our egoism and open our heart to love of God and neighbor.” [Benedict XVI, Lenten Message] Yes, we become hungry when we fast, but it is “dying to our ego” that we seek.

Indeed, our Catechism teaches that our call to conversion “does not aim first at outward works, ‘sackcloth and ashes,’ fasting and mortification, but at the conversion of the heart, interior conversion.” [Catechism, 1430] While mortification is a means, you could say, selflessness is its end.

St. Louise de Marillac said that the importance of mortification was “the necessity of keeping our souls constantly in the state in which they were created.” [Spiritual Writings, 797] She went on to explain that while we are created in God’s image and likeness, we become “disfigured” when we allow our passions to overwhelm us. Those passions may be the food or treats that we give up for Lent, but more importantly they are the self-centered motivations that we sometimes allow to take over. The more we focus on ourselves, the less we are able to truly be friends to others.

Lack of the “spirit of selflessness,” Vincent taught, not only separates us from God, but from each other; so much so that “we can’t live – I repeat – we can’t live with one another if our interior and exterior senses aren’t mortified.” [CCD XII:249] The first Rule in 1835 echoed this idea, saying that without self-denial, understood as surrendering one’s own opinion, “no association is durable. The man who is in love with his own ideas will disdain the opinions of others…” [Rule, 1835, Introduction]

We die to our egos, to our selfishness, and to our will only to be filled with new life, to be filled with God! And when we share ourselves with the neighbor, we may truly share Him, also.

Contemplate

What part of myself do I allow to separate me from others?

Recommended Reading

Faces of Holiness

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Contemplation – The Light of the World
Contemplation – The Light of the World 940 788 SVDP USA

Have you ever noticed that in virtually every picture of St. Vincent de Paul, he is smiling? Just a small, gentle smile with a twinkle in his eye that reassures us, puts us at ease, and makes us smile, too. Wouldn’t a permanent smile like that be a great gift for all of us to share?

Vincentians take great pride in loving God “with the strength of our arms, and the sweat of our brows,” [CCD XI:32] but we should always remember that ours is a vocation of gentleness! We may indeed work up a sweat at times, and even get our hands dirty, but ours are ultimately works of love, not feats of strength. We are moved by a tireless desire to love not only affectively, but effectively.

This distinction was made by St. Francis de Sales, who profoundly influenced Vincent. Affective love, Vincent taught, comes from the heart; it helps us to feel God’s presence, and fills us with warmth and affection. Love is effective, though, when we provide for the needs of others because of the love of God; when we serve, one might even say, for love alone. [Rule, Part I, 2.2]

Effective love, then, is an act of will; to will, as St. Thomas Aquinas said, the good of another. [Summa,II-II, Q27, A2] That sounds like work! But even as we do the work, the deep, abiding love of God that warms our hearts should shine through us in gentleness and kindness. Deeply inspired by St. Francis de Sales’ example of gentleness, Vincent testified for the cause of his beatification, saying that “his abundant, gentle goodness overflowed on those who enjoyed his conversation because of the example of his devotion.” [CCD XIIIa:91]

Gentleness, like all the virtues, must be both internal and external. When we are filled with the spirit and love of God, Vincent explained, we can hardly help but smile. In turn, we will offer our hearts with our “smiling face and cheerful disposition.” [CCD XII:156]

When we smile, it is sometimes said that we are “beaming,” or that our faces “light up.” And why shouldn’t they? We serve in hope, and our smiles are a visible sign of the hope and love that we bring with us. Perhaps this is part of the light Christ taught us not to hide under a bushel, but to shine before others.

Vincentians love God with the strength of our arms, but loving our neighbor begins with a smile, and we can smile without even breaking a sweat!

Contemplate

Does the love of God within me shine outwardly through my smile?

Recommended Reading

Turn Everything to Love

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Contemplation: Our Call to Servant Leadership
Contemplation: Our Call to Servant Leadership 940 788 SVDP USA

When we think of leaders, we are acculturated to envision military commanders, heads of state, celebrity CEOs, and the like; dynamic, charismatic, larger than life. Leaders, we are taught, are “large and in charge.” It is difficult, then, for most of us to believe that we can be that person; that we are called to leadership. But if you are a Vincentian, you are called.

Rather than the province of kings and generals, ours is a special type of leadership, modeled for us by Christ Himself. Most memorably, in the Gospel of John, Christ washed the feet of the disciples, afterwards explaining: “You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”

In a passage that was a favorite of St. Vincent’s, Christ further explained the role of a leader, saying, “let the greatest among you be as the youngest, and the leader as the servant.”

A Vincentian servant leader, such as a Conference President, is not called to be the boss or the commander. Rather than making all the decisions, Presidents fulfill the decisions of the Conference members.

In 1651, one of Vincent’s confrere superiors wrote to him, complaining of the men in his care, even going so far as to complain that he “preferred to direct animals rather than men.” In reply, Vincent explained that this approach “is true of those who want everything to give way to them, nothing to oppose them, everything to go their way, people to obey them without comment or delay, and, in a manner of speaking, to be adored.”

But that, Vincent explained, is not our way. He reminded the missioner that leaders should “consider themselves the servants of others, who govern in the light of how Our Lord governed.” [CCDIV:181-182]

Christ could have come to us as a king, a warrior, or a man of wealth. Instead, as Frédéric pointed out, he “was hidden for thirty years in the workshop of a carpenter.” [Complete Works, Lecture 24, quoted by Gregory] He “did not come to be served but to serve…” [Matthew 20:28]

In the Society, the person does not seek the office, the office seeks the person. [Manual, 35] Servant leaders are called less to be something, than to do something; we are called not to be “large and in charge,” but instead, to be small, and for all.

Contemplate

Am I called right now to servant leadership? To be an officer, committee chair, or something else?

Recommended Reading

Characteristics of a Vincentian Servant Leader

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Contemplation: More Ancient and Therefore More Sacred
Contemplation: More Ancient and Therefore More Sacred 940 788 SVDP USA

Our Rule calls us to be a “voice for the voiceless,” helping the poor and disadvantaged to speak for themselves, but also, when necessary, speaking on their behalf. [Rule, Part I, 7.5] But where do we begin? To whom do we speak? And who are we to presume to speak for anybody?

Blessed Frédéric once pointed out that “the knowledge of social well-being and of reform is to be learned, not from books, nor from the public platform, but in climbing the stairs to the poor man’s garret…” [Baunard, 279] It is through the relationships we form on our Home Visits that we gain an understanding of poverty that cannot be learned by all the academic study in the world. It is this knowledge, and this spirit of friendship with our neighbors in need that gives us our voice.

Like many Vincentians, I think, one of the most eye-opening things I learned when I first began doing Home Visits was how much poverty there was right in my own neighborhood. In most communities, there is no shortage of people willing to help, but there are many people who are quite convinced that poverty is a problem that exists primarily in far-off places; not in their own city, town, or suburb.

What a service we can do simply to let our own communities know that their neighbors are in need. Imagine the outpouring that might happen if people only knew how many were hungry, how many were being evicted, or how many were sitting in the dark after the power had been shut off.

This knowledge we have gained is not our secret to keep, but our sacred trust to fulfill.

Advocacy by Vincentians is not partisan in any sense. Indeed, Frédéric once described the Society as “a community of faith and works erasing little by little the old divisions of political parties…” [Letter 290, to Amelie, 1841] As members, the Rule stated in 1835, we should “abstain from being inflamed by political leanings which array parties in opposition, and from starting among themselves those irritating questions which divide mankind. Our Society is all charity: politics are wholly foreign to it.”

No community, no government, no political party can even begin to solve problems that they do not understand. Among other groups, dedication to the poor may be fleeting, and may change with times or fashions.

We will always remain dedicated, and we will always be a voice for the voiceless, because we believe, with Blessed Frédéric, that this cause is “more ancient and, therefore, more sacred.” [Baunard, 301]

Contemplate

What do my friends and neighbors know about the needs in their communities?

Recommended Reading

Voice of the Poor Guide

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Contemplation: To Have A Friend
Contemplation: To Have A Friend 940 788 SVDP USA

Sometimes, caught up in the bustle of our lives, we allow our Home Visits to become transactional: pay the bill, say a prayer, and move on. We love our neighbors no less for this habit! Indeed, it’s important to keep the lights on, to avoid the eviction, and to provide food! The situations are often dire, and the assistance we offer can seem like first aid. But is this enough if our Home Visits are “the means, not the end of our association?” [Letter 182, to Lallier, 1838] Can our growth in holiness be transactional?

Father Dennis Holtschneider once offered this useful exercise for measuring how well we are living our Rule: would an outside observer write these words to describe how we behave? Watching me paying a bill and move on, would that observer say, “wow, he really establishes relationships based on trust and friendship!” [Rule, Part I, 1.9]

For the past ten years (or so) the Society has promoted a concept called “Systemic Change,” which is often misapprehended as if it were something new. It isn’t! Its roots run as deep as the Society itself, in which the very first Conference in 1833 did not merely drop off food or firewood, but adopted families in need, visiting them regularly, seeking to truly walk with them, and change their lives.

It isn’t easy. Bl. Frédéric said so himself. He once recounted that on his earliest visits, he would drop the firewood and exit as quickly as possible. As time went on, he grew in his understanding of what Christ had modeled, and what was asked of us who seek to follow Him; he saw that firewood alone is not “help which honours.” [O’Meara, 229]

Trust and friendship are built over time, not all at once or instantly. Sometimes our one bag of groceries is truly all that is needed, but how would it be if we took the time to call and check in a few weeks or months later? We will not only see how they are, we will show who we are: friends.

In 1841, Frédéric wrote about the hundreds of families who had received food from the Society, but also about the boys who received schooling, young men placed in apprenticeships, and “future tears” dried because of the loving friendship of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. [Letter 290, to Amelie, 1841]

The letter of James, a favorite of Bl. Frédéric’s, reminds us of the importance of caring for “the necessities of the body.” These needs are the primary reason our neighbors come to us, but they are not the primary reason we go to them. We are called to see and to serve Christ in the person of the poor; to put our “hand in their wounds,” as Frédéric said. [Letter 137, to Janmot, 1836]

But Christ asks more of us than merely to recognize Him, he calls us to follow Him and to walk with Him, not only for one day. To have a friend, you have to be a friend. We serve in the hope that both the poor and Christ will say to us: “I no longer call you servants. I call you friends.” [John 15:15]

Contemplate:

How can I be a better friend to those in need?

Recommended Reading:

Serving in Hope Module VII, Our Vincentian Home Visit

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New National Council Headquarters Centered on Faith, Impact
New National Council Headquarters Centered on Faith, Impact 2560 2058 SVDP USA

Two weeks ago, Society of St. Vincent de Paul leadership from across the country gathered again for the first time in more than a year. Their primary purpose was Board and Strategic Planning meetings, though they had another reason to gather as well: to witness the dedication of the National Council’s new headquarters at 66 Progress Parkway in Maryland Heights, Missouri.

While the building serves as day-to-day office space for the National Council staff, it also houses some special spaces for Vincentians who may visit the headquarters.

History Wall

Created in conjunction with Toucan Design and Engraphix Architectural Signage, the National Council’s History Wall is a focal point of the building’s lobby. Sheri Brimer and Melinda Borman of Toucan Design noted their collaboration with a group of National Council staff, headed by Chief Operations Officer Nancy Pino.

Said Brimer, “As you can see by the many photos of [neighbors in need], staff, and volunteers, there is a unified mission that revolves around the five main founding tenets: Humility, Zeal, Selflessness, Gentleness, and Simplicity. And we hope that each visitor comes away with a better visual understanding of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and all that it encompasses.”

Pino notes that the installation is more than just a History Wall depicting the Society’s past. Featuring images of not just our founders, but of Vincentians from across the United States serving their neighbors in need, it helps “express the story of our beginnings, who we are — and who we aspire to become.”

The team from Toucan was able to weave together the Society’s past and present, as well as our Essential Elements of spirituality, friendship, and service into one cohesive design.

“The large gold medallion that sits near its center becomes a sort of heart for the piece with light emanating on four sides, which in turn, illuminates the subtle cross shape created by the background spaces. There is a specific flow of St. Vincent’s story from the bottom left quadrant upward and outward to the top right section. The idea of the entire organization branching out and spreading across both time and continents is highlighted here.”

 

The Chapel of Vincentian Members

Directly across from this history wall sits the Chapel of Vincentian Members. National Council CEO Dave Barringer had this to say: “We want to lead with our faith, so a chapel space was forefront in our design plans.”

The balance of past and present flows from the History Wall into the Chapel as well. While the altar is a new piece, the Stations of the Cross, crucifix, and seating came from the Archdiocese of St. Louis’ Reclamation Center. Quipped Tim Williams, Director of Formation, “It seems very appropriate that we got so much of the décor from the church’s ‘secondhand store!'”

The stations have an artistic, handmade feeling, especially since the IVX station sign was missing, requiring the team had to create one that would match the existing set.

The space is filled with natural light coming from glass bricks off the building’s V-shaped entryway (which predates our occupancy), and the new altar has a V-shaped base whose shape mimics old glass wall. The overall feeling is one of serenity and harmony.

“Overall we wanted the chapel to have a humble, reflective feel that matches our Vincentian Vocation,” said Pino.

“I love walking in through the front door of the new National Council offices,” says Tim Williams. “As soon as you step inside, you get tangible reminders of our three Essential Elements.”

He added that the chapel “is the spiritual center of this place, and is dedicated to our Vincentian friendship. Right across from the chapel is a wall decorated with images and words from our founders, saints, and blesseds, interspersed with images of our members from all across the country serving people in need tirelessly, creatively, and cheerfully. As a Vincentian, it makes me just immediately feel like part of the great heritage of this Society.”

Adds Pino, “I truly hope that all the Vincentians that visit our National Office enjoy the space and feel both inspired and appreciated.”

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Contemplation: Connected by Unbroken Spokes
Contemplation: Connected by Unbroken Spokes 940 788 SVDP USA

In 2018, a list of Cultural Beliefs was added to our Rule, better defining for us the commitments we make in this vocation. Among them is the commitment to “contribute to the success of our Vincentian work when we support One Society.” [Rule, Part III, Statue 2] Although only added to the text of the Rule in recent years, this ideal of solidarity was dear to our founder, Blessed Frédéric Ozanam.

As it has always been, the work of the Society is done by individual members, visiting in pairs to serve the poor in their neighborhoods, and meeting and praying frequently with their local Conferences. With respect for the principle of subsidiarity, Conferences, within the limits of the Rule, govern themselves. It would be quite possible, if you chose, to go a very long time without so much as being aware of any Vincentians from other Conferences. But we are called to choose otherwise!

Even without seeing one another, “what magic there is in words from afar and in the approbation of so great a number of friends,” Frédéric wrote, likening the bonds between Conferences to the living and life-giving bonds between conjoined twins. [Letter 169, to Lallier, 1838] Celebrating a local success in Paris, he was quick to add that “our moral strength…comes from other conferences in Paris and the provinces. This solidarity raises us in the eyes of the world at the same time that it gives us confidence.” [Letter 173, to Lallier, 1838]

Each new member, each new Conference, immediately inherits 188 years of tradition, becomes part of a network of charity spanning the globe in 152 countries, on all five continents. Each Conference, with its local character and concerns, enriches and is enriched by the greater whole. That is why Frédéric cautioned that the Society’s growth is not important without “unity in proportion as the circle widens, each of its points connected with the center by unbroken spokes.” [Letter 137, to Janmot, 1837]

This unity, this solidarity, is the reason we have District, Diocesan, and National Councils, it is the reason we have an annual National Assembly, and the reason we celebrate Vincentian Feast Days together. Following one such celebration, Frédéric marveled that “at the same hour, thirty other conferences established in the farthest removed sections of the country celebrated the same solemnity. How can there not be given some hope to such a strength of association?” [Letter 310, to Amelie, 1841]

As we seek to serve Christ in the person of the poor, we constantly bless and are blessed by our fellow Vincentians, assuring each other “that we are not alone, and that our works and prayers are surrounded with much better works and prayers, which protect them against corruption from without and draws upon them the blessing of heaven.” [Letter 165, to Bailly, 1837]

Contemplate:

Do I meet with members from other Conferences, and remember them in my prayers?

Recommended Reading:

Antoine-Frédéric Ozanam

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Contemplation: The Spirit of Youth
Contemplation: The Spirit of Youth 940 788 SVDP USA

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is blessed with many active youth and young adult members, whose fresh enthusiasm for the Lord’s work infuses all of us with renewed energy in our vocation. Like the first Conference, formed by young men barely out of their teens, we seek out and welcome young members! For the rest of us, though, our own advancing age does not excuse us, as our Rule reminds us, from striving “to preserve the spirit of youth.” [Rule, Part I, 3.5]

Blessed Frédéric often invoked the spirit of youth in his speeches and writing, beginning when he was a student. He was acutely aware that others might find him “very rash to propose [his] young man’s ideas,” [Letter 85, to Bailly, 1834] yet he proposed them anyway. He even went so far as to once say that his ideas really were not even his own, but “the echo of the young Christian people among whom I live.” [Letter 97, to Curnier, 1835]

It was Frédéric’s vision not only that a network of charity might encircle the world, but that renewing the faith in young people would carry on throughout their lives, and in turn light a fire in the hearts of their countrymen. Recognizing the Society as “a vocation for every moment of our lives,” [Rule, Part I, 2.6] he believed it could help to prepare “a new generation which would carry into science, the arts, and industry, into administration, the judiciary, the bar, the unanimous resolve to make it a moral country and to become better themselves in order to make others happier.” [Letter 290, to Amelie, 1841]

Throughout his life Frédéric continued not only to call on young people to serve, but to be energized by the fire of the young people in his classes and in the Society, by what our Rule calls their “enthusiasm, adaptability and creative imagination.” [Rule, Part I, 3.5]

As Vincentians, we grow together in holiness and in friendship, challenged by youth to greater energy and ambition; tempered by age to seek the achievable; each of us at our stage in life blessed by the gifts of all the others, united in work that is ageless and timeless.

Founded 188 years ago, the Society itself “is not old,” wrote Ozanam biographer Monsignor Louis Baunard. Rather, “it is, and continues to be, young with eternal youth, with the youth of Charity that knows not decay.” [Baunard, 416]

“Life is however not standing still,” Frédéric wrote late in his life, “and I shall have to seize whatever little youth remains…and to keep my 18-year-old promise to God.” [Baunard, 331]

Contemplate

As I grow older, how do I keep my promise to God young?

Recommended Reading

The Frédéric Ozanam Story

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National Council Building Dedication Renews Faith and Friendship
National Council Building Dedication Renews Faith and Friendship 633 277 SVDP USA

The sun burned bright in St. Louis on June 11, with temperatures nearing 100 degrees. But it paled in comparison to the outpouring of faith and friendship that flowed out of the National Council office during the dedication of our new headquarters at 66 Progress Parkway.

Though staff began working from the building shortly after its purchase last summer, the pandemic had prevented the larger SVdP community from visiting until now. The day marked a joyous reunion, as Board members and staff came together in person after a year a half filled with many Zoom meetings and a fair amount of uncertainty.

National Council President Ralph Middlecamp noted that the building actually opened in March 2020, but due to COVID restrictions, no one could enter for many weeks.

Ralph Middlecamp

Once it was safe to enter last summer (socially distant and with masks), a team of staff members, led by Chief Operating Officer Nancy Pino, worked tirelessly to create a space that is reflective of Vincentian values. “Our goal when designing our new space was not only to make it a productive, comfortable, and welcoming environment for our staff, but for all Vincentian visitors,” she said. “The History Wall and Chapel help express the story of beginnings, who we are, and who we aspire to become.”

SVdP History

President Ralph Middlecamp and CEO Dave Barringer welcomed guests to the new headquarters, then Spiritual Advisor Bishop Donald J. Hying and Deacon John Heithaus of the Archdiocesan Council of St. Louis performed the first Mass in the National Council Chapel. Said Barringer, “We have intentionally designed the building to reflect the Society’s mission. Upon entry through our front door, within 25 feet you will see our logo, a statue of St. Vincent de Paul, our Mission statement, a video of Society activities, a wall dedicated to our history and values, and a chapel. Yes, we want to lead with our faith, so a chapel space was forefront in our design plans.”

SVdP National Council Chapel

Middlecamp was pleased with what the National Council team was able to accomplish. “Our new National Office provides a well-designed space for our staff and volunteers as we serve those who serve our neighbors in need,” he said. “It is attractive and functional, and we were able to make the move without any fundraising or decrease in support for the programs we offer. What a great new beginning for us as we look to the future after these months of isolation.”

As a special surprise, the day’s celebration included the dedication of the new Sr. Kieran Library, a fitting tribute to the National Council’s long-time Director of Formation, who gave so much to the Society. Current Director of Formation Tim Williams had this to say: “Friday’s Open House, Mass, and dedication of the new building seemed like a perfect way for us to emerge from the pandemic, and begin our return to in-person meetings. For me, personally, it was a great joy to see the unmasked smile of my predecessor and dear friend, Sister Kieran Kneaves, when we unveiled the name of our new Vincentian library, dedicated to her and to the many years she served us all in this vocation!”

Sr. Kieran KneavesTrue to the Vincentian value of prudence, the National Council did not use any dollars from member services to purchase the new building, which was funded through the sale of our old building and judicious savings of bequest funds over time. “Our most loyal donors contributed mightily to this day. We thank them,” Middlecamp said.

The new building will serve as a space for collaboration, faith, and friendship for the Society’s 100,000 Vincentian volunteers and the staff who support them, providing the technology and space to sustain our work now and well into the future. In his remarks, Barringer said, “To not only our staff, but also to our Board of Directors, and our Society members, Welcome Home!”

 

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