St. Vincent de Paul

Not much happening today, other than all the troubles in the world. It is, however, the feast day of St. Vincent de Paul. Following is a short synopsis of his life. And, My wife and I have a relic of his, given to us by a very pious priest who actually still believed in intercession and miracles. We shall definitely ask his powerful intercession in our daily duties.


SAINT VINCENT de PAUL
Founder of the Lazarist Fathers
and the Daughters of Charity
(1576-1660)

Saint Vincent was born in 1576 near Dax, south of Bordeaux, of a poor family which survived by means of their labor. It seemed that "mercy was born with him." When sent by his father to the mill to procure flour, if he met a poor man coming home, he would open the sack and give him handfuls of flour when he had nothing else. His Christian father was not angry; seeing his good dispositions, he was sure his son should become a priest, and placed him as a boarding student with a group of religious priests in Dax. Vincent made rapid progress, and after seven years of studying theology at Toulouse and in Saragossa, Spain, was ordained a priest in 1600. He always concealed his learning and followed the counsel of Saint Paul who said, "I have wanted to know nothing in your midst but Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ crucified." (Protestants definitely miss this point, since they have removed Him from their cross. They don't seem to understand that all time from the beginning is present at all time to Him, and that we must continue to remember His suffering always until our demise.)

His charity embraced the poor, the young and the aged, the provinces desolated by civil war, Christians enslaved by the infidels. The poor man, ignorant and degraded, was to him the image of Him who became as "a leper and no man." "Turn the medal," he said, "and you will see Jesus Christ." He went through the streets of Paris at night, seeking the infants and children left there to die - three or four hundred every year. Once robbers rushed upon him, thinking he carried a treasure, but when he opened his cloak, they recognized him and his burden, an abandoned infant, and fell at his feet. Not only was Saint Vincent the providence of the poor, but also of the rich, for he taught them to undertake works of mercy. When in 1648 the work of the foundlings was in danger of failure for want of funds, he assembled the ladies of the Association of Charity, and said, "Compassion and charity have made you adopt these little creatures as your children. You have been their mothers according to grace, when their own mothers abandoned them. Will you now cease to be their mothers? Their life and death are in your hands. I shall take your votes; it is time to pronounce sentence." The tears of the assembly were his only answer, and the work was continued.

St. Vincent offers his opinion:

"What is done for charity's sake is done for God. It is not enough for us that we love God ourselves; our neighbor also must love him; neither can we love our neighbor as ourselves unless we procure for him the good we are bound to desire for ourselves--viz., divine love, which unites us to our Sovereign Good. We must love our neighbor as the image of God and the object of His love, and must try to make men love their Creator in return, and love one another also with mutual charity for the love of God, Who so loved them as to deliver His own Son to death for them. But let us, I beg of you, look upon this Divine Savior as a perfect pattern of the charity we must bear to our neighbor."

And again, who went through suffering, taking, through a fraudulent account, being able to take the place of a galley slave who was in chains. Remember, St. Vincent was a pitiless foe to heresy, and NOT just a patron saint to the poor. He would not rest until he had obtained either the banishment or the chastisement of the perpetrators of the heresy. He was one of the first to denounce and prosecute the pernicious error of Jansenism. Never, perhaps, were these words of Holy Scripture better verified: The simplicity of the just shall guide them; and the deceitfulness of the wicked shall destroy them. Though this sect expressed, later on, a supreme disdain for Monsieur Vincent, it had not always been of that mind. Vincent said to a friend: "I am most particularly obliged to bless and thank God, for not having suffered the first and principal professors of that doctrine, men of my acquaintance and friendship, to be able to draw me to their opinions. I cannot tell you what pains they took, and what reasons they propounded to me; I objected to them, amongst other things, the authority of the Council of Trent, which is clearly opposed to them; and seeing that they still continued, I, instead of answering them, quietly recited my Credo; and that is how I have remained firm in the Catholic Faith." (Something to always remember)

The Priests of the Mission or Lazarists, as they are called, and thousands of the Daughters of Charity still comfort the afflicted with the charity of their holy Founder. It has been said of him that no one has ever verified more perfectly than Saint Vincent, the words of Our Lord: "He who humbles himself shall be exalted, and he that exalts himself shall be humbled..." The more Vincent strove to abase himself in the eyes of all, the more God took pleasure in elevating him and bestowing His blessings on him and on all his works. He died in 1660, in an old age made truly golden by his unceasing good works.

Most people who profess piety ask advice of directors about their prayers and spiritual exercises. Many of these are 'legends in their own mind'. Few inquire whether they are not in danger of damnation from neglect of works of charity. But then, since we are told that everybody goes to heaven, why bother? Let us never forget the terrible foretold words of the Final Judge:

"Depart from me, workers of iniquity; I was hungry, and you did not feed Me; I was without shelter, you did not take Me in...; I was sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me, etc." (Cf. Matt. 26:31-46)