History of The
Society of St. Vincent
de Paul
Basic
Principles
If
you want to begin to understand what the Society of St.
Vincent de Paul is all about, we must, of necessity, return to
the origins of the Society and consider, in retrospect, both
its philosophical and historical background.
To
every one of us God gives special gifts for the renewal and
building up of his people.
Some of us welcome these gifts and, as our Lord
describes it is in the parable, make them multiply a hundred
fold. Others do not work as hard at it and fail to take full
advantage of their charismatic gifts, and others simply
neglect them, or worse still, bury them out of sight, so that
they produce nothing.
We
can stimulate our desire to have our charisma bear fruit by
the study of those who have accepted God’s grace and allowed
it to have full rein in the development of their gifts.
Since we Vincentians have a special vocation, that of
direct, personal service to the poor, it is fitting that we
should look back to the sources of our own Society for
inspiration and encouragement.
I
invite you, then, to view with me some of the pictures in our
Vincentian portrait gallery.
ST.
VINCENT
DE PAUL
The
first portrait is that of the man whose name our Society is
proud to bear: St. Vincent de Paul.
Founder of the congregation of the mission and of the
Daughters of Charity, he was canonized by Pope Clement XII in
1737, and was declared patron of all charitable groups by Pope
Leo XIII in 1885.
St.
Vincent de Paul was born around 1580, in the
Gascony
region of
France
, about sixty miles
north-east of
Lourdes
.
He was the third of six children born to a poor French
farm family. He
was educated at the college at Dax and the
University
of
Toulouse
and was ordained in
the year 1600. Following
his ordination, he continued his studies in
Toulouse
, also doing some
teaching there. However,
in 1605, while returning from a trip to
Marseilles
, the boat on which
he was traveling was attacked by pirates and he was taken as a
slave to
North Africa
.
Two
years later, in 1607, he managed to escape and return to
France
, and shortly
afterwards went to
Rome
.
In 1609, he was sent on a special Papal Mission to the
Court of Henry IV King of
France
, and he became the
Chaplain to the French Queen.
This chain of events seems to have been providential
because it was in
Paris
that St. Vincent de
Paul first came face-to-face with the poverty that was later
to be the focus of so much of his work.
It
was while he was pastor of a poor country parish that St.
Vincent de Paul formed the group that later became known as
the Ladies of Charity. It
consisted primarily of rich women who organized the collection
and distribution of supplies to the needy.
While these ladies were generous with their time and
possessions, they often lacked the practical knowledge
required to help the poor.
This was especially true of the groups in
Paris
.
As a result of this,
St. Vincent
recruited country
girls to come and help out.
These eventually evolved into the order of nuns known
as the Daughters of Charity.
It would appear that St. Vincent de Paul initially had
no intention of founding a religious order.
In fact, the Daughters of Charity seem to have acted
initially as an auxiliary of the Ladies of Charity.
They were unlike the religious orders of women at the
time in that they were uncloistered.
As
he said in a letter to one of the priests of the mission
shortly before he died: “I tell you, Father, that the
Daughters of Charity are not religious (in the canonical
sense), but women who come and go like lay people.
They belong to the parish, and work under the direction
of the pastors of these parishes to which they are
appointed”.
When
Vincent de Paul was on his deathbed, a visitor asked him what
he would do if he could start his life all over again.
He replied, “I would do even more.”
Although
St. Vincent de Paul did not found our Society of St. Vincent
de Paul, we do know that, besides the Ladies of Charity, he
did form Confraternities of Charity for men as well as some
mixed Confraternities. However,
these did not survive, apparently because they did not manage
their funds as effectively as the women’s confraternities
did.
What
we can most learn from St. Vincent de Paul is his intense love
of the poor and his understanding of the dignity of those we
help. Shortly
before he died, he gave this advice to a young Daughter of
Charity, who was preparing to begin her life of service to the
poor: “You must love the poor”, he said “and you must
try to see that, through their affection for you, they will
pardon you the bread you give them.”
This,
then, is the first portrait in our family gallery.
It shows us a man whose life and spirituality we are
called upon to imitate. His
calling, like ours, was to a personal service of the poor,
whatever their form of poverty.
He left the palaces of his rich patrons to become the
friend, and indeed the servant, of the poor.
We can sum up his life as a struggle against
indifference to the fate of the poor, in a country that was
Catholic, at least in name; where love of country replaced
love of God.
"
Flying squad seminars compiled and adapted by Michael Burns”
Chronology for St. Vincent de Paul
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