Our Family has many young people in the different branches that make it up: they are our wealth and our hope that the Vincentian charism is alive and present among the poor of our society. Here is one of the many examples that can be put: a new group of boys and girls who wish to follow Jesus Christ in the footsteps of St. Vincent de Paul, under the example of Blessed Frederic Ozanam:

Last Friday, October 27, at the Mother of God School, where the Daughters of Charity serve in Jerez de la Frontera (Spain), we attended the birth of the Saint Catherine Labouré Conference.

Fourteen young people, between fifteen and nineteen years old, gave a brave “YES” as a group of friends who embark on a stage with two common objectives: Loving others, healing their wounds, and loving one another in the dimension of the Cross, as Christ loved us. They could have chosen to be in any other group, association… but they have fallen in love with a specific charism, the Charism that Vincent de Paul left us “as a legacy”; they could have chosen any branch of the Vincentian Family, but they have fallen in love with the life and work of Blessed Frederic Ozanam, a young man like them and —why not say it— with the help and encouragement of some Daughters of the Charity that “pushed” them to this beautiful task of serving: as Frederic met Sr. Rosalie Rendu, today these young people have had the good fortune to meet Sr. Amelia, Sr. Leonor, Sr. Salud, Sr. Lourdes, Sr. Ana María… who have animated this “burning flame of Charity not to go out.”

“We leave behind indecision, uncertainty, fear…, to the unknown and we put all our energies into a life of service, hard in some moments, but always with our eyes set on the horizon of Him who can do everything in all: Christ, the Server of the Poor.”

Dear Juan Manuel, David, Lola, José, Marina, Ana, Paqui, David, María, Alba, Laura, Ariadna, Immaculate and Pablo: WELCOME!!!

Allow me to finish with a sentence of Blessed Frederic Ozanam, so that he challenges us all, young and old, so that it is a “script” in our lives: “The blessing of the poor is from God… let us go to the poor.”

With love,

Francisco Holgado Ruiz,
President of the Cadiz Area Council,
Society of San Vincent de Paul

Source: http://ssvp.es/