Lenten Conferences of Fr. Lacordaire No. 14

by .famvin | Mar 7, 2024 | Formation | 0 comments

At the request of Frederic Ozanam and other university students, the Archbishop of Paris, Monsignor de Quélen, instituted the Lenten Conferences at Notre-Dame, which are still held today. The first cycle of conferences took place from February to March 1834. Father Lacordaire, who would later join the Dominicans but was then a diocesan priest, preached those of 1835 and 1836. These extracts come from those conferences.

God sustains and consoles humankind

Conferences of the Rev. Père Lacordaire, p. 390

I add, that we are in relation with God even by our senses. When we suffer, from whom do we demand help? What soothes the sufferings of the poor? What wipes the sweat from their brow? What sustains and consoles mankind in its infinite miseries? It is the idea of God. The poor man at the corner of the street, in countries where he is not driven therefrom, asks, in the name of God, for the bread of which he has need. He knows that the God who nourishes his intelligence and his heart, is also the God who ripens the harvests, and who provides for the birds of the sky. The utterance of His name has an efficacy for obtaining what he asks for…

Jean-Baptiste-Henri-Dominique Lacordaire (1802-1861) was a renowned preacher and restorer of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) in France. He was a great friend of Frederic Ozanam (in fact, he is the author of a very interesting biography on Ozanam) and very close to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

Image: Lacordaire, painted by Louis Janmot (1814-1892), friend of Frederic Ozanam and an early member of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

*Source: Conferences of the Rev. Père Lacordaire: Delivered in the Cathedral of Nôtre Dame, in Paris. Author: Jean Baptiste Henri Dominique Lacordaire. Translated from the French by Henry Langdon. Publisher: T. Richardson in 1853.