Such turbulent times we live in, filled political polarization, social controversies, economic upheavals, natural disasters, wars and rumors of wars! It’s almost enough to make you throw up your hands and give up sometimes. Blessed Frédéric’s times were certainly no less turbulent, with the industrial revolution, epidemics, new forms of poverty, and multiple revolutions overturning France’s government every few years.

Yet rather than “despairing of your age”, Frédéric cautioned, “beware of that faintheartedness which leads so many to give up all effort when witnessing, as they say, the decline … of civilization, and who, by dint of announcing the approach of the country’s ruin, end by precipitating it.” [O’Meara, 244] By allowing the day’s own troubles to overwhelm us, in other words, we become part of the problem, when we should instead remember that we do not belong to this world. We do not serve in despair, but in hope, and the hope in which we serve, the hope we seek to share with the neighbor is the very hope that Christ shared with us.

Naturally, on home visits, in systemic change projects, and through our advocacy, we fully engage with the world as it is with our neighbors, our communities, and with other organizations. The first sign of hope we offer is food, rent, utilities, or other material, worldly things. And how can we do otherwise? We do not belong to this world, but it is where we live. Indeed, we have been sent into the world!

Again and again, Jesus provided for material needs, from the wedding at Cana, changing water to wine to keep the party going, to the loaves and fishes, when he took pity on the hungry crowds. But by these actions He was not teaching us to measure our success by the loaves, the fishes, or the casks of wine. As Frédéric put it, the letters we share with each other should not be “statistical documents where success is defined in prideful numbers,” but instead should “exchange ideas, inspiration perhaps, fears at times, and always hope.” [1372, to the Assembly, 1838]

If we measure our successes only by “prideful numbers”, we will always be disappointed. That is why The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is animated by a “spirit that animates us and that alone distinguishes us from other associations: we do not want to be a welfare office”. [1375, to Charuand, 1838] Above all other things we give, it is our friendship, understanding, and love that lead to hope – for ourselves, for the neighbor, and for our society.

“I have always belonged,” Frédéric once said, “to the party of hope…in fact, I believe in nothing else as far as politics are concerned.” [O’Meara, 243-4]

Contemplation

What is my deepest hope for each neighbor I serve?

By Timothy Williams,
Senior Director of Formation & Leadership Development
Society of St. Vincent de Paul USA.