“Home Visits,“ our Rule reminds us, “always are made in pairs.” [Rule, Part III, St. 8] Although this may offer protection from liability, that is an entirely unintended effect, given that the requirement predates our modern, litigious society by millennia. It predates even the Rule, which first set down our practices in writing two years after the founding of the first Conference.

We were founded with Frédéric’s simple declaration that our first principle, and first activity, was to act in imitation of Jesus Christ. “We will do what is most agreeable to God,” he said. “Therefore, we must do what Our Lord Jesus Christ did when preaching the Gospel. Let us go to the poor.” [Baunard, 65] Our model of visitation, then, necessarily follows the model Christ gave to His disciples, first the twelve, and later the seventy-two, whom He sent out not alone, but in pairs.

St. Vincent gives us keen insight into Christ’s reason for this, explaining that since loving the neighbor presupposes more than one person (you and the neighbor), then, by traveling in pairs, we can also “constantly practice charity toward one another, and, if one of [us] were to fall, there would be someone to help him up, or to encourage him in his labors, if he grew weary and exhausted.” [CCD XI:322] We lift each other up, we show we are Christians by our love for one another, extended also to the neighbor.

Certainly, there are very practical reasons for visiting in pairs, primarily the ability to see the neighbor, and the situation from two different perspectives. There is a children’s toy, the Viewmaster, that forces the eyes to view a photo from two different angles, helping us visualize three dimensions. In a similar way, seeing and hearing the neighbor from the perspectives of two different people lends a depth to our understanding that we could not gain alone. When the home visit team is a man and woman together, they benefit from the wholeness that complementarity provides. When the team pairs together young and old, or people from different backgrounds and cultures, we again benefit from the union of our differences.

There is still a greater reason to visit in pairs. Most of us have observed that we grow closer to friends when we share activities like conversation, travel, or sharing a meal. “If purely physical acts have this power,” Blessed Frédéric explains, “moral acts possess it all the more. And if two or three come together to do good, their union will be perfect.” [142, to Curnier, 1837]

It is this special character of friendship, true friendship, Christian friendship, that we form first among ourselves, and then extend to the neighbor that is at the heart of the home visit. It is a friendship united in spirit and service. You might even call it essential.

Contemplate

Do I grow closer in true friendship with my fellow Vincentians by our shared works of charity?

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