It’s been said that meetings are places where minutes are kept and hours are wasted, a joke with enough truth to it that anybody who has sat through a few “all hands” meetings at work, or a meeting of many civic organizations, can surely relate. If all you have attended is Conference Meetings, on the other hand, the joke ought to be confusing.

Sometimes members may wonder why we don’t simply conduct our business electronically, by email or videoconferencing, which is probably more efficient for many tasks. As our Manual points out, “the Conference meets less to conduct business than to celebrate and deepen its unity for essentially spiritual reasons”. [Manual, 18] The business of the Conference, then is not the primary purpose of the meetings, and there is no reason not to conduct some of it by other means – not to reduce the number of meetings, but to make the best use of our meetings by building our friendship, sharing our service, and growing in holiness – not individually, but as our Rule says, “together.” [Rule, Part I, 2.2]

It was less than two years after the founding of the first Conference that Frédéric Ozanam observed that the meetings had begun to change, that the joy and friendship seemed to be waning, and that the meeting “is nearly always concerned with business, it seems long.” [90, to Curnier, 1835] It is no coincidence that the Rule was first drafted shortly after this, a Rule that still reminds us that our meetings “are held in a spirit of fraternity, simplicity, and Christian joy.” [Rule, Part I, 3.4] This is not a command to “go and be joyful.” Instead, like most of our Rule, it is simply a description of what a meeting should look like. If our meetings couldn’t be described that way, we need to rethink how we conduct them. After all, we are governed not by Robert’s Rule, but by the Rule of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

Back in his hometown of Lyon after finishing his studies in Paris, Blessed Frédéric often felt isolated from the “the give-and-take of feelings and thoughts, sympathy, intellectual stimulation and moral assistance” which to him were essential to true friendship. He found these blessings of friendship, though, “in our Society of St. Vincent de Paul. Those weekly evening meetings are one of the greatest consolations Providence has left me.” [169, to Lallier, 1838]

The Rule doesn’t call us to try to meet twice a month, it calls us to “meet regularly and consistently, usually weekly”. Twice a month is just the minimum. [Rule, Part I, 3.3.1] This not because we seek to compile great volumes of minutes, or audit the conference books each week, but instead to grow in friendship, accompanying each other on the pathway towards holiness. We truly can never meet too often, because time spent with friends is never wasted.

Contemplate

How well do I know my fellow Vincentians? How well do they know me?

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