It is not without reason that the Venerable Peter Joseph Triest is called the Vincent de Paul of Belgium.  Even though they lived in different centuries and even in different social and religious contexts, both can truly be considered icons of charity.  Vincent de Paul lived in France and died exactly a century before Peter Joseph Triest was born (Vincent died in 1660 and Triest was born in 1760), and while Vincent was active long before there was any sign of the French Revolution, Triest had to adapt to the new situation that the French Revolution had created, both socially and ecclesiastically.  But both lived out the Gospel message consistently and gave a contemporary interpretation to Jesus Christ’s commandment to love the poor effectively.  For both, the passage from the Gospel of Matthew served as a true guiding principle: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Mt 25:40).

In this essay, we will attempt to draw a number of parallels between these two figures in the hope that they may inspire many today not to confine charity to a historical fact but to give it a contemporary interpretation.

1. From a lived experience.

Both Vincent and Triest developed a special love for the poor based on their own personal lived experience.

Vincent could say that he knew what poverty was.  He grew up in a farming family that was not well-off, and as a child he had to tend the pigs.  Miraculously, he was able to study, thanks to the financial support of a distant relative, the lawyer de Comet.  But even as a student, he had to work to pay for his studies.  As a child and young man, he therefore had a very negative view of poverty, and so he was ashamed when his father came to visit him at boarding school because he was poorly dressed and limped.  Later, he would deeply regret this attitude.  His actual motivation for becoming a priest was to escape this poverty and to lead a more prosperous life for his family and himself by obtaining benefices.  We know the stories of the young Vincent, who for the first ten years of his priesthood was actually concerned only with seeking money.  But it was this path of personal poverty and the struggle to escape it that God used to gradually lead him to the realization that it was more important to use his energy to help others rather than to be concerned solely with his own well-being. Caring for those who were poor both spiritually and materially would henceforth demand his total attention and dedication.

Peter Joseph Triest came from a relatively well-to-do family, but concern for the poor around him was instilled in him through his education. He had a profound experience while he was a student in Geel, where he was a boarder in a family that also housed the mentally ill, through the family care system that was widespread in Geel.  He got to know these people and developed a deep compassion for them.  History tells us that he used his savings to buy treats for them.  His decision to become a priest was a conscious one, and as a young priest, he witnessed the consequences of the French Revolution as they became increasingly evident, until, as a newly ordained parish priest in Ronse, he was faced with the choice of whether or not to take the oath of allegiance to the Republic.  Loyalty to the Church was more important to him, and so he refused to take the oath and was forced to live in hiding for five years.  It became a time of spiritual deepening and of watching with sorrow as society as a whole—including the Church—sank into ever-greater poverty.  He would emerge from this period as a deeply moved man and, from then on, make a radical choice to stand up for the poor.  The words he spoke during his first homily after this period of seclusion are telling: “As a priest, I must offer you my example, my teaching, and my service.  I owe you my vigilance, my care, my effort, and my rest—not merely on certain occasions, but at every moment, every day and every night, despite the distant, difficult, and muddy roads.  Call on me whenever you wish and do not spare me; do not fear disturbing me.  I am happy if, following the example of Jesus Christ, my Master, I may sacrifice my rest, my health, and even my life for you.”

Their paths were different, but both had to go through a process of maturation, marked by failure, disappointment, and even persecution.  It was through the path of personal suffering that they both became deeply sensitive to the suffering of others.  Or how suffering truly fosters compassion.

Brother René Stockman,
Brother of Charity