Each year, the feast of St. Vincent de Paul prompts us to reflect on Vincent’s message, the movement he initiated, and the relevance his message still holds today. September 27 therefore remains a special day for all who, in one way or another, live and work according to Vincentian spirituality.

We live in an age of constant technological progress, in which artificial intelligence opens up possibilities that were previously unthinkable and can therefore be of great service in providing people with a better life. This progress seems unstoppable and appears to know no bounds.  We can scarcely imagine what new possibilities this will bring us in the coming years.  But at the same time, the question—or rather, the concern—arises as to whether all of this truly helps people in every circumstance, and whether it can always be regarded as progress for our humanity. Is there also a downside to this progress, and does humanity not run the risk of ultimately becoming subordinate to what is artificially imposed upon it? Will humanity be able to remain master of what it is creating?  And will some not be seized by the hubris of wanting to exalt themselves above their own Creator?  Pope Leo XIV rightly referred in his encyclical “Magnifica humanitas” to the image of the Tower of Babel, in which humanity, driven precisely by its pride, sought to emulate God and thereby attempted to abolish its subordination to God.  The desire to become our own god and, to that end, to try to eliminate God is apparently a timeless phenomenon; it was already described in a remarkable way in the story of creation and manifests itself in ever-new ways.  With the creation of artificial intelligence and robots, humanity has still not created a human being, yet some live under the delusion that they are not far from the possibility of creating a pseudo-human according to their own wishes and dreams.  In their eyes, this would become the prototype that humans must live up to—a human being without shortcomings or flaws, capable of perfectly executing everything for which it was preprogrammed, yet without a soul and without the ability to think and act according to its conscience.

Today we read articles about robots that can run faster than the best athletes, that can formulate answers to the most complex questions more quickly and accurately than anyone else, that can brilliantly take over many human tasks, and that can even be deployed in healthcare to provide certain basic care.

What would Vincent’s response be if he were alive today and confronted with these trends and situations that dominate the current worldview?  He would ask the same questions he asked 400 years ago.  His first question would be where God has gone in this new world, and whether God has not been literally supplanted by ever-advancing technological progress.  And his second question would be how the poor are faring in this new world—those who dwell on the margins of society and cannot enjoy the benefits of this technological progress at all, and who may, in fact, become its victims.  The concern for bringing God back into the world and the concern for how God’s love could be translated into and through love for one’s neighbour—especially for those who are deprived of any form of love—were the driving forces that shaped Vincent’s entire life.  In fact, this was precisely what Jesus Christ himself accomplished during his life here on earth: revealing to humanity the true Face of God—who is love—and translating this love into concrete love for one’s neighbour, while also entrusting this as a mission to humanity.

In Vincent’s time, the true image of God was obscured by ignorance and a lack of proper spiritual guidance. Today, for many, God has been supplanted by extreme individualism, the blind belief that all salvation lies in technological progress, and a completely misguided understanding of personal freedom.  The disappearance of God as the ultimate perspective on life has far-reaching consequences for the way people live, the way they interact with one another, and erodes the unconditional respect for all life.

We can learn from Vincent how he sought to alleviate spiritual poverty by training well-educated priests and organizing popular missions.  Equipping people to make God known and loved among the people and to find concrete ways to satisfy people’s spiritual hunger: this was his answer.  And above all, through his own life, he showed how much room he made to be filled by God’s grace, by  placing unconditional trust in divine Providence and, despite his many activities, always giving priority to an intense life of prayer.

In a world dominated by technology, he might—just as Teilhard de Chardin sought in his time to bridge the gap between the theory of evolution and the hand of God within it—be looking today for ways to discern, even within technological progress, the creative power that humanity has received from God. Science and faith need not contradict one another; rather, they can enrich one another.  When St. Irenaeus stated that the living human being is the glory of God, this can also be applied to what this living human being continues to develop today—including in the technological realm—drawing upon and through the power he has received from God.  But this, of course, requires humility and the faith that God is at the origin of all creation and is also its fulfilment.  To discover the glory of God in this gives what humanity continues to develop even greater value!  Through his discoveries and achievements, he advances God’s creation.  His human activities thereby take on a divine dimension.  Should it not be one of the tasks of us believers today to become these bridge-builders—not to shy away from dialogue with science and technological progress,  and not to shut  ourselves off in purely internal church jargon—but rather to let the glory of God shine, and even radiate, in everything we call progress?

And to do this from our own deeply lived faith, from an authentic relationship with God, and from an enduring faith that God walks with all of us and in everything—including what we call progress today. Indeed, as Vincent so beautifully put it: “That we must always walk with divine Providence, neither too fast nor too slow.”

Vincent would also be concerned today about all those people who fall by the wayside, who live on the margins of society, and who are left out of all the benefits of technological progress.  He would also be concerned for those who, in the light of dazzling progress, are regarded as inferior and are all too easily written off. He would be concerned for unborn life, which in many places no longer has any right to life, and where governments—especially in his country of origin—have even enshrined the right to abortion in the constitution.  He would certainly support pro-life movements and, above all, seek ways to support and care for mothers in distress. He would recall how many abandoned infants in Paris he saved from death and for whom he sought and found appropriate care. Even though few children are abandoned today in that way, how many more are there who are not even allowed to see the light of day?

He would not accept the legalization of euthanasia, but would do everything in his power to convince people that life is sacred and deserves absolute protection, and would actively seek to offer hope to those in desperate situations by being there for them with loving care.

Nor would the influx of migrants and refugees be unfamiliar to him, recalling the masses of refugees who arrived in Paris in 1635 because of the war between Spain and France and sought shelter in vain. No, he did not turn a blind eye then, and even now he would not turn a blind eye to the suffering that many of these people must endure.  He would not remain silent—not even toward politicians—if he were to see how some of these people are being hounded in an inhumane manner, locked up in camps, or drowning at sea off the coasts in the hope of reaching land. Was he not once the informal—and later even the formal—secretary of state for refugees and war victims?

“Davantage,” “ever more,” he would exclaim, faced with all the suffering we encounter daily and when we often feel powerless to offer even the slightest form of help.  Mother Teresa spoke of that single drop in the ocean that she brought about through her concrete care for the dying in the streets of Calcutta, but according to her, the ocean needed that drop, just as all of humanity needs that concrete care for that one fellow human being in need.  It is in this way that humanity is built up, that the human dignity of every person is promoted and restored, and that this single drop may spread like an oil slick on the water in ripples of charity.

Vincent let this drop fall, and since then it has continued to ripple out as a global Vincentian movement carried forward by thousands in a contemporary way.  We can truly be grateful to Saint Vincent for the dual concern he demonstrated in such a radical way: for those who are spiritually poor and for those who are materially poor. Both needed to be shown that God loved them unconditionally. Let us continue to seek inspiration from him so that, even today, we may become and remain true heralds of what God’s name is: Love!

Wishing everyone a blessed Feast of Saint Vincent, and above all, much inspiration, through the intercession of the Saint of charity!

Bro. René Stockman
Brother of Charity