To mark the 400th anniversary of its foundation, the Congregation presents a documentary filmed at the Mother House in Paris, exploring Vincentian history, charism, and mission from the place where, four centuries later, the spirit of Saint Vincent remains alive.

The Congregation of the Mission has released Au Cœur de Paris: The Legacy of Saint Vincent de Paul from the Maison Mère of the Congregation of the Mission, a documentary written and directed by Manuel de Teffé that invites viewers into the historical and spiritual heart of the Vincentian charism.

Filmed at the Mother House of the Congregation, located at 95 Rue de Sèvres in Paris, the documentary traces the human and spiritual journey of Saint Vincent de Paul, the founding of the Congregation of the Mission, and the story of a community that continues today its vocation of charity, hospitality, and service to the most vulnerable.

A story born in Paris that continues to reach the world

Four centuries ago, Saint Vincent de Paul came to understand that charity had to become an organized and committed response to the needs of those who suffered most. His encounters with people living in poverty and his profound experience of faith led him to recognize the face of Christ in them and to dedicate his life to serving others.

From this inspiration was born a mission that began in Paris and, over time, has spread to more than one hundred countries, bringing the message of the Gospel through welcome, closeness, and service.

A journey into the heart of the Congregation

Au Cœur de Paris offers a journey through the most significant spaces of the Mother House, revealing places that preserve the memory and spirituality of the Congregation of the Mission: the chapel where the relics of Saint Vincent de Paul are preserved, the International Formation Center, the historical archives, and the museum.

Through its images, the documentary presents not only the history of a place, but also the enduring power of a mission that continues to respond to the challenges of today’s world.

A legacy that remains alive

Created to mark the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Congregation of the Mission, Au Cœur de Paris is an invitation to rediscover the heart of Saint Vincent de Paul’s charism and the continuing relevance of a mission rooted in charity, hospitality, and service to the poor.

The production was written and directed by Manuel de Teffé, with Fr. Mark Pranaitis, CM, as Executive Producer, original music composed and produced by Gabriele Croci, historical guidance from Fr. Roberto Gomez, CM, and Sr. Magdalena Harbu, Daughter of Charity, and editing by Thomas Kervinio.

The documentary is now available on the official YouTube channel of the Congregation of the Mission.

Watch the documentary:

Transcription:

If love is a fire, zeal is its flame.

This teaching of St. Vincent de Paul, whenever I hear it, renews my Vincentian heart. I’m Father Mark Pranaitis, a son of St. Vincent, currently assigned in Chicago. Visits to our Maison Mere in Paris provide me the opportunity to feel the foundational spirit that has propelled the ministry of so many Vincentian priests and brothers over the more than 200 years we have called this place our common home. You will meet some of them during this film. Each of us is committed to seeing and serving the presence of Jesus Christ in those people who suffer the slings and arrows of poverty most acutely. May we zealously serve the suffering Christ in them.

In the 6th arrondissement of Paris, on the left bank of the Seine, Rue de Sèvres stretches between some of the most familiar landmarks in the city. Today it is a busy artery lined with shops, cafes, and the constant movement of everyday life. Few who pass through it imagine how much history lies behind its ordinary facades. The street owes its name to its origin. It was once the great road leading out of Paris toward the village of Sèvres, the legendary forge of royal porcelain, where clay was transformed into the gold of kings at a time when this part of the city still stood at the edge of open countryside. Over time, the area became home to convents, hospitals, and religious communities drawn to a place that was close to the city’s heart, yet set apart from its clamor.

On one side rises the Bon Marché, a cathedral of modern commerce, the first great European department store. While nearby, the Hotel Lutetia, an icon of Art Nouveau, anchors the corner as a silent witness to the weight of history. Just a few steps away, tucked along the famous Rue du Bac, the Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal welcomes millions of pilgrims every year. They come from every continent, drawn not by monuments or fashion, but by faith, by silence, and by hope.

In this part of the city, conflicting worlds brush against one another. Luxury and memory, commerce and prayer. Rue de Sèvres becomes a mirror of Paris itself, where the pursuit of the ephemeral meets the persistence of the eternal.

It was here, at 95 Rue de Sèvres, that in the 19th century the Congregation of the Mission found a new home, after the upheavals of the French Revolution had scattered its members and taken from them their first house in Paris. This is the spiritual home of a community of priests and brothers founded in the 17th century by Saint Vincent de Paul.

In a city that never stops changing, this house keeps alive the memory of a fire that began long before these streets took their present form. We Vincentians, or Lazarists as we are still known, are the heirs, perhaps unfaithful and unworthy ones, of a formidable intuition. A holy madness. The revolution of a Gascon priest who did not merely see the poor, but recognized in their weary faces the living presence of Christ. This was not an idea, nor an abstract theory. It was a love so concrete, so radical, that it reshaped 17th century France and continues to this day to heal wounds across the world.

This house preserves the memory of that beginning, not as a finished chapter, but as a fire that still burns. To enter here is to step into a living story of grace where evangelizing and serving the forgotten remains our most sacred prayer. To understand this place, one must understand the man who was its invisible architect, Vincent de Paul, a priest who knew imprisonment in Tunis and slavery, yet discovered his true calling in the countryside of Folleville among forgotten peasants, where he realized that charity could not remain an isolated act. It had to become a system, an organization, a network of compassion. Vincent’s journey is a story so profound, so human, and so transformative that it has compelled the world to retell it time and again.

In the years since his passing, nearly 3,000 biographies have been written in every corner of the globe, an immense literary testament to a life that remains an inexhaustible source of wonder. To understand why his story continues to echo through the centuries, one must look back at the world that saw him born and that forged him. At the dawn of the 17th century, France was a country scarred by war, division, and poverty. The long wars of religion between Catholics and Protestants had devastated the countryside, leaving entire populations abandoned to misery. Poverty was not simply a condition of life. It was the visible wound of a fractured society.

It was into this world that Vincent de Paul was born on April 24th, 1581, in the small village of Pouy in Gascony into a modest farming family. From childhood, he knew the hardship of peasant life. But his father believed education and the priesthood could offer him a different future. Intelligent and gifted for study, Vincent was sent to school through great family sacrifice. For the young Vincent, the priesthood was initially less a calling than a path towards stability and social advancement. Ordained in 1600 at just 19 years old, he hoped to rise beyond the limits of his humble origins.

But life would radically change him. In 1605, during a sea voyage, Vincent was captured by Barbary pirates and sold into slavery in Tunis. After 2 years of captivity, he escaped and returned to France deeply transformed. The experience marked the beginning of a long spiritual maturation.

By 1617, Vincent had entered the orbit of one of the most influential families in France, the de Gondis. He served as tutor to their children and moved within the highest circles of Parisian society. His future seemed destined for the quiet prestige of aristocratic life. But during a journey through the de Gondi estates in Picardy, everything changed.

In the village of Gannes, Vincent was called to the bedside of a dying peasant known by all as a man of great piety and virtue. Yet under Vincent’s guidance, the man confessed that he had concealed grave sins for years, too ashamed to speak openly. After receiving absolution, his relief was so profound that word of his testimony spread throughout the village. Deeply shaken, Madame de Gondi realized that if a man so widely regarded as devout had been living in such spiritual danger, many others must have been equally abandoned. Her concern became the beginning of a mission that would endure for centuries. Three days later, on January 25th, 1617, Vincent preached in the Church of Folleville on the importance of general confession.

The response was overwhelming. Crowds arrived seeking reconciliation, so many that additional priests had to be summoned to hear confessions. Soon afterward, seeking a more direct pastoral life, he left the de Gondi household and moved to Châtillon-les-Dombes, near Lyon, where another encounter revealed a second form of poverty. One morning before Mass, Vincent learned that an entire family on the outskirts of town lay sick and without assistance. During his sermon, he urged the parishioners to help them.

By evening, a remarkable procession had formed. People carrying bread, clothing, soup, and medicine. The generosity moved him deeply, but Vincent also saw a problem. Without organization, even compassion could fail. Food would spoil. Help would arrive all at once, then disappear.

Compassion without organization was a fleeting flame. From that realization, something revolutionary was born. On August 23rd, 1617, Vincent founded the first Confraternity of Charity. Groups of lay people, mostly women, committed to serving the poor in an organized and lasting way. They cared for the sick, distributed food, and ensured that help continued long after the first emotion had passed.

What began in a small village soon spread across France. In 1625, with the support of Philippe Emmanuel and Marguerite Françoise de Gondi, he founded the Congregation of the Mission, a community of priests and brothers dedicated to evangelizing the rural poor, forming the clergy, and serving the abandoned. Vincent traveled constantly across the de Gondi estates with a small group of missionaries who shared his vision. They preached, heard confessions, visited villages, and founded local confraternities wherever they went, ensuring that the mission would continue after their departure. Through the influence of Philippe Emmanuel de Gondi, general of the royal galleys, Vincent also gained access to prisons, hospitals, and the galleys of France. There he encountered suffering in its harshest form, men chained in filth, stripped of dignity, and broken by despair.

The misery he witnessed nearly overwhelmed him. By his own admission, Vincent was naturally inclined toward a somber temperament, but a providential encounter changed him profoundly. His friendship with Saint Francis de Sales, the Bishop of Geneva, from him, Vincent learned a truth that would transform his life. God is love. Kneeling before the suffering of the poor, Vincent realized he was not simply helping the needy.

In their wounded faces, he recognized the living face of Christ. His mission was no longer a duty. It became a response he could no longer refuse.

Meanwhile, Vincent’s mission continued to expand. The confraternities multiplied rapidly, especially in Paris, where even the aristocracy became fascinated by Vincent’s vision of organized charity. Soon, many parishes had their own confraternity, but as the movement grew, a problem emerged. Noblewomen, constrained by the etiquette of court life, often began sending servants in their place to visit the poor. Vincent immediately understood the danger. Charity could not become distant or delegated.

Without humility, encounter, and personal presence, it risked losing its soul. At that same moment, Providence brought him two decisive collaborators. The first was Marguerite Naseau, a simple cowherd who had taught herself to read and longed to dedicate her life to the poor.

In her, Vincent saw a new possibility. The poor serving the poor. The second was Louise de Marillac, a woman of profound intelligence and spiritual depth, who was already helping coordinate the growing charitable works around Paris.

Together, in 1633, they founded the Daughters of Charity. It was a radical break from the structures of the time. Women consecrated to God were expected to remain enclosed within convent walls, but Vincent believed the suffering of the world demanded another form of vocation. The Daughters would have no cloister except the streets of the city, no monastery except the homes of the sick, no enclosure except the virtue of their own hearts. To protect this fragile freedom, Vincent established that their vows would be renewed each year, allowing them to remain fully present among the poor rather than enclosed from the world. What had long remained hidden behind convent walls was now sent directly into the heart of human misery, carrying compassion, dignity, and hope where it was needed most.

Saint Vincent was not merely a man of action. He fundamentally transformed the very nature of charity. At a certain point in his life, everything shifted. He left behind his worldly ambitions and chose to stand firmly beside those whom society had rendered invisible: the poor, the sick, and the abandoned.

What began as a simple spontaneous response slowly grew into something far greater. Communities were formed, people gathered, and a mission took shape. Yet, the true source of this transformation was not mere organization. It was a profound way of seeing. Vincent did not observe the poor from a distance. He recognized in their suffering the very face of Christ.

From that recognition, everything was born. It was what one might define as a mystique of charity. A movement, a family, a fire that did not end with him, but continues to pass from one life to another, burning brightly even to this day.

Vincent’s life was a journey dedicated to breaking down social barriers. He transformed the practice of charity from an occasional gesture, a fleeting emotion– into a dynamic, living system. For four centuries, we have carried this mission forward. Today, the Congregation of the Mission is a vibrant global body spanning 95 countries. Comprising nearly 3,000 missionaries organized into provinces and regions, we are united by a single DNA. To follow Christ, the evangelizer of the poor, and to form those who will, in turn, continue to serve the most marginalized.

Yet, we did not always reside here on Rue de Sèvres. To understand why we are still called Lazarists, we Lazarists, we must return to the place where we first found our footing and learned to walk.

Before the quiet of Rue de Sèvres, there was the magnitude of Saint Lazare. By 1632, the congregation was expanding so rapidly that it required a heart large enough to pump life into its growing mission. That was found in an ancient leper priory on the outskirts of Paris. Saint Lazare was more than a building. It was a city within a city, a vast enclosure where prayer, rigorous study, and the concrete care of the poor existed under a single roof. It became the first true heart of the Vincentian fire, the place where the Lazarists earned their name, and where the modern vision of organized charity was systematically forged.

Here, the priests and brothers of the Congregation of the Mission dedicated themselves to serving the poorest of the poor, both materially and spiritually. It was a place where preaching, the formation of the clergy, and the welcoming of the most needy merged into a single work. For more than a century and a half, Saint Lazare was the heart of the mission. From this house, Vincent and his companions coordinated missions throughout the kingdom, assisted by the Daughters of Charity and the lay confraternities that had grown around his work. It was not only a residence, it was the engine of a revolution of charity. During the horrors of the Guerre de Lorraine, Vincent transformed the priory into Europe’s first humanitarian logistics center, organizing the systematic dispatch of grain, clothes, and medicine to the front lines.

It was so effective that Cardinal Richelieu described Saint Lazare as a great instrument, a sponge capable of absorbing the greatest catastrophes of the state. But the French Revolution of 1789 arrived like an implacable storm. The revolutionaries saw the church as a symbol of the old order, and the Lazarists, with their commitment to the poor and their association with the aristocracy, were particularly vulnerable. Between July 12th and 13th, 1789, just hours before the storming of the Bastille, a hungry mob attacked the Priory of Saint Lazare following rumors that the religious were hiding large supplies of grain. The looting was devastating. The library and most of the archives were destroyed, though the body of Saint Vincent was miraculously spared.

This event marked the end of the Lazarists’ historical presence at the site, which was soon transformed into one of the Revolution’s harshest prisons. Religious orders were suppressed, and the Lazarists were violently expelled, their property seized, and the members of the congregation scattered, forced into exile or hiding. The future of Vincent’s vision seemed to have vanished amidst the rubble. For 25 years, the congregation remained homeless, yet the Vincentian charism survived, kept alive in the hearts of those who never ceased to serve in the shadows. Following the fall of Napoleon and the restoration of the monarchy under Louis XVIII in 1815, the situation for religious orders improved. Thanks to the support of the king and the courage of the Daughters of Charity, the Lazarists were able to reorganize.

The state granted the congregation the former Hôtel de Lorge at 95 Rue de Sèvres. Here, just steps away from Rue du Bac, the heart of the Daughters of Charity’s mission, the new mother house was born, and a new chapter began. A chapter defined not by what was lost, but by what endured: the unwavering commitment to serve Christ through the poor. From these walls, the Lazarists reignited their apostolate, restructuring clerical formation, and relaunching popular missions across France and beyond. Throughout the 19th century, Rue de Sèvres established itself as the new anchor of the Vincentian world, a place of formation, of prayer, and of departure toward the ends of the earth.

Yet, for nearly two centuries, the congregation remained here merely as guests of the state, which retained formal ownership of the walls. In 2006, the French state made a historic gesture, the official and definitive donation of the entire Rue de Sèvres property to the congregation. After more than 200 years of waiting since the revolutionary confiscations, this house is finally, legally, and forever our home. We are no longer guests of history, but the guardians of its future. Ownership alone does not give life to a house. What gives life to 95 Rue de Sèvres is the community of confreres that dwells within it.

Today, behind these walls, the house is not a monument to the past, but a living laboratory where the mission is reimagined every day. Beyond these facades unfolds a geography of charity, an organized multicultural ecosystem where thought is transformed into action. It is a place of encounter where the global diversity of the congregation converges to serve a singular purpose.

Yet, every corridor, every office, and every path inevitably leads toward the same point, a center of gravity where the house ceases to be a building and becomes an inspiration, the Chapel of Saint Vincent. Here, the work of the mission finds its true meaning, and the house remains open to the world. Through its chapel, the congregation keeps a door constantly open to the street. This is the beating heart of the house, a sacred space that welcomes the life of the city while holding at its center the remains of its founder. A living threshold where anyone passing along Rue de Sèvres can step inside and find a moment of silence before the saint who made charity the purpose of his life. Each year thousands of pilgrims cross this threshold seeking inspiration, comfort, and inner peace.

If the world is the body of the mission, its soul resides here. Built in just a single year between 1826 and 1827, this chapel, a jewel of the Charles X style, was created to offer a worthy home to the relics of St. Vincent de Paul, the great mystic of charity. At its center, above the main altar, the eye is drawn to the silver reliquary. His body rests there, clothed in silk and gold, a solemn contrast to the poverty he chose in life. Perhaps it is not a contradiction, but a reminder of the dignity he recognized in those who had nothing. Held in his hands is the wooden cross that accompanied King Louis XIII in his final moments, a silent bridge between the world of power and the world of the poor.

The reliquary is crowned by silver figures representing St. Vincent in glory ascending to heaven surrounded by four cherubs bearing the symbols of faith, hope, charity, and the church. Above the silver of the reliquary, the eye rises toward a monumental golden lunette, a horizon of light that narrates the profound meaning of an entire life. At its peak, the Latin inscription speaks clearly, pertransiit benefaciendo (He went about doing good.) To the left, the pictorial texture reveals a spiritual mission. We see the first Vincentian priests, guardians of the word, moving to the right, the gold takes on flesh and action.

Within the layers of the painting appear the Daughters of Charity leaning over the sick, the orphaned, and the imprisoned. This was Vincent’s revolution, taking the sacred out of the cloisters and directly into the arms of the marginalized. Everything converges upward where the saint is received in a radiant apotheosis. This lunette is more than decoration. It is a golden bridge reminding us that every act of charity is, even here on earth, a glimpse of heaven. There is a precise moment when this chapel became the center of the new Vincentian world: April the 25th, 1830. On that day, a solemn procession moved through Paris from Notre Dame to Rue du Bac to Sèvres to transfer the saint’s relics here. Among the crowd following the cortege was a young novice of the Daughters of Charity, Catherine Labouré.

In the months that followed, Catherine would experience a series of extraordinary encounters. She spoke of the Virgin Mary not as a distant vision, but as a presence both real and intimate. She was entrusted with a sacred mission to have a medal struck, an instrument of grace designed to carry the Virgin’s promise of protection into the daily lives of the faithful. Saint Catherine’s story became inseparably woven into that of the Vincentian family, strengthening a spiritual bond that still unites Rue de Sèvres to Rue du Bac today.

In the right side aisle stands the altar dedicated to Saint John Gabriel Perboyre, a Vincentian missionary martyred in China in 1840, the first saint martyred in China to be canonized. Nearby, the church honors Saint Francis Regis Clet, another pivotal Vincentian martyr in China. Their relics serve as a powerful testament to the missionary mandate that radiates from this house toward the ends of the earth. Although their bodies rest in the nearby Rue du Bac, the chapel constantly celebrates its inseparable link with Saint Louise de Marillac and Saint Catherine Labouré. The body of Saint Vincent is kept here, but his heart remains close by in Rue du Bac, as if choosing to stay close to his daughters.

In 2025, for the 400th anniversary of the foundation of the mission, that heart took to the road once more. In a solemn procession, the relic was carried through the crowds until it crossed the threshold of Rue de Sèvres. It was a moment of rare symbolic force, the heart returning to the body. A journey of just a few blocks, yet it reminded the world that after four centuries, that heartbeat born on the street has never ceased.

Before decisions are made, before journeys begin, before meetings fill the corridors, the house gathers here in silence. From here, the mission draws its strength, and from here, once again, it goes out into the world.

The mystery of the incarnation is the heart of Saint Vincent’s spirituality. Saint Vincent loved to contemplate the incarnation of Christ, the son of God. Invited by the Father, out of love, to leave his divine glory to come to Earth and to love. It is love that drove the son of God to give his life, to step out of the Trinity and come to this Earth. We too are invited to imitate the mystery of the incarnation. Driven by the Latin motto, “Evangelizare pauperibus misit me.” He has sent me to evangelize the poor. The Congregation of the Mission remains a global apostolic body dedicated not only to serving those in poverty, but to confronting its causes.

What began as a small company gathered by St. Vincent has become a family spread across 102 nations with nearly 3,000 members living a spirituality with sleeves rolled up. It is a life in which contemplation and action are inseparable, where prayer becomes service and faith becomes action. What has sustained such a mission for four centuries? Five simple pillars: simplicity, humility, meekness, mortification, and apostolic zeal.

While the chapel is the heart, the rest of the house is the engine room of a mission that never sleeps. 95 Rue de Sèvres isn’t a destination. It is a launchpad. Here, the Vincentian charism radiates toward the peripheries of the world, transforming spirituality into concrete, immediate, and tireless action. On the upper floors, the International Formation Center, CIF, gives direction to the heartbeat. Each year, Vincentian priests and brothers from every continent return here to renew their mission, reflecting on the realities of today: migration, war, and loneliness. Here, the pulse becomes thought. But reflection needs memory.

In the silence of the archives, the congregation remembers. Preserved are thousands of letters, including the correspondence of St. Vincent himself, and mission reports that trace four centuries of life in the field. The museum extends that memory into space and form.

On display are objects shaped by use, vestments worn thin by travel, and tools of daily service. This isn’t a sanctuary of nostalgia. It is a bridge of transmission. Memory in this place isn’t about looking back. It is about knowing who you are before you act. From memory, decisions are made.

Within these walls, structures quietly sustain what the world rarely sees. In 1860 at the Maison Mere, a service was established that would become a decisive pillar, the provincial service of the Lazarist Missions. The initiative was launched by Brother Joseph Gnanan, who understood that missionary zeal requires concrete foundations and stable support. Today, the service supports 132 active works across the globe.

In Africa, from Madagascar and Rwanda to Ethiopia and Burundi, in Europe and the Middle East, from war-torn Ukraine to Lebanon and Syria, in Asia, from Indonesia and the Philippines to Vietnam and China, in South and Central America, spanning the challenges of Bolivia, Brazil, and Haiti. In these walls, in the daily life of the Mother House, the charism remains a living force behind every act of service.

The Maison Mere is not a monument of stone. It is a living body, a sanctuary of welcome. Today, the Mother House of the Congregation of the Mission breathes through the lives of those who inhabit it and through the countless people who pass through its doors. Above all, it is a house of hospitality.

Here, in the heart of Paris, an international and multicultural community gathers, priests, brothers, students, and visitors from every continent. They share the same table, the same faith, and the same desire to follow Christ, the evangelizer of the poor, in the spirit of St. Vincent de Paul. Life here is shaped by diversity. Different languages, cultures, and missionary experiences converge into a single path. Elderly confreres who carry the memory of decades of service live alongside younger missionaries in formation. Some are engaged in pastoral work, others in study, others in quiet service.

Together, they form not an institution, but a vibrant community. A body that continues to grow, to adapt, and to serve. And yet, this house is more than a community. It is a crossroads. While the governance of the congregation now resides in Rome, Rue du Sevres remains the center of the Vincentian soul. Missionaries pass through this house before departing for distant lands and return carrying the memory of years spent in service.

Here, they bring back stories, wounds, and hopes gathered across the world. It is a place where the mission itself pauses to catch its breath before beginning again. The mother house remains a privileged site of the Congregation of the Mission.

By vocation, it is a spiritual home where the Vincentian charism can be discovered anew. A horizon of evangelization, encounter, and interculturality. Open to the street through the Chapel of Saint Vincent and enriched by its archives, library, and museum, the house serves as guardian and transmitter of a living inheritance. Vincent knew that the world cannot be changed alone. Over time, this house has become the center of a living network, the Vincentian family. Immediately at its side stand the Daughters of Charity.

Joined in an unbroken bond since 1633. Each morning, in a gesture that has quietly crossed the centuries, a priest crosses the street to celebrate the Eucharist with them. Two houses, one single spirit.

Together, the Congregation of the Mission and the Daughters of Charity animate the pastoral life of the chapel on Rue du Bac, drawing pilgrims from all over the world. Around them, the Vincentian world has grown into a vast constellation, religious communities, lay associations, and volunteers, all united by the same source. Yet, the mission is not only far away, it takes flesh here in the streets of Paris. At the foot of the Maison Mère, in spaces the Congregation of the Mission chose to dedicate to the service of others, stands the Louise et Rosalie Center. Born from a partnership with the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul and the Equipe Saint Vincent, this day center offers refuge to women enduring the harshness of the streets. Here, they find showers, listening, hot meals, rest, and above all, dignity.

The mission that once crossed oceans now begins by crossing a shared threshold. The same roof that shelters missionaries stretches outward to shelter those who suffer. It is a quiet form of charity, faithful to the intuition of Saint Vincent, that love must always be inventive and concrete. Within the house itself, care is also given to age and frailty.

In the Antoine Portail residence, accompanying elderly or ill confreres remains a fundamental priority, sustained through attentive human and spiritual presence. In every generation, hospitality must find new forms while remaining faithful to the same spirit. But, a living tradition does not stand still. It renews itself in order to offer its ministry. Recently reinvigorated on the occasion of the fourth centenary of the Congregation of the Mission, the Maison Mère has not withdrawn into memory.

On the contrary, it has opened its doors even wider. Here, the renewal was not an act of preservation, but an awakening. New spaces of welcome, modern technologies, and places designed to bring people together now serve the needs of the 21st century, fostering dialogue, formation, prayer, and service. The Maison Mere lives through a continual rhythm of arrivals, departures, and returns. Every year, pilgrims, missionaries, students, and visitors from around the world pass through these doors. Some remain only briefly, others much longer.

Yet, each newcomer gradually becomes part of the life of the house. Nearly a hundred simple and gracious rooms continue one of the oldest vocations of the Maison Mere, to receive the stranger. More than accommodation, these spaces offer silence in the heart of the city, rest along the road, and the experience of a house shaped by prayer and welcome. Those who arrive here do not enter merely a building, but a living tradition of hospitality, where beneath the same roof, silence, care, and fraternity still endure.

By opening these spaces to the wider world, the mission of Saint Vincent remains a living conversation, rooted in history yet alive to the needs of the present. The Mother House continues to be what it has always been, a house for the world, grounded in the strength of its past, with its windows wide open to the future. If these walls could speak, they would say only one word, hospitality. No matter who you are or what path has led you here. Dans l’agitation de Paris and bustle of Paris, perhaps you were simply looking for silence, a place to rest or recharge.

Doors are open to you. Perhaps you are a pilgrim in search of a sacred place or a student searching for a community where you can feel at home. Perhaps you have come to kneel before the shrines of St. Vincent de Paul to ask for strength. You are simply someone who wants to immerse themselves in historical archives where the footsteps of missionaries who gave their lives for Christ still echo. Perhaps you are a group in search of a place to meet or celebrate the Eucharist. Or a traveler in search of more than just a room, in search of meaning, of peace, of hope.

If your path has become heavy and you want to share that burden with a brother, we are here. In this house, no one is a stranger nor merely someone passing through. You are a guest, a brother, a sister, or a member of the great Vincentian Family, having traversed the centuries to maintain the flame, the fire of charity. Enter, breathe, recharge yourself. Welcome.

Welcome home.

Executive Producer: Fr Mark Pranaitis, CM
Written and Directed by: Manuel de Teffé
Original Music Composed and Produced by: Gabriele Croci
Historical Consultants: Fr Roberto Gomez, CM & Sr. Magdalena Harbu, Daughter of Charity
Edited by: Thomas Kervinio
Produced by: Manuel de Teffé

Music © 2026 Gabriele Croci
© 2026 Congregation of the Mission. All Rights Reserved.