Javier F. Chento
Author
Many Good Intentions, Less Perseverance • A Weekly Reflection with Ozanam
There are many good intentions, many generous inspirations, few resolutions, and still less perseverance.
Mother Seton: Five Groundbreaking “Firsts” That Shaped American Catholicism
As we approach the 50th anniversary of Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton’s canonization in 2025, it’s an opportune moment to reflect on her profound legacy and the groundbreaking nature of her recognition as a saint. Mother Seton’s canonization, which took place on September 14, 1975, under Pope Paul VI, marked a series of remarkable “firsts” that continue to resonate within the Catholic Church and beyond.
Defending the Cause of the Proletariat • A Weekly Reflection with Ozanam
It's time to share and retrieve our good; I mean: the old and popular ideas of justice, charity, fraternity. It's time to show that we can defend the cause of the proletariat, engage in relief classes suffering, and pursue the abolition of pauperism, without agreeing...
The Poor Are Our Lord And Our God • A Weekly Reflection with Ozanam
And we, dear friend, do we bear no resemblance to those saints we love, do we content ourselves with deploring the sterility of the present time, although each of us carries within his heart a seed of sanctity that the simple wishing will suffice to disclose. If we do...
Merry Christmas! • A Weekly Reflection with Ozanam
That bond, God that unites family in distance, comforts Frederic, gives him “strength and courage.” Did you wish family and friends a Merry Christmas?
Assisting the Poor is Way More than Giving them Bread • A Weekly Reflection with Ozanam
Help is humiliating when it appeals to men from below, taking heed of their material wants only, paying no attention but to those of the flesh, to the cry of hunger and cold, to what excites pity, to what one succors even in the beasts. [...] It humiliates when there...
Simplicity and Cordiality • A Weekly Reflection with Ozanam
[The conferences] are blooming in Livorno and in Pisa, they begin to prosper in Florence, in Pontadera, they settle in Prato, and soon in Volterra and in Porto Ferraio. Very soon there will be seven families of Saint Vincent de Paul in this Tuscan country in which...
Vincentians in Public Life • A Weekly Reflection with Ozanam
At the same time, another thirty conferences formed in the most distant points of the country, celebrated the same solemnity. How can we not have any hope in that force of association, exerted mainly in the big cities, in all the faculties of Law, in all the centers...
On Being Simple • A Weekly Reflection with Ozanam
May God preserve us in the simplicity of our beginnings, and St. Vincent de Paul will recognize us as his disciples, if we maintain that character. Frederic Ozanam, to the General Council of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, July 10, 1953. Reflection: In 1853,...
The Vincentian Congregation: A Mission Rooted in Charity and Service
The Vincentian Congregation, founded in 1904 in India by Father Varkey Kattarath, is a religious community inspired by St. Vincent de Paul, dedicated to evangelization, service to the poor, and spiritual renewal, with a mission rooted in charity and global outreach.