One of the reasons for Saint Vincent de Paul to be considered a key figure in the history of the holiness of the Church is his style of living his vocation. Each week we will present an example.
Formation
Ukraine – St. Vincent, a Ukrainian Rabbi, and an Orthodox Christian
I have written before of St. Vincent’s way of reading the bible by picturing himself in the scene he was reading about
A Time to Die and a Time to Rise from the Dead
March and April will be marked by the celebrations of Lent, Holy Week and Easter. We frequently relate the time of Holy Week and Easter to a time for vacations, delicious meals and desserts.
Could You Survive in Poverty – 18 Quick Questions
“Could You Survive in Poverty?” This checklist was developed by Ruby K. Payne, an author and researcher in the field of socioeconomics whose work I’ve followed for years — but it’s a perfect gauge for how well you’d do if worse literally came to worse. It’s not at all...
Louise de Marillac: The need for Respect, Understanding and Tolerance
“I can no longer hide the sorrow of my heart at hearing that much is to be desired in you. [...] Where is the spirit of fervor which animated you when you were first established in Angers and which led you to esteem your directors so highly? You looked upon their...
Mercy and the Spirit of St. Vincent de Paul
The Church’s Year of Mercy will draw to a close on November 20… about 1 month to go. As Vincentians we are constantly learning how to be vessels of God’s mercy for others.
Stories of what being a Vincentian means
How many of us fully understand what a Vincentian is or does? Being a student at Niagara University, I was assumed to have known what the mission of my school is for its student body. After attending NU for three years now, I've come to notice that not many people...
A Social Conscience: #IamVincent
A Vincentian has a deeply rooted social conscience that informs her actions. Vincent had that, too. Vincentian Father Greg Cooney writes: ...the call of conscience becomes a call to personal conversion, requiring a re-orientation of convictions and patterns of...
Vincent de Paul: From God’s gaze
"I ask Our Lord to grant us the grace of considering those matters as they are in God and not as they appear apart from Him; otherwise we might deceive ourselves and act other than He wishes." (CCD VII, to Phillippe Le Vacher, December 6, 1658). "O my Savior and my...
Prayer and Management
Prayer and Management (Luke 6:12-19) In this section of Luke, we find Jesus continuing a ministry that’s spreading out further into the society, and in the process selecting 12 people from the group around him to be his “apostles”, i.e., the sent-out ones. You might...
The difference a lens makes
"Seeing" calls for "judging." But judging presupposes a lens! “Two men looked out from prison bars, one saw mud, the other stars!” This quote, variously attributed, seems to express that what one sees depends greatly upon one’s mental model and expectations. An...
Racial Bias in Media: The Case of Hurricane Matthew
As many have noted, it took a while for the news media, especially in the USA and Europe, to note the devastation of the recent Hurricane in the Caribbean, and especially its effect in Haiti. Conscious and unconscious bias are at work. Vincentians need to see this and...
