This Advent letter is an invitation to pray, meditate, and interiorize the “Evangelical Counsels” as a means to pursue our journey with Saint Vincent de Paul, a “Mystic of Charity.”
Reflections
First Aid AND Long-term Solutions Needed For the Homeless
The Vincentian Family is committed to a collaborative worldwide effort to eradicate homelessness by 2030. We can only get to 2030 by looking at homelessness in 2020.
The Student is the Teacher’s Masterpiece: St. Albert the Great and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
Teachers can’t expect to have a student as exceptional as St. Thomas Aquinas, but both Albertus Magnus and Mother Seton understood that every teacher can create “masterpieces” by forming students in Christ’s image.
Diaries of a Vincentian: I Know
He looked at me with tears in his eyes and without the need for any words they seemed to quietly, pleadingly ask me, ‘Why?’
Boundaries That Needs Opening
Jesus is the salvation that God has prepared in the sight of all peoples. He opens boundaries: between God and human beings; between us and others. The Word has become flesh through the motherhood of Mary. And being thus uniquely God and man, Jesus becomes the one...
Vincentian Prayer Images: The Darkness That Keeps Us From Seeing Our Tables
There is a darkness in our own minds that keeps us from seeing who is missing at our tables.
The Commandment of Love
As members of the Vincentian Family we need to savor the inexhaustible well-spring of virtue and the examples of holiness of our predecessors.
Strength of the Weak and Fearful
Jesus himself is the proof that strength, becomes perfect in weakness. Christians, then, cannot but be weak, and so, strong (2 Cor 12, 9-10). Matthew, more than the other evangelists, speaks of the words of Scriptures reaching their fulfillment in Jesus. He portrays...
A Canadian View: ‘Tis the Season
As we enjoy another Christmas season, I think we always look ahead with anticipation of a time for gift giving, seeing relatives and friends and celebrating the birth of the infant Jesus.
A Vincentian View: A Wider Holy Family
I amused myself with the thought that the “Christmas cards” of Mary and Joseph might look like the traditional religious cards that we sometimes use.
Dickens’ Christmas Carol and Other Artistic Calls for Systemic Change
Artists through the centuries have challenged superficial visions of poverty and inspired dedication to direct services improving the condition of the poor.
Greatness Really Means Littleness
Although great, Jesus becomes little for our sake. As we associate, as Jesus, with the little folks, we grasp the meaning of Christmas that greatness lies in littleness. In the beginning is the Word, the Word is with God, and is God. All things come to be through him,...
