“Taking in the news.” It can refer to events both good and bad, taking in the news of a baby’s birth, for instance, or at the other end, receiving word of a loved one’s passing.
Reflections
My Favorite Image of God
As I look back over my life I realize how, over time, my relationship to God has emphasized one or another person of the Trinity.
Lover of Sinners and Outcast
Jesus is a lover of those whom religion and society shun: sinners, widows, orphans and strangers. They are dear to...
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...
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...
Justice for the Poor and Defenseless
Jesus guarantees absolutely that God will secure justice for his chosen ones who cry out to him with steadfast faith. We know from Jesus’ example and teaching that God’s chosen ones are the poor. Christ, the Anointed with the Spirit, makes clear that his mission is...
