Vincentian Family

The International Association of Charities in Japan supports projects with the Daughters of Charity in India and the Philippines, funding a new well for a children’s home in Bangalore and collaborating with the Rosalie Rendu Center on youth education and mental health. In Kobe, its community garden builds connections and raises funds to sustain these partnerships.

To answer a call to volunteer is to do something. To answer a call to vocation is to be something. This distinction is at the heart of what it means to be a member of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

When our personal efforts pay off with the results we’d hoped for, we naturally feel a sense of exhilaration, and even pride in our accomplishment. We pat ourselves on the back a little bit, hang a certificate on the wall, or put a trophy on a shelf. We tend to do the same thing collectively, too, when the group we are part of tallies up the results of our work.

To be a member of the Society of St Vincent de Paul is not merely to volunteer, because to volunteer is to do something. Vincentians are not called simply to do something, but rather to be something. That is the nature of a calling, or vocation.