Vincent – The Man Behind the Title

“Saints must not be reduced to plaster statues, to colourless figures always first in the class and never singing a wrong note”. From an rticle by Fr. Thomas Davitt, CM “That is the opinion of an Italian author introducing a selection of extracts from St Vincent’s writings. This idea is now generally accepted, but there is another way in which an author can convey, perhaps unconsciously, the impression that there is not much common ground between his subject and his readers.

In the case of St. Vincent it is the barrier-like effect of the titles Founder of the Congregation of the Mission and the Daughters of Charity, The Apostle of Charity, The Great Saint of the Great Century, or, even more grating, The Holy Founder. These verbal walls tend to suggest that we cannot come too close to the late Rev. V. de Paul, CM, our deceased confrère.

Behind the Saint there was a man, behind the Founder a confrere. John Keats in one of his letters wonders what position Shakespeare was seated in when he began to write To be, or not to be…;  he was trying to reach the man behind the Famous Author.

There is plenty of material to let us get to the man behind the Saint and Founder but authors and anthologists tend not to publicise it.
For the full article see http://www.vincentians.ie/colloque_stvincentdepaul.htm