“The society of Saint Vincent de Paul in Ireland enjoys a remarkable reputation and is one of the organizations in the Church which has totally maintained its credibility even in the face of scandals in the Church and has continued to elicit generosity even in times of deep recession. I believe that this is due to the fact that it has retained that sense of gratuitousness and superabundance that it so often missing in today’s’ society.” Excerpts from Archbishop from Archbishop Dairmuid Martin’s welcome to Ireland for this year’s International Meeting of the Society.
He continues “Those who work in the name of the society go out asking for nothing. People know that theirs is true voluntarism. They bring not just material help but the witness of lives which mirror the generous love of Jesus Christ. In today’s complicated world, any large organization or movement must recognise the need for effective management and for establishing a level of scale which will enable it to be more efficient.
But how do we define efficiency? The danger is that if we define efficiency only measurable and calculable economic terms, we may miss the ability to bring the surprising and at times irrational generosity of Jesus into people lives.The Church’s work with the poor must be professional, but again our understanding of professionalism must be different from a market-driven, professional-client one. To reveal the love of God to others we have to get our hands and our shoes dirty in the
Christians cannot sit on the sidelines observing from a safe place. We are not just social commentators or lobbyists of simply advocates. Our most effective advocacy is witness rather than though slogans or mission statements or smart marketing strategies. Catechesis requires witness if it is to be turned into evangelization. There is indeed a danger that many reforms agendas regarding the future of the Church in Ireland – on the left and on the right – may be so “Church too inward-looking” and polemical and polarised that they fail in their witness to that service in love which is an essential dimensions of the Church.
Our service to the poor must go beyond professionalism but must also recognise that the poor person is a brother and a sister and just as we would wish for any brother or sister of ours: the poor deserve the best. The poor deserve the best in the sense that they should never encounter in the Church substandard services. They deserve above all the best that is in us, the best of ourselves which share with them in selfless generosity. We pray that the Spirit of Saint Vincent de Paul may flourish in Ireland and around the world today in the generosity of its members.
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