Vincentian Family and the Year of Grace

Fr. Tim Williams, Director of the Daughters of Charity in Australia offers this reflection on

THE VINCENTIAN FAMILY AND THE YEAR OF GRACE

Tim Williams CM

What is this Year of Grace ?

The Bishops of Australia have invited us to commit ourselves to a “Year of Grace” which commenced at Pentecost, 2012.  A website has been set up for the Year of Grace,[1] and it contains resources and suggestions as to how we might be involved in this Year. The website also provides a brief video clip.[2]   The Year of Grace is not being driven by events or programmes.  It is an invitation, with all that has been happening in our Church in recent times,  to recognise God’s Grace in our lives and in our world, to focus on Jesus Christ, on our faith life, and our life as people of the Church,   It is a time for moving on from past hurts, a time for healing and reconciliation.

This reflection considers the aspect of recognizing God’s Grace in our own lives and in our world.  In the aspects of the Year of Grace to which we are invited to commit ourselves, I have deliberately chosen to begin with recognition and experience of God’s grace because we know  that human experience was something which played a considerable role in forming Vincent de Paul whose feast we celebrated on September 27.

Vincent de Paul’s Theological Vision

Vincent de Paul’s theological vision is familiar us in the Vincentian Family. There are a number of aspects to this vision, one of which is concerned with how he experienced God.

In the seventeenth century in France, when Vincent lived, the Church was reacting to the ideas of the Renaissance, especially its exaltation of humanity.  The ideas accepted by some orthodox theologians,  along with Pierre de Bérulle[3]   and his followers,   was to emphasise God’s grace and the sinfulness of humanity.  By rejecting a world seen as a place of evil, theologians hoped to defend the need for God and grace.   Flight from the world became the road to perfection and found formulation in the “high language” of the French School of Spirituality.   In extreme cases the human unworthiness emphasised in Augustinian theology was exaggerated and developed into Jansenism.[4]

Another position, also accepted by a number of theologians, was the school of thought centred around Francis de Sales.[5]  Without dismissing the realities of sin and human weakness, it saw the world in positive terms.  The world was God’s creation and was the place to live out the Gospel.  Responding to God’s grace as experienced in that world was the path to salvation and perfection.

Vincent de Paul was familiar with both schools of thought, but his own experience of God’s grace (Providence ?) made him a follower of Francis de Sales    Vincent sometimes used the idiom and even the language of the French School of Spirituality,  but his attitudes and actions indicated he followed the ideas of Francis de Sales and found God in his own experience of the world, particularly the world of the poor.

Recognising God’s grace in ourselves and in our world should fit easily into the outlook of members of the Vincentian Family.

Moments of Grace

All of us have graced moments in our lives, that is periods of time or particular occasions that impress themselves deeply on our consciousness and memory.   In September of this year, I reflected on being evangelized by a couple preparing a Funeral Service.  For me, this was a graced moment which I have already shared as a reflection. [6]

Another example comes from a Chaplain in Afghanistan  –  Chaplain John Healy, RAAF Base Tindal near Katherine in the Northern Territory, who, in trying to deal with a situation of death and injury, was able to find a graced moment.  John wrote for the Year of Grace Website:[7]

It was a Sunday morning and I had just finished the morning Mass when my pager went off. The message was very clear: Report to Role 2 (medical) immediately. Upon my arrival I was to discover that 10 of our US Army brothers had been on patrol in the local town where they encountered a suicide bomber. Two were killed instantly and eight were injured. The scene before me was something you can never be prepared for. The other chaplain and I prayed with the two who had been killed and provided pastoral care to the injured, medical staff and those others who offered support.

The question going through my mind was how do I make sense of this? Where is God? Where is hope?

That moment of hope, of grace, came later that night. At about 8pm a large number of Australian and American soldiers gathered to farewell the two fallen soldiers. Standing before them and offering a prayer of consolation I still could not make sense of the day that had unfolded. But as the choppers flew out, some sense of the day was found, this was my experience. Darkness had set in, the mountains that surrounded us were like a rugged silhouette in the background. In the darkness of that day and the night I was struck by a single bright star that shone high up in the night sky. To me that light spoke of hope in the darkness, hope when all seems to be engulfed by the tragedy of the day’s events.

In the coming week I had the privilege of leading the memorial service on base for the two fallen soldiers. In my reflection I shared my experience and afterwards I was struck by how many others had seen the light, but made no connection with hope, with God. In the sharing of the story, others too were able to see that there is always hope in the midst of darkness, we simply have to have the eyes to see.

It is good for us to reflect on the moments of grace in our own lives.    In this  Year of Grace, we are called to share some of our these moments with others.

Gratefulness

Then there are the things in our lives which are not just personal to us, but which affect the general population.  These are situations for which we can be grateful, and our gratefulness to God and/or our neighbour is a response to what we see as good.   Some examples might be:

The Vincentian Family and its Charism

Vatican II and the 50 years’ celebrations since its beginning.

Dedicated lay involvement in a variety of ministries – liturgy, education, hospitals, prisons, administration, counseling, social justice etc.

The inspiration of the Paralympic Games.

In Australia we live in a relatively peaceful and well ordered society.

The resilience to hardship shown by people as they adapt to the sometimes harsh natural environment of Australia

Support and affirmation that comes from others in times of difficulty

Peaceful responses from groups in the face of violence. (e.g., Jill Meagher, Sikh Prayer Groups)

The grace and strength the Spirit gives us when we are called to serve in some situations.

Etc., etc., etc……

 

A Vincentian Family Thing

An awareness of grace in our own lives, and our gratefulness for what is good around us, show that the grace and power of God are indeed at work in ourselves and are present in our world.  When this awareness comes from, or leads to, action for the marginalized people of our society, it becomes a Vincentian Family thing !

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PRAYER FOR A YEAR OF GRACE

Gracious God,

You have blessed this ancient land
with many gifts, especially its people.

We thank you for the Year of Grace,
a time to start afresh from Christ.

You invite us to contemplate the face of Jesus your Son,
that we may experience a new wave of grace,
and that the light of Christ may burn more brightly in our lives.

Attune our hearts and minds
to the presence of your Holy Spirit,
that our Church may be transformed,
our relationships be healed,
and our nation grow in compassion and justice.

With the intercession of St Mary MacKillop,
who showed us new ways of living the Gospel,
we make our prayer
through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

St  Louise de Marillac – Pray for us

St Vincent de Paul – Pray for us

 

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Tags: Australia, Tim Williams, Vincentian, Year of Faith