Universidad de Sta.

Isabel
GRADUATE SCHOOL
City of Naga

SELF-ASSESSMENT CONCERNING CHARITY

(VINCENTIAN SPIRITUALITY

JOY CAEBA CHAVEZ

Ph.D. Student

A Reflection Paper Presented to

DR. FE PRADO
Professor

In partial fulfillment of the requirements in

HDM 303A
VINCENTIAN PHILOSOPHY

February 13, 2017

SELF-ASSESSMENT CONCERNING CHARITY: ST. VICENT DE PAUL, GREAT

APOSTLE OF CHARITY
 Portrait de saint Vincent de Paul

Quite moment for reflection while nature watching, I had meditation about a number of
bumble bees feeding upon some small, pink and white begonias. Yes, they were busy as bees,
but there was no sense of senseless activity; rather, it was orderly and quite calming. The bees
were simply being what they were created to be. I was reminded of the Gospel of Matthew in
which Jesus asks his followers: Why are you anxious? The lilies of the field dont toil or spin
and, yet, God takes care of them. And the bees? They were being taken care of, too.

Moreover, bees are not human beings; the needs of human beings are more complex than
those of bumble bees. Human beings need love, compassion, and intimacy, a wide range of
spiritual and corporal supports in order to thrive as Gods children. God commands us to love
our neighbor as ourselves and so we depend on one another for our well-being. Just as we need
God for our very being, so we need the care of our brothers and sisters. St. Vincent de Paul knew
this well and devoted his life to the service of the poor.

Born in 1581 to peasant farmers in the village of Puoy, Vincent was educated at a college
in Dax, the University of Toulouse and, later, at the University of Paris. Vincent received his
clerical education in a time when the reforms of the Council of Trent were still being
implemented. It was a time when seminary formation was often very poor and lax and those in
training for the priesthood were more interested in benefices and rich parishes than in ordinary,
parish ministry. Although the Council of Trent ordered that men were not to be ordained before
the age of twenty-four, Vincent was ordained a priest at the age of nineteen in 1600. He was
unable to accept a pastorate immediately, because of his age and so he decided to continue his
education. Vincent would later help in reforming priestly formation by preaching retreats to
clergy and by helping to develop a seminary program, which would provide priests with a well-
formed education. Its very important for us priests to truly learn a deep priestly identity, through
a devout priestly prayer life. Over 350 years later Pope St. John Paul II would later help priestly
formation greatly with his brilliant work, Pastores Dabo Vobis and Theology of the Body.
One of the most important events in Vincents life occurred in 1605 when he was traveling by
boat from Marseilles to Narbonne. Vincent was captured by Barbary pirates and held as a slave
for two years. Fortunately, he was eventually purchased by a former Christian who had left the
Catholic faith to become Moslem to escape slavery and who, having regretted leaving
Christianity, escaped with Vincent back to France. This experience had a profound effect on
Vincent and his future ministry to convicts condemned to the galleys.

After his rescue, Vincent spent time in Paris and came under the influence of the French
mystic and future cardinal Pierre de Berulle. Although Vincent could have accepted many high
positions within the French royal family, he chose to become the pastor of the parish in the town
of Clichy in 1612 with the support of Berulle. It was in Clichy that Vincent, for the first time in
his priesthood, entered fully into the pastoral care of his flock: visiting the sick, helping the poor,
instructing his parishioners in the faith, etc.

In 1615, Vincent soon became chaplain and tutor to the Gondi family. Though living in
one of the great houses of France, Vincent lived a very simple and monkish life, tutoring the
children of the Count and serving the needs of the estates peasants. It was during this time that
Vincent decided to focus his ministerial efforts on the needs of the poor.

During a short period when he was away from the Gondi family, Vincent decided to
create confraternities to serve the poor. This was in the town of Chatillon where Vincent saw the
need to direct and organize the works of charity, which parishioners were more than willing to
carry out. Several confraternities were organized by Vincent in several towns to provide for the
spiritual and corporal needs of the poor. In 1617 he gathered together wealthy women of Paris to
establish hospitals, support the victims of war and to ransom 1,200 galley slaves from North
Africa. With the help of Louise de Marillac, Vincent founded the Daughters of Charity.

In 1622, Vincent became the royal chaplain to those condemned to the galleys. Of this grueling
and challenging work Vincent stated:

Even convicts, with whom I have spent some time, are not won over in any other way. Whenever
I happened to speak sharply to them, I spoiled everything; on the contrary, when I praised them
for their resignation and sympathized with them in their sufferings; when I told them they were
fortunate to have their purgatory in this world, when I kissed their chains, showed compassion
for their distress, and expressed sorrow for their misfortune, it was then that they listened to me,
gave glory to God, and opened themselves to salvation.

Vincent quickly realized that the galleys were harsh environments, which hardened the
condemned men, and so he strove to show them compassion. When he returned to Paris, he
visited the prisons which provided the galleys with convicts and found them equally challenging.
He would visit the prisoners each day, instructing them in the faith and celebrating the
sacraments.

St. Vincent de Paul was not a romantic when it came to serving the poor. One of his most
famous sayings attests to this:
You will find out that Charity is a heavy burden to carry, heavier than the kettle of soup and the
full basket. But you will keep your gentleness and your smile. It is not enough to give soup and
bread. This the rich can do. You are the servant of the poor, always smiling and good-humored.
They are your masters, terribly sensitive and exacting master you will see. And the uglier and the
dirtier they will be, the more unjust and insulting, the more love you must give them. It is only for
your love alone that the poor will forgive you the bread you give to them.

Similar to Vincent de Paul, we priests are called to model our ministry on that of Jesus.
We know that Jesus came to seek out and call sinners and serve those who were poor, sick,
outcasts, all those rejected by society. Christ himself became poor for our sake. While foxes have
lairs and birds have nests (and bumble bees have their colonies), Jesus depended on others for his
immediate needs. And in serving others he recognized the need to minister to the whole
person, lavishing the mercy of God in all its spiritual and corporal expressions.

Christ did not grasp his divinity, but became a slave in order to show the deep love and
desire of God for the salvation of the world. Vincent de Paul recognized the importance of
entering fully into the experiences of those most in need, drawing from Christs own life a desire
to live poorly in order to follow in the footsteps of the Master. As Vincent de Paul stated: The
poor have much to teach you, you have much to learn from them. If we truly want to model our
priestly ministry after that of Jesus, we must not only embrace poverty and a radical dependence
on God, but also to be disciples who are called not be served, but to serve without counting the
cost. This St. Vincent could accomplish from his virginal heart, which flowed from the virginal
heart of the Father and Son with the Holy Spirit.