September
27Saints of the Day
September
27
Saints of the Day
Born to a
peasant
family, Vincent spent four years with the Franciscan friars at Acqs getting an
education.
Tutor
to
children
of a gentlemen in Acqs. Studies at the
University
of
Toulouse.
Ordained
at age 20.
Taken
captive
by Turkish pirates to Tunis, and sold into
slavery.
Freed in
1607
when he
converted
one of his owners to Christianity.
Returning to
France,
he served as parish
priest
near
Paris
where he started organizations to help the
poor,
nursed the
sick,
found jobs for the unemployed, etc.
Chaplain
at the court of
Henry IV
of
France.
With
Louise de Marillac, founded the Congregation of the Daughters of
Charity. Instituted the Congregation of Priests of the Mission (Lazarists).
Worked always for the
poor,
the
enslaved,
the
abandoned,
the ignored, the pariahs.
The deathbed confession of a dying servant opened Vincent's eyes to the crying spiritual needs of the peasantry of France. This seems to have been a crucial moment in the life of the man from a small farm in Gascony, France, who had become a priest with little more ambition than to have a comfortable life.
It was the Countess de Gondi (whose servant he had helped) who persuaded her husband to endow and support a group of able and zealous missionaries who would work among the poor, the vassals and tenants and the country people in general. Vincent was too humble to accept leadership at first, but after working for some time in Paris among imprisoned galley-slaves, he returned to be the leader of what is now known as the Congregation of the Mission, or the Vincentians. These priests, with vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and stability, were to devote themselves entirely to the people in smaller towns and villages.
Later Vincent established confraternities of charity for
the spiritual and physical relief of the poor and sick of each parish. From
these, with the help of St. Louise de Marillac, came the Daughters of
Charity, "whose convent is the sickroom, whose chapel is the parish church,
whose cloister is the streets of the city."
He organized the rich women of Paris to collect funds for his
missionary projects, founded several hospitals, collected relief funds for the
victims of war and ransomed over 1,200 galley slaves from North Africa. He was
zealous in conducting retreats for clergy at a time when there was great laxity,
abuse and ignorance among them. He was a pioneer in clerical training and was
instrumental in establishing seminaries.
Most remarkably, Vincent was by temperament a very irascible person—even his friends admitted it. He said that except for the grace of God he would have been "hard and repulsive, rough and cross." But he became a tender and affectionate man, very sensitive to the needs of others.
Pope Leo XIII made him the patron of all charitable societies. Outstanding among these, of course, is the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, founded in 1833 by his admirer Blessed Frederic Ozanam.
His body is incorrupt placed in a beautiful place a half a block from the incorrupt body St. Catherine Laboure, a sister of Charity, the Order founded by St.Vincent. And it was very curious for me that the small church of Rue de Bac, with the incorrupt body of Catherine is always full of people, and the church where the incorrupt body of St. Vincent is there was always nobody, and it is a most beautiful place where you can even touch the body.
Saints of September 27:
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