St. Vincent de Paul
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 poor tenant farmers and 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 Frédéric Ozanam (September 7).
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