Saint Introduction: St. Vincent de Paul
Objective: Meet St. Vincent de Paul, the 'Apostle of Charity,' who organized care for the poor in the age of kings.
Vincent de Paul (1581-1660) was a French priest who became the great organizer of charity in an age of dazzling royal wealth and desperate poverty. Born to a peasant family, the young Vincent was, by his own admission, ambitious for a comfortable clerical career. (He was even, by tradition, captured by pirates and briefly enslaved in North Africa before escaping.) But encounters with the suffering poor changed him completely. He came to see Christ himself in the faces of the hungry, the sick, the imprisoned, and abandoned children. Rather than merely give occasional alms, Vincent built lasting structures of mercy: he founded the Congregation of the Mission (the 'Vincentians') to preach to and serve the rural poor, and with St. Louise de Marillac he founded the Daughters of Charity — a revolutionary order of women whose 'convent' was the city street and 'cloister' the wards of the sick. He organized noblewomen and ordinary people alike to feed the starving, ransom captives, and care for foundlings. His genius was to make charity organized, sustained, and dignified. He famously taught that the poor are our 'lords and masters,' to be served with both tenderness and competence. He died in 1660; his feast day is September 27. He is the patron of all charitable works.
Resources
Discussion Questions
- 1Why did Vincent build lasting organizations of charity rather than just giving alms?
- 2What did he mean by calling the poor our 'lords and masters'?
- 3How does seeing Christ in the poor change the way we serve them?
In your notebook, list three 'corporal works of mercy' (feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, etc.) and write one concrete way you could do one of them this Lent.
Vocabulary
- charity
- the theological virtue of love of God and neighbor; here, organized care for those in need
- corporal works of mercy
- concrete acts caring for people's bodily needs (feed, clothe, shelter, visit, etc.)
St. Vincent de Paul (1581-1660), the 'Apostle of Charity'; feast September 27.