Message From the Director
Dear Friends of Our Lady of Angels,
May you know new life through Grace this Lent!
Lent is a gift to travel a path that renews our souls. This Holy Season is an opportunity to open our hearts in new ways to God’s Grace.
We know the prescription for a successful journey through this time of Grace. Our renewal comes through prayer, fasting and almsgiving.
As a Spiritual Family may we unite in prayer as we share this common journey.
Be assured of a remembrance in my prayers throughout these 40 days.
In Mary Immaculate,
Fr. Michael J. Carroll, C.M.
Executive Director
A Vincentian View: 400 Years and Still Counting
Thinking about how our world will change in the next 25 years can challenge our vision. Imagining 400 years into the future seems beyond our ability to comprehend. Taking those same 400 years and placing them behind us invites a consideration of the world of Vincent de Paul. Vincent’s sense of what the future would hold in terms of communication and travel and theory could probably not begin to engage what our 21st century world would look like. We would fumble to find the words to describe the everyday of our present.
Yet, there are many things, and the most important things from a Christian point of view, that Vincent would understand well. Vincentian service in education and health care would draw his approval, as would multiples ministries to the needy and support of the powerless. Attention to the spiritual needs of people in poor parishes and training of clergy would find a joyful place of recognition in his missionary heart. The work of the Ladies of Charity and the Saint Vincent de Paul Society would cause his eyes to glisten at the involvement of his precious lay ministry and the blessings of collaboration. Devotion to Mary through the Miraculous Medal and dedication to international missions would fit comfortably within his hoped-for future for his sons and daughters. And, one could make many other connections.
Vincent would find all these kinds of service and ministry in full relation with the work that he promoted among those good people of the 17th century who looked to him for inspiration. They would be in keeping within his incarnational view of Christian ministry. And Vincent would rejoice to hear how these works had remained and evolved among his sons and daughters from his own century up until ours.
Without question, however, Vincent would also recognize how the needs of people remain the same and would call out for attention in this much-later world. We could point to a dozen examples, but let four suffice:
- Housing for those who are marginalized. Vincent, of course, established the first 13 Houses Program. Aware of the needs of some poor for a place to live and a stable environment, he constructed a plan to care for these people. One of the dominant words of praise that Pope Francis brings to the Vincentian Family at this time focuses upon our 13 Houses Project and its care for the homeless in so many places in our world. Our efforts in this area would bring a smile to our Founder’s face.
- Medical care for those who are poor. We know how those first Charities and Daughters of Charity focused upon going to the hospitals and tending to the needs of the sick. It was a foundational work and one to which he and Louise dedicated much time and effort. In the 20th Century, the needs of the marginalized for affordable health care and coverage remain in a highly debated environment. How are we going to promote and provide that care for those in serious need?
- Respect and compassion for those who are immigrants. Possibly no description of the poor is more well-known than Vincent’s assurance that they are our “Lords and Masters.” He would insist that they have much to teach us. He would describe them as bearing the face of Christ. One cannot exaggerate the care that they must be offered in terms of food, clothing and shelter. A look at our world would enable Vincent to see many areas in which those who are poor are badly treated. The need for social justice and Vincentian intervention would find its way to his lips.
- Faithful service in responding to the spiritual needs of our people. He wrote that “we should run to the spiritual needs of our neighbor as if we were running to a fire” (VdP, CCD 11:17, p. 25). Vincent wanted his followers to attend to the matters of the soul as well as those of the body. (Louise follows suit “Do as much good for the poor as you can, and I would ask this especially with regard to the spiritual service you owe them” (LdM, SW, L432, p. 245).)
As Vincent directed the men and women of his own time, he would encourage his followers in the modern era.
From 1625 to 2025 is a long time, but not longer than the response that Vincent would summon for the care of the needs of those who are poor among us. As his contemporary followers we continue his way of fidelity to the Gospel and to the teaching of our Lord. It is four hundred years and still counting.
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