Vincentian History

Where the Streets Have No Name

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“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by.”[1]

DePaul University’s humble origin story began in 1898 when the Vincentians established Saint Vincent’s College to educate “the sons of Chicago’s burgeoning Catholic immigrant population.”[2] Since these early days, DePaul’s understanding of who we are called to be has continued to be formed and informed by pragmatic wisdom and visionary thinking. Indeed, the same innovative seeds that led to the establishment of “the little school under the el” continue to bear fruit today. By participating in processes such as Designing DePaul, we are once again being invited to help shape DePaul’s future.

Innovative thinking is certainly imprinted in our Vincentian DNA. One has only to consider the ministries of Vincent and Louise to see how they used their pioneering and imaginative spirits to develop creative solutions to the complex societal challenges of their day.

A particularly compelling example of this dynamic can be seen in the insightful way in which Vincent and Louise co-founded the community of religious women known as the Daughters of Charity. It is important to note that “in 1633, when Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac assembled the first Daughters of Charity, no community of women existed in France which worked outside the walls of the cloister.”[3] Such a restriction presented a challenge to the establishment of this community, since “Vincent de Paul wanted a company endowed with great mobility, in a position ‘to go everywhere,’ in direct service of the neighbor.”[4] Thus, the Daughters needed to have the freedom to serve on-site, in such ministries as visiting the sick in their homes or in hospitals, caring for wounded soldiers on the battlefield, or tending to the galley prisoners. Consequently, confining the Daughters’ movements to the cloister was incompatible with their purpose.

Confronted with this incongruity, Vincent and Louise chose to break with the norms of the other communities they saw around them and create a different kind of experience: a community of consecrated women who would live and serve “in the world.” In fact, the streets would become their cloister.

As Vincent was keenly aware of the distinctive nature of the Daughters, he would make a point of emphasizing their difference from other religious communities. Hence, he would use the term house instead of monastery or convent, and confraternity or society instead of congregation. Furthermore, one of the defining characteristics of the Daughters of Charity was that they remained secular, yet they pronounced annual private vows.[5] This practice continues to this day.

The new orientation of this community would eventually inspire the growth of many congregations of women in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These too would commit themselves to the care and service of their neighbors and achieve official ecclesiastical approval.[6]

At DePaul today, the same spirit of innovation that gave birth to the Daughters of Charity can serve as a beacon as we consider how best to Design DePaul and as we continue to identify new ways to respond to current challenges.

Reflection questions:

What seeds of hope might you take from Vincent and Louise’s approach as they navigated seemingly insurmountable hurdles?

How, in your work, might you find evidence that “love is inventive to infinity?”[7]

Reflection by: Siobhan O’Donoghue, M. Div., Director of Faculty and Staff Engagement

[1] Robert Frost et al., The Road Not Taken: A Selection of Robert Frost’s Poems (New York: H. Holt, 1991).

[2] Dennis P. McCann, “The Foundling University: Reflections on the Early History of DePaul,” in DePaul University Centennial Essays and Images, ed. John L. Rury and Charles S. Suchar (Chicago: DePaul University, 1998), 52. Available online at https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/20/.

[3] Massimo Marocchi, “Religious Women in the World in Italy and France During the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” Vincentian Heritage 9:2 (1988). Available at: https://‌via.‌library.‌depaul.‌edu/‌vhj/‌vol9/iss2/1205.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid., 206.

[6] Ibid., 209.

[7] Conference 102, “Exhortation to a dying brother,” 1645, CCD, 11:131. 

Confronting Absurdity: Slavery and Racism as Historic Disruptors of Our Mission

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In my studies of philosophy, I learned that several existential philosophers, including Albert Camus, asked how we can face and reduce suffering when we ourselves often cause it for others. This profound contradiction is what they call absurdity. Please note that I will be using this existential understanding of profound absurdity throughout this text.

In the context of our Vincentian history, we are now firmly confronting such an absurdity in our complicity in causing, instead of reducing, people’s suffering. Instead of helping people and communities to overcome it, as Vincent de Paul did in his life, we became a significant cause of their pain. The absurdity of Vincentians’ involvement in enslaving human beings and of DePaul University’s engagement in institutional racism needs to be learned, researched, recognized, and confronted with determination. Today we, the Congregation of the Mission, and DePaul University, ought to become partners in the human quest to overcome the systemic harm of racism and discrimination while investing the best of our human, structural, and financial resources to confront all causes of humanity and our planet’s unbearable suffering.

Racism is an affront to humanity. In our current sociopolitical context, the strengthening of racism becomes a specific element of the radical polarization through which minorities are ostracized and blamed for all evil without reason. The white supremacy culture perceives the sociopolitical and economic oppression and disappearance of people of African descent and other minorities as the triumph of the symbolic order of a nation that builds its memory by discursively annihilating others, flatly denying essential elements of their historic collective identity. Slavery and racism dehumanize us partly because they illustrate the absurdity of our human experience. The dehumanization of its victims happens through symbolic, existential, religious, and socioeconomical violence, exclusion, and oppression.

In solidarity with those in the African American community, we must advocate individually and institutionally for their freedom, defend their rights, support their organization, and ally ourselves in constructing a society that makes systemic inequities and racial discrimination increasingly impossible.  This is a concrete and effective way for us to confront our history and contribute to overcoming absurdity in our own institutional identity.

Over the past two years as the liaison of the DePaul task force to respond to the legacy of Vincentian slaveholding, I became strongly convinced that we need to institutionally support an awakening of the Black consciousness that is so present in our midst, in organizations and individuals that fight to rescue the identity and existence of all African American communities. Our commitment calls for supporting the liberation of a denied identity and, simultaneously, invites us to become members of a project that makes explicit and confronts the absurdity expressed in so many forms of racism from a national and globalized perspective.

As a DePaul task force, we have been working with people who bear witness to centuries of enslavement and oppression, and we have been encouraging people to fight so that such inhumanity will not be perpetrated on anyone again. The history of slavery inflames us with the necessary conscience to understand that everyone in our society is also responsible, by action or inaction, for the inequities that continue to disproportionately affect Black people today. We all collectively have the duty of historical reparation and to make real the justice that has not yet arrived.

I have learned during my life as a Vincentian missionary that God’s love for the oppressed is a core element of our Vincentian vision and mission. From this perspective, I again apologize on behalf of my community for our absurdities and moral failing, our sinful participation in enslaving other human beings, and the historical and contemporary bias and perpetuation of racist systems and practices that have denied the very heart of our identity and mission in our relationships with African Americans in the United States of America.

On May 18, at 10:30 a.m., we will rename Room 300 in the Richardson Library and the Belden-Racine residence hall to honor Aspasia LeCompte, a woman formerly enslaved by Bishop Joseph Rosati, C.M., one of the first Vincentian missionary priests in St. Louis. This woman represents the enduring centuries-long resistance and resilience of African American communities. Naming prominent places on campus after her will perpetually lift up the life of an incredible Black woman whose legacy deserves to be known. Through Aspasia LeCompte’s story, the realities of Vincentian participation in enslaving people will continue to be remembered as new people join the DePaul community, and our community will forever be reminded that we need to continue to name and confront racism at our institution and in society.

Join us to continue this journey together and to find new ways to structurally design DePaul for equity.

Reflection by: Fr. Guillermo (Memo) Campuzano, C.M., Vice President of Mission and Ministry

Louise de Marillac and the World of Disability

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With this reflection, we continue our celebration of Louise Week 2023, highlighting Saint Louise de Marillac’s example of transformative leadership and compassionate care for the marginalized.

According to the World Health Organization, 1.3 billion people around the world live with disabilities.[1] Disabled people are much more likely than nondisabled people to live in poverty and to be excluded from societies that do not accommodate their needs. As part of the Vincentian Family, a community dedicated to serving those in need, DePaul University has a special commitment to those who are excluded. Inspired by our recent celebration of “Louise Week,” it is therefore fitting to examine Louise de Marillac’s engagement with disabled people.

Louise de Marillac had a deep relationship with disability. Her son, Michel, was born prematurely[2] and experienced developmental delays and learning challenges.[3] A single parent after the death of her husband, Louise herself experienced intense anxiety over her son that may have been worsened because he was a nontypical child. In fact, she often wrote to Vincent de Paul about this, seeking his advice and support.[4] She herself also had health issues, experiencing frequent migraines and chronic bronchitis.[5] Like many people who are chronically ill, she had to change life plans because of her illness: her health prevented her from entering the Capuchins, which had been a dream of hers as a teenager.[6] Louise knew what it was like to have her daily life curtailed by illness or treatment for illness. Several of her letters contain notes about this: “I took some medication this morning which limits my activity.”[7] She also experienced mental health issues. For instance, she suffered depression so intensely that, as she wrote, “the force of my emotions sometimes resulted in physical pain.”[8]

Louise’s experiences enabled her to better empathize with what members of her community were going through. As she wrote to one Daughter of Charity, “I share in the suffering that I know you are enduring because of your attacks of sadness and depression. … I wish you could share them with me, my very dear Sister, along with the thoughts they have evoked in you. I will try to be of some help to you in this matter having, perhaps, experienced the same difficulties myself.”[9] Many of her letters are filled with remedies for sisters and other colleagues who were sick, and she also cautioned against overexertion for those who were trying to carry out their duties even when they were ill: “Keep Sister Françoise until this evening, but do not let her carry the soup pot because she is not feeling well.”[10] Louise had a very holistic approach to the health of those under her that we would do well to emulate today. She recognized that it would be wrong for a community such as hers, devoted to healthcare and the service of the poor, not to treat its members with the same compassion and concern.

But Louise went beyond empathy and made strides toward inclusion. Although people with preexisting conditions were normally barred from joining the Daughters of Charity, Louise recognized that sick and disabled people could contribute to her community’s work. In the first surviving letter we have from her to Vincent, she speaks of “the good blind girl from Vertus” who was a Lady of Charity—a member of a group that worked with the Daughters.[11]

One of the most trusted leaders within the Daughters of Charity was Élisabeth Martin, who, among other things, oversaw the hospital communities in Angers and Nantes and supervised the new sisters at the motherhouse.[12] The editors of Spiritual Writings tell us that Martin was chronically ill.[13] Improving Martin’s health was a frequent subject of letters, but Louise apparently never considered relieving Martin of her responsibilities. On more than one occasion, Louise told Martin that she was not a burden and encouraged her to make what we today would term requests for accommodations. Consider this letter from Louise to Martin: “State your needs very simply and do not be upset that your illness makes you useless. You are the only one who thinks so.”[14] Louise always wanted a true picture of Martin’s physical and mental state, writing “speak to me openly of your suffering. I will read and understand everything.”[15]

This evidence clearly shows that, although it wasn’t perfect, a tradition of receptiveness and inclusion toward disabled people started with Louise. It’s important to understand the conditions of disabled lives. Disabled people should be able to state the exact nature of their abilities without fear and to request the modifications that they need to thrive. Only then can we build a society that truly serves everyone. We at DePaul should ask ourselves how we can continue Louise’s work toward inclusion.

Reflection Questions:

How can you work toward creating a more inclusive and supportive community for people with disabilities in your life and work at DePaul?

How does the example of Louise de Marillac inspire you to build and sustain a commitment to community?

Reflection by: Miranda Lukatch, Editor, Vincentian Studies Institute

Join us this week for more Louise Week events!

[2] Kieran Kneaves, D.C., “A Woman Named Louise: 1591–1633,” Vincentian Heritage Journal 12:2 (1991): 124. Available online at https://via.library.depaul.edu/vhj/vol12/iss2/3/.

[3] Élisabeth Charpy, Louise de Marillac: Come Winds or High Waters (Chicago: Vincentian Studies Institute, 2018), 14. Available online at https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/43/.

[4] Charpy, Louise de Marillac, 25.

[6] Charpy, Louise de Marillac, 10.

[7] Letter 20, “To Monsieur L’Abbé de Vaux at Angers,” May 6, 1640, Spiritual Writings, 28. Hereinafter referred to as SW. Available online at https://via.library.depaul.edu/ldm/.

[8] Document A.13, “An Interior Trial,” (c. 1621), SW, 691–92.

[9] Letter 102, “To Sister Claude (Brigide), the First,” (c. June 1642), SW, 74.

[10] Letter 127, “To My Very Dear Sister Barbe Angiboust,” (c. 1642), SW, 83.

[11] Letter 1, “To Monsieur Vincent,” June 5, 1627, SW, 6, n. 1.

[12] SW, 30–31, n. 3.

[13] SW, 39, n. 1.

[14] Letter 58B, “To Sister Élisabeth Martin,” August 7, (1641), SW, 56.

[15] Letter 23, “To Sister Élisabeth Martin,” (1640), SW, 34.

Vincentian Studies Institute Revises Additional Texts of Vincent de Paul

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DePaul University continues its support of Vincentian scholarship with a new revision of our four volumes of additional, mainly unpublished texts by and about Saint Vincent de Paul. This revision includes multiple new documents added across all four volumes along with corrections and updates to the existing texts. The translator and editor is John E. Rybolt, C.M. The books supplement the fourteen volumes of Correspondence, Conferences, and Documents, published by Pierre Coste, C.M., over a century ago.

These fully searchable, free to download pdf e-Books total more than 4,500 pages of letters, conferences, and documents in their original languages of French, Latin, and Italian, followed by an English translation.

These texts represent an open-ended collection, allowing for additional texts to be added as they come to light, as well as corrections and updates. We welcome suggestions and input from the reading public.

Click through to access each new volume of the collection:

Correspondence: CCD Additional Texts

Conferences: CCD Additional Texts

Documents, part one: CCD Additional Texts

Documents, part two: CCD Additional Texts

It is hoped that these new texts will further our understanding and appreciation of the great saint of charity, Vincent de Paul.

New Issue of Vincentian Heritage Available for Download

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The DePaul University Vincentian Studies Institute is pleased to announce the publication of our newest peer-reviewed e-book edition of Vincentian Heritage (Volume 36, Number 1).

Of note, this edition features articles on the lives of François Lallier and Emmanuel Bailly, co-founders with Frédéric Ozanam of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. It also includes a fascinating translation of the newly discovered “Rule for the Hospital of Nom de Jésus,” offering commentary on its historical context and on the caregiving provided there by the Daughters of Charity. Finally, the book concludes with a lavishly illustrated art and architectural study of the history of the Chapelle des Lazaristes, the Congregation of the Mission’s motherhouse church in Paris.

  • “François Lallier (1814–1886): ‘One of the Pillars of the Building Started’” by Raymond Sickinger, Ph.D.
  • “Emmanuel Bailly: The Advisor and Friend of Christian Youth” by Ralph Middlecamp.
  • “‘So that they may be able to live and die as good Christians’: The Early History of the Nom de Jésus Hospital in Catholic Reformation Paris” by Alison Forrestal, Ph.D.
  • “The Chapelle des Lazaristes and Reliquary Shrine of St. Vincent de Paul, 1850 to 1860: An Exposé of Competing Aesthetic Schemes & Their Resolutions in the Alliance des Arts” by Simone Zurawski, Ph.D.

To download the complete book for iPad or PC, please click here: Full Book Download

Individual .pdfs for each article are also available for download here: Article Downloads & Repository

 

January 25 – Anniversary of the Foundation of the Congregation of the Mission by Vincent de Paul

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“Revitalizing our Identity at the beginning of the Fifth Century of the Congregation of the Mission” — Theme of the C.M. XLIII General Assembly 2022

 

Each year on the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle, we remember the beginning of the Congregation of the Mission (C.M.). According to St. Vincent de Paul, this happened in Folleville, France, on January 25, 1617, when he preached his “first sermon of the Mission.”(1) Many say that experience with a dying man transformed Vincent’s heart and imbued him with a desire to serve those in need.

This historical event is an important one for DePaul University, though it is not widely celebrated. The Congregation of the Mission (commonly called “Vincentians”) founded our university 123 years ago. DePaul’s history and identity are deeply linked to the values and convictions of the Congregation in the United States.

Originally, Vincent founded the Congregation of the Mission to provide direct service to all those living in poverty, especially “the most abandoned,”(2) and for the formation and education of Catholic clergy in need of reform. These original intentions have evolved with time, especially over the past 50 years.

Today the Congregation of the Mission works together with many other branches of the Vincentian Family. This wider family includes the Daughters of Charity and other orders of religious sisters, as well as lay members of the worldwide International Association of Charities, and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. They comprise an ever-growing network of people and organizations who provide direct spiritual and material service, advocacy, and the promotion of systemic change.

In many ways, the primary Vincentian mission along with its communal approach have not changed. To better respond to all kinds of needs Vincent summoned as many as he could, rich, poor, humble, and powerful, and used all means to inspire them to serve people living in poverty.(3) As a Catholic priest, Vincent privileged the image of Christ. Based on the Gospel of Luke, ‘the evangelizer of the poor’ [Luke 4, 16-22], he prompted all his collaborators to help the poor directly and indirectly as Jesus did.

The Congregation of the Mission, from the time of Vincent de Paul, and through his inspiration, recognizes itself as called by God to carry out the work of integrally serving the poor. Officially called “Congregatio Missionis,” they are also called “Vincentians” in Anglophone countries, “Paules” in Spain, “Missioners” in Slavic lands, and in Latin America they are known as “Vicentinos.” The unofficial motto of the Congregation: Evangelizare pauperibus misit me [He has sent me to evangelize the poor] sums up the works of Jesus the Congregation endeavors to follow.

While we celebrate the founding of the Congregation of the Mission in 1617, the official date of its institution is noted to be April 17, 1625. On that day, encouraged by Madame de Gondi, the lords of the Gondi family, in whose territories Vincent de Paul served as Chaplain, signed a contract with him in which they provided funding to support a group of priests to serve impoverished people in the countryside. This act gave needed economic sustainability to the project of the Congregation.

Vincent ultimately created the community he had dreamed of. By the day of his death, September 27, 1660, twenty-six Vincentian communities had been formed: nineteen in France, four in Italy, two in Barbary (Northern Africa), and one in Poland. And, by the time of the French Revolution of 1789, when religious communities were suppressed in France, a great dissemination of the Congregation had taken place around the world, with missions in the Middle East, in Asia, and soon thereafter in the Americas. Especially significant were the Congregation’s missionary efforts in China. Today the Congregation has more than 3,000 members, priests, and brothers, serving in 81 countries. They continue to provide a wide array of services including education, spiritual and pastoral care, direct service to the poor, and socio-political advocacy, while remaining dedicated to systemic change and collaborations that will end poverty and homelessness.

As we know, one of their projects was DePaul University, founded in 1898 to serve the children of immigrants in Chicago who needed both access to education and a chance to escape poverty. Without Foundation Day, DePaul as we know it would not exist. That it does, and that we are now a part of more than two million Vincentian Family members worldwide, is certainly something worth celebrating on the 25th.

1) Conference 112, Repetition of Prayer, 25 January 1655, CCD, 11:162-164.

2) Conference 164, Love for the Poor, January 1657, CCD, 11:349.

3) See, for example, Constitutions and Statutes of the Congregation of the Mission (Rome, 1984), 10. Online at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/cm_construles/23/

 

Reflection by Rev. Guillermo Campuzano, C.M., Vice President of Mission and Ministry

 

The Streets as a Cloister: History of the Daughters of Charity

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The Vincentian Studies Institute is extremely pleased to promote the publication of our colleague and fellow board member’s new work. Dr. Brejon de Lavergnée is a Professor of History and ​the Dennis H. Holtschneider Chair of Vincentian Studies at DePaul University.

“The Daughters of Charity are today the largest community of Catholic women, with 15,000 sisters in about 100 countries. They devote their lives to serving the poorest in hospitals, schools, and care centers for homeless or migrants, as well as working to promote social justice. Until now, however, the history of the Daughters of Charity has been almost wholly neglected. The opening of their central archives, combined with access to many public and private archives, has finally allowed this to be remedied.

This volume, the fruit of several years’ work, covers the history of the Company from its foundation by Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac as a confraternity of young women to the suppression of the order during the French Revolution. The study, at the juncture of women’s history and religious history, shows how much the Daughters of Charity contributed to the emergence of a new and ambiguous status in post-Tridentine society: neither cloistered nuns nor married women, but “seculars.” The Company has certainly offered a framework that enabled many resolute women to lead lives out of the ordinary, taking young peasant women to the royal court, intrepid hearts to Poland, and, more generally, generous souls to the “martyrdom of charity” among the poor and the ill.”

ISBN Number: 978-1-56548-027-8. 668 pages. Available at Amazon.com or directly from the publisher: The Streets as a Cloister

To read an interview with Dr. Brejon de Lavergnée about his new book and the Daughters of Charity, please see Crux: Taking the Catholic Pulse

Vincentian Heritage Journal Vol. 35, No. 2

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The DePaul University Vincentian Studies Institute is pleased to announce the publication of our newest peer-reviewed e-book edition of Vincentian Heritage (Volume 35, Number 2).

Of note, this edition includes a significant new translation, never before published, of Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet’s testimony on the virtuous life of Vincent de Paul. The document, at one time thought lost, follows after those prepared for the canonization process and offers insight from a man who knew the saint during his life. The book also advances our new design and features the following articles:

  • “Pa, Ma, and Fa: Private Lives of Nineteenth-Century American Vincentians,” by John E. Rybolt, C.M., Ph.D.
  • “Bishop John Timon, C.M., Sisters of Charity Hospital, and the Cholera Epidemic of 1849,” by Dennis Castillo, Ph.D.
  • “Elizabeth Ann Seton’s Vision of Ecological Community. Based on Elizabeth Bayley Seton: Collected Writings, Volume Two,” by Sung-Hae Kim, S.C.
  • “BOSSUET: Testimony Concerning the Life and the Eminent Virtues of Monsieur Vincent de Paul (1702),” Translation and additional annotation by Edward R. Udovic, C.M., Ph.D.

To download the complete book for iPad or PC, please click here.

Individual .pdfs for each article are also available for download here.

“In Memoriam: Rev. Stafford Poole, C.M.

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Rev. Stafford Poole, C.M., Ph.D.
6 March 1930 – 1 November 2020

Joseph Poole and his wife Beatrice Smith welcomed a son into the world, Richard Stafford, on March 6, 1930, who was baptized in his parish church of St. Charles Borromeo, in North Hollywood. He attended elementary school at Rio Vista Elementary School, then transferred to the Parish School of St. Charles Borromeo for his Junior High School years. He entered Los Angeles College, the precursor to Our Lady Queen of Angels Seminary in 1942. Stafford entered the Congregation of the Mission on October 7, 1947, and continued his philosophical and theological studies for ordination at St. Mary of the Barrens Seminary in Perryville, Mo. He was ordained to the priesthood on May 27, 1956. He earned the degree of Master of Arts from St. Louis University in 1958 with a major in Spanish Literature and in 1961 earned his Doctor of Philosophy in U.S. and Mexican History from St. Louis University.

As he was completing his doctoral studies, Fr. Poole was planning on researching Slaveholding in Catholic Missouri. However, God intervened. Fr. Bannon, the director of the history department was presented with some rare documents from Latin America that included documents from the Third Council of 1585 and presented Stafford with a project. In Stafford’s own words he describes what happened next:

The next time I walked into Bannon’s office, my life took a total reversal. I got working on it and became fascinated with the whole thing. But actually, I had had only one graduate course in Latin American history, and that was a survey. Other than that, I was self-taught.1

From these beginnings flowed an impressive contribution to the field of Catholicism in Colonial Latin America, as well as his works on the history of the Congregation of the Mission and the US Catholic Church. Included in his life’s work were 14 books, 23 publications in Anthologies and Encyclopedias, 62 journal articles, as well as some unpublished studies on Vincentian themes and numerous book reviews. Among Fr. Poole’s works are Seminary in Crisis (1964); Church and Slave in Perry County, Missouri 1818 – 1860 (co-authored with Douglas Slawson, 1986); and Our Lady of Guadalupe: Origins and Sources of a Mexican National Symbol, 1531 – 1797 (1995). Fr. Poole was also a longtime member of the DePaul University Vincentian Studies Institute, and served as the editor of Vincentian Heritage and other of their publications over many years. In 2006 he received the Institute’s prestigious Pierre Coste Prize for his lifetime of distinguished achievement in Vincentian Studies.

While many would count this a complete life’s work, Fr. Poole was also a teacher, academic dean, and seminary rector. His students not only remember his lectures with fondness, but also appreciated his wit and wisdom. Stafford was a clock maker. He spent his leisure time making and repairing clocks of all sorts. After he had left St. Mary of the Barrens in 1971, students would comment that “Fr. Poole needs to come back to the Barrens to fix the clock on the A Building!”

During his retirement, Fr. Poole continued to be active as a scholar and mentor. He encouraged other confreres to take up the critical history of the Congregation of the Mission. He supported his colleagues in both the American Catholic Historical Association and other professional organizations to continue the study the Church’s earliest mission activity in Latin America and its impact upon the people.

Infirmity overcame Fr. Poole in his final years, as his health declined, he slowly put aside the unfinished research and prepared to meet his Creator. He returned to the Barrens to receive added care. On the Feast Day of All Saints, he returned to his Creator. A Vincentian who dedicated his life to telling the story of the life of Colonial Latin American Church and the Little Company.

1) Susan Schroeder, “Seminaries and Writing the History of New Spain: An Interview with Stafford Poole, C.M.,” The Americas 69:2 (2012), 237-254.

Sustained by Deep Roots: Celebrating our Heritage

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“Nature makes trees put down deep roots before having them bear fruit, and even this is done gradually.”1

Over the next seven days we celebrate Vincent de Paul Heritage Week. This includes a series of events leading up to Vincent’s church-designated feast day on September 27th. These events are meant to invite the university community into a deeper reflection on our shared mission and heritage, which traces all the way back to seventeenth-century France.

When facing urgent and troubling challenges such as those of our present reality, you may ask why spend our time and energy remembering historical roots going back over 400 years? How do the words and actions of those who have preceded us and lived in such different contexts so long ago speak to us now? How can this focus on history help us to discern a meaningful and relevant mission for today?

Ultimately, whenever we reflect on our sense of mission, whether personal or institutional, we are asking: what is essential to who we are? Thinking about such profound questions may spark a religious, spiritual, or philosophical impulse in us, including a consideration of our origin stories. From where do we come and why were we created? Is there a purpose to our existence? If so, who are we called to be and what are we called to do? Storytelling traditions surrounding the origins of communities of people have been common since the dawn of humanity. These stories often help us to hold and communicate values, meaning, purpose, and a sense of connectedness with one other, as well as to engage present-day circumstances with a deeply formed sense of identity.

We have a storytelling tradition at DePaul University. It is passed on within the history of the Congregation of the Mission and all those in the Vincentian family who live and sustain our shared, foundational mission rooted in the lives of Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac. Over his many years at DePaul, Vincentian historian, Fr. Edward R. Udovic, C.M., often reminded us that in order for the lessons of history to be meaningfully re-contextualized for today, we must first understand the historical background from which these gifts emerged.

In other words, our efforts today to be rooted in and clarify our common mission as an institution comes with a two-fold responsibility. First, we must continually seek to better understand the historical roots and foundational stories of the Vincentian family, which ultimately gave birth to DePaul University. Second, we must seek to faithfully discern how those roots can be extended creatively and effectively to sustain our lives and work today. This is so even considering that the current challenges and opportunities we face could never have been imagined by Vincent de Paul hundreds of years ago.

The roots that have sustained our Vincentian tradition over time are characterized by a generous and caring spirit, essential to both historical and modern-day Vincentian communities, religious and lay. It is a spirit that focuses its efforts and attention on the service of those in society who are most in need. It asks critical questions about who is being left out or marginalized and seeks to affirm their dignity. It is a spirit that works to change social, economic, and political systems for the better.

When we reflect upon our Vincentian heritage this week, we do so with great humility, a virtue many recognized in Vincent de Paul. We do so with a willingness to acknowledge how far we still must go to live up to the deep, time-tested ideals that urge us forward. We take heart in knowing we are not alone on this journey. In fact, we join the decades and centuries old caravan of those who have also taken the Vincentian spirit to heart and sought to improve the lives of others.

To be Vincentian is to ask, as Madame de Gondi did of Vincent de Paul, “What Must be Done?” It is to get up day-after-day and continue our mission by taking concrete action. In times like these that challenge society and our institution, we are indeed fortunate for the deep roots of our mission.

Reflection Question:

How do the deep roots of our Vincentian mission and story inform your approach to today’s challenges?

1 1796, To Charles Ozenne, Superior, In Warsaw, Paris, 13 November 1654, CCD, 5:219.

 

Reflection by Mark Laboe, Associate VP for Mission and Ministry

 

See all the Vincent de Paul Heritage Week Events