foundation day

2024 Foundation Day: The Shared Coin

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On January 25 in celebration of Foundation Day, a new edition of The Shared Coin was released.  This tradition is an invitation for all DePaul students, faculty and staff to celebrate individuals living DePaul’s Vincentian mission by sharing a coin with them. Along with the coin, givers are encouraged to personalize this experience by using the back of the card given out with each coin to write a message to the individual they are acknowledging.

This is a special way to tell someone else, “I see you! I see DePaul’s mission and the Vincentian spirit within you.  That light is radiating out to me. Thank you.  I think it is important that I acknowledge you.” It’s an opportunity for everyone in the community to pause, look around, and recognize the many gifts at DePaul.  

The Shared Coin is modeled after Vincent’s metaphor of the scarred coin, which represented the individuals he served, their inherent dignity, and the investment he made in honoring and uplifting that dignity. 

The 2024 edition of the Shared Coin uplifts a quote by St. Louise de Marillac to celebrate the 400th anniversary of her lumiere experience. On June 4, 1623, Louise de Marillac, filled with doubts and anxiety about her life, entered the Church of Saint Nicholas-des-Champs in Paris. As a young wife with a child and a sick husband, she prayed for her future. Something extraordinary happened there. She experienced a moment of light that changed her life and filled her with a trust that there was a plan for her life. She was freed from her anxiety and doubts and received inner peace. Louise’s “lumiere” experience is an invitation for all of us to root ourselves in trust and to hold on to the light within and around us.

Everyone within the DePaul community is encouraged to integrate this tradition across campus, whether through weekly meetings, gatherings or one-on-one settings. Recipients often feel grateful for the recognition of their good work and their commitment to DePaul’s mission. 

Coin recipients may elect to keep it or may choose to pass it on when they see someone else living the mission in a meaningful way. Any DePaul student, faculty or staff member can go to one of our distribution locations and pick up coins to share with a person or several people they witness living DePaul’s mission. Coins are available on a first come, first-served basis. They are available in limited quantities and once depleted, they will not be available until the following year.  You may pick up coins at the following locations: 

Lincoln Park Location
Division of Mission and Ministry
Student Center, Suite 311
10-4 PM, Monday through Friday 

Loop Location 
DePaul Center 125, Loop Life Office
10AM – 4PM Monday – Friday
Division of Mission and Ministry - by request
14 E. Jackson, Suite 800  

For more information on this tradition, visit go.depaul.edu/sharedcoin . 

“Encourage one another and may your mutual good example speak louder than any words can.” St. Louise de Marillac

Building a Strong Foundation

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“I certainly hope that you will lay the foundation … of the establishment being made, so that the edifice will be built on rock and not on shifting sands.”[1]

I have been thinking about foundations—things upon which something stands or is supported—quite a bit lately, because on January 25, DePaul celebrated the 407th anniversary of the foundation of the Vincentian mission. On that date in 1617, Monsieur Vincent de Paul delivered a memorable sermon of inspiration and hope to poor villagers of the rural community he served. This occasion was so meaningful to those assembled, including Vincent, that it contributed to a great surge of faith among the villagers, and led some years later to Vincent founding an order of priests who, like himself, were willing to devote their lives to the poor. Accordingly, the foundation of the worldwide Vincentian mission we know today was laid in a modest country church in France when faith, in response to great need, took action.

In a less institutional but more personal way, I have been reflecting upon my own foundation as of late. Unexpected challenges have made me stop and ask: What have I built my life on? What really grounds and supports me? And what difference does it make?

Albert Camus, the French writer and thinker, talked about the human crisis, the time when an individual, or an entire society, comes under intense difficulty or threat, and when difficult decisions must be made.[2] At these times of crisis, Camus believed, human beings have three options: they can throw their hands up in despair and impotence; they can take refuge in empty beliefs that prove useless when the going gets tough; or they can resist. For Camus, this last option was the best option, the most noble, the most virtuous. To resist means to respond to danger and challenge with courage, selflessness, justice, and love. To resist is to use the available talents and resources towards vanquishing the threat and serving the common good. Camus did not think that such resistance was easy nor was it always successful. But it was the right, and ultimately most effective, thing to do.

It seems to me that resistance to a challenge or crisis, whether it is personal or societal, stands a better chance of success if it is based upon a strong foundation. Values that are tried and true. Wisdom that has stood the test of time. Relationships that are healthy and nurturing. A strong sense of your “inner compass” and where it is pointing you. Vincent de Paul and his community faced the crisis of poverty in seventeenth-century France and chose not to turn away, but to resist. They based their resistance on their own strong foundation: faith, which, for them meant modeling their lives on the example of Jesus Christ; community, which meant that they would live and serve together; and a shared commitment to respond to the needs that presented themselves.

As human beings, we move between challenges, even crises, as a part of life. As Camus understood, during these times the temptation to give up or turn to a false, empty solution is strong. But, if we can muster the strength and courage to meet the challenge and then do all we can to lean upon that strong foundation, ultimately, we will prevail.

At DePaul, and in our lives, we seek to meet difficult needs and critical challenges every day. Having a foundation that grounds and supports us, that accompanies and unites us, will always help us through.

Questions for Reflection:

What is your foundation built upon? What helps to ground and support you?

If DePaul’s foundation is our mission—our Vincentian and Catholic identity—what might you do to help sustain and strengthen it?

Think of a time in your personal or professional life when you have faced a great challenge or even a crisis. Did you “lean into” your foundation for support and strength? How so?

Reflection by: Tom Judge, Assistant Director and Chaplain, Faculty and Staff Engagement, Division of Mission and Ministry

[1] Letter 1965, “To Jean Martin,” 26 November 1655, CCD, 5:479. See: https://‌‌‌‌via.‌library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/30/.

[2] Albert Camus, “The Human Crisis” (“La Crise de l’homme”), lecture, Columbia University, 28 March 1946. Click here to read a transcription of the lecture.

Designing DePaul and Anchoring Ourselves in St Vincent’s Original Intuition

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This week and every year on January 25, the Congregation of the Mission celebrates Foundation Day.

In my heart, our foundational story never grows old. In celebrations of this type, something stirs within me. I feel connected to our origins. I feel inspired to recalibrate my existence and set out for new adventures in serving others, especially those living in poverty and exclusion, and investing my best energy in the structural transformation of our many realities.

Saint Vincent always considered 1617 as the birthday of the mission. Even though his three principal foundations had distinct juridical birthdates—the Confraternities of Charity in 1617, the Congregation of the Mission in 1625, and the Daughters of Charity in 1633, Vincent consistently looked back at 1617 as the year when everything began. On that year, he had two powerful experiences, one in Folleville and the other in Châtillon. These became two life-changing experiences for him. It was on January 25, 1617, in Folleville where he preached a powerful and inspiring sermon about general confession. Vincent himself referred to this as the first sermon of the mission. Later that year in Châtillon, he passionately invited the community to support a poor family through acts of compassion and charity. Vincent witnessed the impact of his words in a solidarity chain (organized charity) that he helped to create to support this family fully recover from their many struggles.

Vincent de Paul was fired by passion to meet the integral (spiritual and material) needs of persons who were poor. With a talent for organizing others who shared his passion, in 1625 he began a group of priests and brothers, the Congregation of the Mission, for the integral attention to the poor and the formation of the clergy.

The original intuition of St Vincent de Paul is underway at DePaul University today

The identity of the Congregation of the Mission has evolved and adapted to different geographical and historic realities. It was in this process of constant evolution that the Congregation founded DePaul University in 1898, and therefore, this year we celebrate 125 years of our institutional foundation. DePaul’s history and identity are naturally and deeply linked to the values and convictions and even to the historic flaws of the Congregation of the Mission.

Our collective Vincentian mission and all the institutions grounded in it are not immobile and finished realities. They are projects that are open to the signs of the times and to the realities and challenges of the places where they are located. They are constantly transformed to become more credible and coherent, to keep alive the original spiritual intuition in the heart of Vincent de Paul, and thus to be a real contributor to the systemic change of our world today. DePaul will accomplish this change by supporting our students’ integral development so that they themselves can become agents of social transformation.[1]

Designing DePaul

Our new strategic planning process, Designing DePaul, begins this week on Thursday, January 26. This process takes place at a time when it seems that the fruit that needs to be gestated may be greater than our abilities to fully commit ourselves to the challenges of reality, to understand history, and to recreate ourselves, our structures, and our workplaces with courage. There are so many things that distract us, paralyze us, and disturb us. DePaul University is today like fragile clay in the hands of all who, loving it, are open to invest the best of their energy, ideas, and passion to envision its own recreation. This must become a time to honor and re-envision the legacy that has shaped where we are today and a time to find new ways to live our call to service (social and environmental justice), community (common good) and spirituality (connection and collaboration at all levels for a greater good).

The decisive thing for us is always to recreate our identity in the daily work and commitment of the Mission given the needs of the reality before us. The reinterpretation of our identity and mission, the new systemic and structural emphasis, the new focal points of attention, and the new curricular and pedagogical approaches must be done from the cultural and structural context of our time and at the heart of the transformation that Pope Francis has proposed to all Catholic Institutions.

I hope that Designing DePaul will be a great opportunity to redefine our most basic connections around our common mission and to heal our institutional fabric wherever and at any level in which it may be broken.  As President Manuel has said repeatedly, I hope that we will be bold enough to solve old structural problems and to achieve financial sustainability.

I hope that Designing DePaul will be an opportunity for us to collectively decide the meaning and institutional implication of our Catholic Identity in a multicultural, multi-faith and multi-convictional environment.

I hope that this new strategic plan will be the opportunity for DePaul University to finally advance in making the ecological leap and the ethical leap to commit our educational, structural and economic resources in a pedagogical and  institutional model that is fully committed to the sustainability of life, with special emphasis on all forms of life that are most vulnerable, and to commit to the Common Good, to ensure the sustainability of our planet and our common human existence.

May the remarkable freedom and innovation of Vincent de Paul be a real source of inspiration during our strategic planning that reinforces in us the urgent sense of community we need to build in our midst, the profound spiritual connection within a community that celebrates and deeply honors its rich and vast diversity, and our pledge to equity and sustainability.  At DePaul, we are committed to recognizing, respecting, and protecting the dignity of all so that everyone in our community, in their own individual identities, can say “I Am Somebody,” as the Rev. Jesse Jackson so famously said, without fear and without the risk of becoming a victim of any kind of violence.

Reflection Questions:

How are you planning to engage in Designing DePaul, our new strategic plan?

From your area of work and commitment, what do you think should be a couple of non-negotiables in DePaul’s new strategic plan?

Do not forget that the Office of the President is open to hear and to receive all your recommendations!

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

[1] Cf. “University Mission Statement,” Division of Mission & Ministry, DePaul University, adopted March 4, 2021, https://offices.depaul.edu/mission-ministry/about/Pages/mission.aspx.

What’s your DePaul origin story?

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Tomorrow, January 25, is Foundation Day! So … what is that? It’s a day Vincentians around the world celebrate one of the community’s key origin stories. Everyone has an origin story—not just comic book superheroes, or even saints. They are moments where the line between before and after becomes very clear. Foundational stories help frame and contextualize our lives and give us resources to understand and overcome whatever current challenges we face.

Take our own hero, Saint Vincent de Paul. Several well-known experiences formed who Vincent became—and the legacy that we still live out today. One was in a small village named Folleville in France. At the time, Vincent was a priest accompanying his incredibly wealthy benefactor Madame de Gondi on a tour of her lands (we are talking, “I have a family castle up the road” wealthy). Vincent, though of course concerned with the welfare of the poor, was not yet the driven saint that we know today. He saw joining the priesthood as the surest way of enjoying the finer things in life. His experiences at Folleville were about to change all that.

In January 1617, while staying at said family castle, Vincent received a message that a sick peasant desperately wanted to see him. When Vincent arrived, he discovered that the man was dying, and he proceeded to take his last confession. After a lengthy conversation—that seemed to be grounded in what we might call mutuality today—both men found joy in unburdening themselves to each other. This cathartic experience shook Vincent to his core, so much so that he brought “I have a castle” Madame de Gondi to the peasant’s small hut to talk with him. This transformed her as well, and a mission began that was centered on the question, “what must be done?” In retrospect, Vincent looked back on the sermon he gave about this experience on January 25, 1617, as the formation of the Congregation of the Mission—an institution through which we find our own origin and mission as a university.

Foundation Day is the story of when Saint Vincent really understood what his mission was and what questions he should be asking and answering. His formative experience with the peasant not only inspired internal reflections but drove him to action—and it has inspired the actions of many others over the past four centuries.

What is your DePaul origin story? When was the moment you really understood how you needed to live and what you needed to do … or what DePaul’s mission was all about? Which person or people helped you to really see how your work contributes to DePaul’s (or the Vincentian) mission? What experiences opened your eyes to “what must be done?” Whatever your answers, these are now a part of your foundational story.

Reflection by: Alex Perry, Program Manager for Faculty and Staff Engagement, Division of Mission and Ministry

 

Foundation Day Celebration

Tuesday, January 25, 11:00 – 1:30pm

LPC Student Center Atrium & Loop DePaul Center, 11th Floor

Join Mission & Ministry to celebrate the 405th anniversary of the founding of the Congregation of the Mission. Stop by for a snack and take a moment to reflect on how you carry out the Vincentian legacy at DePaul.

DePaul SOCK DRIVE

Monday, January 24th – Friday January 28th

Further celebrate Vincentian Foundation Day through action!  Join us as we partner with the Wool Gathering Project to collect socks for those who need them this winter to stay warm.  Just get a brand new pair of socks of any kind and drop them off at the bins at any of the following locations sometime this week:

11th Floor DePaul Center, Loop Campus, Near #11010

1st Floor Student Center, Near the CCM Office on the West End.

The Theatre School, Near 1st floor Elevators