louise de marillac

An Invitation to Love and Solidarity

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As Louise de Marillac endured a particularly difficult trial in her life, Vincent once told her “Que j’ai peine de votre peine!” [How sorry I am about your suffering!] (CCD, 1:138.) While Vincent may have wished to eradicate the cause of Louise’s suffering, it was beyond his power. Instead, Vincent chose to accompany her, reassuring her of his love and unwavering support. This provided Louise with some level of comfort until the trial had passed. “In true compassion and honesty, heart spoke to heart.” (VH 12:2, 136.)

Today, as we confront the numerous challenges of the Coronavirus, we may feel overwhelmed. How do we respond to the pain and suffering in our own lives, in the lives of our families, our friends, neighbors and colleagues, and indeed, those affected globally? Vincent’s example of deep compassion and care for the many who suffered around him, particularly those who were poor and marginalized, may offer a compelling witness.

We are finding our way. At this most testing of times, many in our DePaul community are responding in truly innovative and pragmatic Vincentian ways, showing us the way of wisdom. Whether it be through donating personal protective equipment to local hospitals, using 3D printers to make face shields and mask covers, writing cards with messages of hope to seniors who are isolated, donating funds for those in need, or participating in university prayers for the well-being of our community and our world, in myriad ways DePaul is proving that “love is inventive to infinity.” (CCD, 11:131.)

During this time of global pandemic, how is your heart calling you to speak? If, today, you hear an invitation to engage in acts of love and solidarity, how might you respond?

Citations:

  1. 92, To Saint Louise, [1631], CCD, 1:138.
  2. Kneaves, “A Woman Named Louise,” Vincentian Heritage 12:2 (1991), 136. Available at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/vhj/vol12/iss2/3/
  3. 102, Exhortation to a Dying Brother, 1645, CCD, 11:131.

 

By:

Siobhan O’Donoghue
Director, Faculty and Staff Engagement
Division of Mission and Ministry

 

Finding the Roses Amidst the Thorns

bcicirel Hope, Mission Monday ,

“Courage then, my dear Sisters! Let us serve with hearts filled with the pure love of God which enables us always to love the roses amidst the thorns.” (L.426, To the Sisters of the Hospital of Angers, Spiritual Writings, 36.)

These words from Louise really strike me as we live in a time of great uncertainty wherein the thorns seem to far outweigh the roses—a time when the new normal is remote learning, working from home, and social distancing, among other things.

I imagine a member of Louise’s community writing back, with maybe a bit of exasperation: “Where, dear Louise, are the roses in these unusual and challenging circumstances?” Why? Because they, too, lived in a time of upheaval and challenge. I think I imagine this particular response because it has been hard for me to see the roses amid so many thorns embodied by the difficulties our health care workers are facing, the suffering of those directly impacted by the virus, the many numbers of people losing their jobs, and the distance I’m experiencing from family, friends, and the DePaul community.

But there are roses, and I’m working to remember that, to find them, and to share them with others as well. The roses are in the daily chats I have on Microsoft Teams and on Zoom with dear colleagues and friends. The roses are in the text chains that make me laugh with friends and with siblings. The roses are in all the ways I see people reaching out to those in need during this difficult time.

Where are you seeing the roses amidst the thorns these days in the DePaul community, among your family and friends, and in your local communities?

Reflection by:

Katie Sullivan, Ministry Coordinator for Vincentian Service & Formation, Division of Mission and Ministry

Vincentian Service Day  

May 2, 2020

The Division of Mission and Ministry is working hard to help others see the roses amid all the thorns. One of the ways we are doing that is by planning and collaborating to ensure that one of DePaul’s longest standing traditions, Vincentian Service Day, still happens. VSD, traditionally the first Saturday in May, is going to look different this year.

This time we are planning a day for our global DePaul community to participate remotely in the Vincentian tradition of responding to the needs of people around the world. It will undoubtedly look extremely different than how we might typically have imagined it, but we believe it can still be effective and rewarding.

Everyone in the DePaul community is invited to service at all times—not just on VSD—but we hope that as many of you as possible will participate on Saturday, May 2nd, so that we can all join together and be roses for each other, for our communities, and even for ourselves.

Registration details for Vincentian Service Day will be announced university-wide in mid-April. For more information, visit http://serviceday.depaul.edu or email serviceday@depaul.edu

Serving from the Heart

bcicirel Dignity, Louise de Marillac, Mission Monday, Vincentian personalism , ,

May you never take the attitude of merely getting the task done…

“As for your conduct toward the sick, may you never take the attitude of merely getting the task done. You must show them affection; serving them from the heart; inquiring of them what they might need; speaking to them gently and compassionately.” Louise de Marillac (Spiritual Writings, p. 773)

Louise de Marillac spent many years in active ministry directly serving those on the margins. She was an accomplished leader whose deep sense of compassion infused all her actions. Over the course of her life, Louise organized and administered a broad spectrum of works in healthcare, education, and social welfare. These works continue worldwide today through the efforts of the Daughters of Charity, the religious community of women she co-founded with Vincent de Paul.

In the tradition of Vincentian personalism, every day at DePaul we are presented with opportunities to serve from our heart and demonstrate acts of compassion. How do you see your work continuing this legacy?

Louise de Marillac enters St. Peter’s Basilica

bcicirel Vincentian Heritage, Vincentian History , , ,

The Vincentian Studies Institute recently purchased two photographs from February 1954 that capture the delivery of the monumental statue of Saint Louise de Marillac to Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.   Louise’s canonization took place in 1934.  Her statue became the thirty-ninth and last, to fill one of the internal niches of St. Peter’s.  The sheer size of the sculpture emerges in scale against the figures of the various workers.  The photographs will join the Vincentiana collection at the Archives and Special Collections Department of DePaul University’s, John T. Richardson Library.

 

Feast Day of St. Louise de Marillac

bcicirel Louise de Marillac, Mission Monday ,

Thursday, May 9, marked the Feast Day of St. Louise de Marillac, the Patron Saint of Social Work in the Catholic Church. Louise worked hand in hand with St. Vincent de Paul to care for the sick and poor in 17th Century France, and together they co-founded the Daughters of Charity, which is the largest order of Religious Sisters in the world today. Louise was a mother and wife; she had better hand writing than the Queen Regent of France; she was one of the pioneers of Social Work as we know it today, and above all, she saw the humanity and inherent dignity of every person that she met. Mission and Ministry invites you to learn more about St. Louise de Marillac and encourages you to think about how you can relate to this exemplary person 400 years after she left her mark on the world.

 

Vincent and Louise: A Model for Teamwork

bcicirel Louise de Marillac, Mission Monday, Relationships, Vincent de Paul, Vincentian stories ,

When Louise de Marillac first discovered that Vincent de Paul had been assigned to be her new spiritual director, she stated, “It was repugnant for me to accept him.” While it is hard to know exactly what was behind Louise’s sentiments, it is clear that she was not pleased by the idea of working together with this Gascon peasant. However, as time went on, Vincent and Louise developed a deep and effective collaboration that would transform service to the poor and marginalized in seventeenth-century France and beyond. From a less than promising start, their friendship lasted 35 years, and their work together created a living legacy of which we are all part.

Think back to an instance when your initial perception of a work relationship changed over time. What did you learn from this experience?

A.2, Light, in Louise de Marillac, et al., Spiritual Writings of Louise De Marillac: Correspondence and Thoughts (New City Press, 1991), 1.

VHRN Newsnote: Second Volume of the History of the Daughters of Charity published by Fayard

bcicirel Vincentian Heritage, Vincentian History ,

Histoire des filles de la Charité vol.2

Qui ne connaît, au moins par leur riche iconographie, les célèbres cornettes des Filles de la Charité  ?
Fondée par saint Vincent de Paul et Louise de Marillac au xviie siècle, la petite communauté parisienne a rapidement gagné la France des villes et des villages pour devenir la principale congrégation de sœurs actives à la fin de l’Ancien Régime. «  La rue pour cloître  »  : telle était la règle de vie originale de ces femmes, ni cloîtrées ni mariées mais célibataires vouées au service des pauvres.
Après un premier tome consacré à la période moderne, Matthieu Brejon de Lavergnée aborde ici les deux siècles suivants, entre Révolution française et Deuxième Guerre mondiale. «  Le temps des cornettes  »  : c’est celui d’un nouveau contrat social entre États et Églises pour répondre aux pauvretés de l’âge industriel comme à la forte demande d’éducation, de santé et de loisirs des sociétés urbanisées. Sensibles à la conjoncture politique, les Sœurs de Saint-Vincent-de-Paul connaissent aussi exil et martyre en France, au Mexique ou en Chine. L’échelle des cornettes est désormais globale, de l’Europe à ses espaces coloniaux comme aux nouveaux mondes américains. Missionnaires, elles exportent un culte marial si français depuis les apparitions de Catherine Labouré en 1830. Mais encore institutrices, infirmières, éducatrices ou syndicalistes, elles accompagnent les nouveaux fronts de la professionnalisation féminine au xxe siècle. Elles contribuent ainsi à redessiner les rapports de genre au sein de sociétés dures aux femmes. Féministes, les bonnes sœurs  ? La question mérite d’être posée.
C’est tout l’intérêt de cet ouvrage, appuyé sur de riches archives, que d’évoquer avec rigueur le rôle capital joué par des générations de femmes qui ont lié horizon spirituel et travail social.

Matthieu Brejon de Lavergnée est agrégé et docteur en histoire, maître de conférences habilité à la Sorbonne. Il est spécialiste d’histoire sociale et religieuse, et s’attache en particulier à une histoire de la charité, de la philanthropie et de l’assistance.

EAN :
9782213709796
EAN numérique :
9782213711102
Code article :
2028653
Histoire
Parution :
30/05/2018
700pages
Format :
153 x 235 mm

Newsnote: Capucines Convent, Paris 17th century

bcicirel Vincentian Heritage, Vincentian History , ,

This postcard recently added to the Vincentiana Collections at DePaul University’s Archives and Special Collections depicts part of the famous Convent of the Capucines to which Louise de Marillac was denied admission. The Capucines had arrived in Paris representing the cloistered women of the Capuchin reform which in the previous century had been introduced into the Franciscan order. The large convent was located at the site of the present Place Vendome in Paris. The depiction above is from 1705.

Newsnote: Honore de Champigny, O.F.M. Cap., (1566-1624)

bcicirel Vincentian Heritage, Vincentian History , , ,

The Vincentiana Collection at DePaul University’s Archives and Special Collections has acquired a rare copy of the 1864 biography of Charles Bochart de Champigny (in religion Honore). Champigny was the superior of the French Capuchins who is said to have turned down the request of the young Louise de Marillac to enter the new convent of the Capuchin nuns which had been established in Paris. Interestingly the biography makes no mention of his role with this convent, although it talks about his role as a reformer of several convents of other orders in Paris. After his death in 1624 both Louis XIII and Louis XIV supported opening his cause of canonization. However, Champigny’s cause never progressed passed the recognition of the heroicity of his virtues in 1898.

Newsnote: New Louise de Marillac book published by New City Press

bcicirel Vincentian Heritage, Vincentian History ,

Louise de Marillac, born out of wedlock into an aristocratic family, young widow and mother of a son, fully committed her life to all those who were suffering, regardless of who they were. In Paris together with St. Vincent de Paul she founded a community of Sisters, who dedicated themselves to care for the sick and for the poor. The Daughters of Charity, one of the largest Catholic women religious communities are active today in more than 100 countries. Available from Amazon.com