st vincent de paul society

The Dignity of Help

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Written by: Miranda Lukatch, Editor, Vincentian Studies Institute

Photograph by Akhil Nath.

Our mission here at DePaul focuses on helping others, especially those who have been historically underserved—the poor and the marginalized. It’s a wonderful mission, a noble mission. But I wonder how many of us also need help, and if we do, whether we are able to ask for it. Our own situations may not be as serious as those our mission calls us to aid, and we may not need advocacy or material support. But it’s likely that we need other things—assistance with work projects, perhaps, or, in our personal lives, help with caregiving, or managing burnout, depression, or grief. “Let me know how I can help,” we say when others are in trouble. But when we’re on the receiving end of such offers, we often don’t take people up on them.

In her book The Gifts of Imperfection, professor and social worker Brené Brown writes, “One of the greatest barriers to connection is the cultural importance we place on ‘going it alone.’ Somehow we’ve come to equate success with not needing anyone.” She continues, “Until we can receive with an open heart, we are never really giving with an open heart. When we attach judgment to receiving help, we knowingly or unknowingly attach judgment to giving help.” Brown argues that it’s a mistake to “deriv[e] self-worth from never needing help and always offering it.” [1]

In reading Brown’s words, I was struck by how well they connect with the philosophy of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. Its founder, Frédéric Ozanam, once said that help “humiliates when there is no reciprocity” and “becomes honorable because it may become mutual.” [2] Ozanam and Brown argue that help has a spiritual value beyond what is provided by immediate assistance. It allows people to connect with each other (and, Ozanam would say, with God) in a profound and meaningful way. Because of this, there is as much dignity in asking for help as there is in receiving it. It’s a lesson that runs counter to our cultural expectations, but it’s an important one to remember and internalize. The next time we may be feeling overwhelmed or alone, we should consider how we might challenge ourselves to more readily ask for help.

Reflection Questions:

Is there anything that you need help with? Whom could you ask for help, and how do you think they might respond?

Can you think of situations in the past where someone has asked you for help? How did you feel about the request? Did it make you feel more connected to that person?

Reflection by: Miranda Lukatch, Editor, Vincentian Studies Institute

[1] Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are (Hazelden, 2010), 20.

[2] Quoted in Raymond L. Sickinger, “Frédéric Ozanam: Systemic Thinking, and Systemic Change,” Vincentian Heritage 32:1 (2014): n.p. Available online at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/vhj/vol32/iss1/4/.

Connecting Charity with Justice

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Responses to injustice based only on charity may readily be maligned for not addressing the systemic issues that cause suffering to be perpetuated; yet, properly understood, charity should be seen as an essential part of transformative action and as the vital relational and affective dimension of justice. The word charity derives from the Latin, caritas, and can be better understood as a generous and self-giving love. It reflects an understanding of love as a sustained virtue and not as a fickle or thoughtless passion.

Frédéric Ozanam, influential lay leader and founder of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, understood that acts of charity enabled insight into the plight of the poor and oppressed, and facilitated more substantive and transformative social change. His beliefs resonate with those of Vincent de Paul and others within the Vincentian tradition. Ozanam emphasized personal relationships as fundamental to both affective and effective social action and transformative service. This Vincentian personalism, as we have come to know it, recognizes the unique circumstances of individual people, while concurrently working toward broader, systemic change. Ozanam’s words on the power of experience help us understand this piece of Vincentian wisdom:

The knowledge of social well-being and reform is to be learned, not from books, nor from the public platform, but in climbing the stairs to the poor’s man garret, sitting by his bedside, feeling the same cold that pierces him, sharing the secret of his lonely heart and troubled mind. When the conditions of the poor have been examined, in school, at work, in hospital, in the city, in the country… it is then and then only, that we know the elements of that formidable problem, that we begin to grasp it and may hope to solve it.[1]

As you consider social issues that must be addressed in our time, how do you maintain a personalism consistent with our Vincentian mission? That is, how can you better recognize and respond to the unique personal circumstances of those affected, while also working at the same time for systemic change that addresses the root causes of their suffering?

How might this Vincentian approach apply given the context of your work in higher education? How might DePaul University better reflect such a way of being?

1) Raymond L. Sickinger, “Frédéric Ozanam: Systemic Thinking, and Systemic Change,” Vincentian Heritage 32:1 (2014), 8. Free to download at: https://‌via.‌library.‌depaul.‌edu/‌vhj/‌vol32/‌iss1/4/

 

Reflection by: Mark Laboe, Associate VP, Division of Mission and Ministry

 

DePaul’s former Clifton-Fullerton Hall was renamed Ozanam Hall this past summer. See the Newsline Article from July 23, 2020 for more information. 

 

Newsnote: Saint Vincent de Paul Society Centennial Holy Card (1833-1933)

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The Vincentiana collection at the Archives/Special Collections Department of DePaul University’s John Richardson LIbrary has recently acquired this example of a holy card celebrating the centennial (1833-1933) of the foundation of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

The image shows Frederic Ozanam ministering to the poor in whom he finds Christ. His work is blessed and inspired by Saint Vincent de Paul.

To the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Emulating Vincent

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Fr. Jack Melito, C.M., offers a reflection on the appropriate choice by Blessed Frederic Ozanam of Vincent de Paul as the patron of his fledgling society in the 19th Century.  For Frederic, Vincent served as a model who established a contact with the life and works of Jesus first of all.  Secondly, Vincent’s life and works provided an example that must be carried on by continuing those same works.  Finally, Vincent’s heart, that burned so vigorously in the service of the poor, was a heart that would enkindle the hearts and zeal of those who would carry on that work in Frederic’s day.

“To the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Emulating Vincent” is a chapter in the book Saint Vincent de Paul: His Mind and His Manner, published in 2010 by the Vincentian Studies Institute at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois.  Unfortunately, the book is currently out of print.