Fr. Jack Melito, C.M., writes of Vincent de Paul’s humble origins: how these served as an embarrassment early in Vincent’s life away from home, and then as a hedge against pride later on. His great works, Vincent presented as “little”: The Little Company of humble origins; the little virtues of simplicity, humility, meekness, mortification and zeal; his “little method” of preaching. Vincent never wanted to remember where he came from when he was a youth; but, as an adult, he never forgot where he came from.
Lecture Topic: Vincent de Paul, the Lazarist Mission, and French Catholic Reform offers a major re-assessment of the thought and activities of the most famous figure of the seventeenth-century French Catholic Reformation, Vincent de Paul. Confronting traditional explanations for de Paul’s prominence in the dévot reform movement that emerged in the wake of the Wars of Religion, the volume explores how he turned a personal vocational desire to evangelize the rural poor of France into a congregation of secular missionaries, known as the Congregation of the Mission or the Lazarists, with three inter-related strands of pastoral responsibility: the delivery of missions, the formation and training of clergy, and the promotion of confraternal welfare. Alison Forrestal further demonstrates that the structure, ethos, and works that de Paul devised for the Congregation placed it at the heart of a significant enterprise of reform that involved a broad set of associates in efforts to transform the character of devotional belief and practice within the church. The central questions of the volume therefore concern de Paul’s efforts to create, characterize, and articulate a distinctive and influential vision for missionary life and work, both for himself and for the Lazarist Congregation, and Forrestal argues that his prominence and achievements depended on his remarkable ability to exploit the potential for association and collaboration within the dévotenvironment of seventeenth-century France in enterprising and systematic ways.
This is the first study to assess de Paul’s activities against the wider backdrop of religious reform and Bourbon rule, and to reconstruct the combination of ideas, practices, resources, and relationships that determined his ability to pursue his ambitions. A work of forensic detail and complex narrative, Vincent de Paul, the Lazarist Mission, and French Catholic Reform is the product of years of research in ecclesiastical and state archives. It offers a wholly fresh perspective on the challenges and opportunities entailed in the promotion of religious reform and renewal in seventeenth-century France.
Speaker Bio: Alison Forrestal, Acting Head and Lecturer in History, School of Humanities, National University of Ireland, Galway. She is Lecturer in Early Modern History at the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG), having previously held lectureships at Durham University and the University of Warwick. She is the author of multiple publications on the Catholic Reformation, including the monographs Catholic Synods in Ireland, 1600-1690 (1998), and Fathers, Pastors and Kings: Visions of Episcopacy in Seventeenth-Century France(2004), and the co-edited volumes Politics and Religion in EarlyBourbon France (2009), and The Frontiers of Mission: Perspectives on Early Modern Missionary Catholicism (2016).
In this meditation, Fr. Jack Melito, C.M., focuses on the virtue of Simplicity as understood and lived by Vincent de Paul. Experiencing the God of the Universe while living a life of Simplicity reveals to the practitioner the efficacious nature of that virtue. In whatever age, a life ordered by the virtue of Simplicity is a life readily identified as countercultural.
Alison Forrestal talks about her book on Vincent de Paul which assesses de Paul’s activities against the wider backdrop of early modern Catholic religious reform. The book will be available in May 2017 through Oxford University Press.
The Vincentian Question, “What Shall Be Done?” is framed in such a way that its answer implies action. When offering guidance on Charity to his confreres, the Daughters, the Confraternities, and to us, Vincent is clear: “Love of God and of neighbor is authenticated in visible action.” Charity is the true characteristic of the Love of God; it cannot remain idle. In fact, a life dedicated to Charity demands fearless, unending work involving the “sweat of our brows and the expense of our arms.
For Vincent de Paul, the virtue of Humility served as a foundational one without which we have nothing. It requires us to avoid self-aggrandizement, self-advancement, and seeking the praise of others. At the same time, however, it encourages our recognition of the gifts we have been given so long as we remember that we bear these gifts so that God may use them for God’s own purposes. Vincent counsels superiors in his community to be models of humility in dealing with those subject to their authority.
Guest-curated by Rev. Edward R. Udovic, CM, PhD, as a companion to Four Saints in Three Acts, this special exhibition of 19th century sculptures, holy cards, textiles, decorative arts and prints from the university’s collection will explore how Romanticism impacted the iconographic representations of Saint Vincent de Paul (1581-1660), at the dawn of the modern era.
In this Visiting Artist Series the School of Cinematic Arts partners with the Office of Mission and Values to explore the pressing challenges of forced migration. After watching segments from Frontline’s EXODUS that explores the first person accounts of the treacherous journeys that refugees from Syria endure, Kim Lamberty from Catholic Relief Services and Rev. Craig Mousin from DePaul University will share their experience and expertise working directly with people who have largely been forgotten.
This article explores essential New Testament texts about the cross, its meaning in Vincentian tradition, and problems in reflecting about the cross. The cross is the symbol of God’s love for humanity as well as his power, as evidenced in the resurrection and Jesus’s victory over sin. Moreover, Jesus’s choice to die as an outcast is part of his focus on the marginalized during his life. Sometimes the cross refers to actual suffering that believers must undergo, but is more often used metaphorically to refer to what people must do to follow Jesus. Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac encouraged the contemplation of the cross as a symbol of God’s love and saw service to the poor as identifying with the cross in that sense. Their nuanced views on suffering, asceticism, and mortification are explained. Examples of beneficial ascetical practices are given. The theological problem of God’s relationship to suffering is discussed. Texts are offered for Vincentians and Daughters of Charity to use in meditation, and the forms the cross takes in the lives of both are listed. Finally, readers are urged to respond to suffering in the world because it is a reflection of the crucified Christ.
It is also available as a chapter in the ebook He Hears the Cry of the Poor: On the Spirituality of Vincent de Paul (pp. 30-51) by Robert P. Maloney, C.M., available here: https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentin_ebooks/2/