+ Vincent DePaul was born in 1581 in southwest France. A highly intelligent youth, he spent
four years being educated by Franciscans in Acq, France. While there he was
tutor to children of a gentleman in Acq. He began divinity studies in 1596 at
the University of Toulouse and was ordained a priest at age 20.
While on an ocean voyage,
Vincent was taken captive by Turkish pirates, and sold into slavery in Tunis.
He was freed in 1607 when he converted one of his owners to Christianity.
Returning to France, he served
as a parish priest near Paris where he started organizations to help the poor
and nurse the sick. He found jobs for the unemployed at the like. He met Christ
where he was truly to be found: “in the streets!” He became chaplain at the
court of Henry IV of France.
With St. Louise de Marillac,
he founded the Congregation of the
Daughters of Charity, and he instituted the Congregation of Priests of the Mission (Vincentians). He worked always for the poor, the enslaved and the
abandoned, the ignored: the pariahs of society!
Vincent DePaul died this date
in 1660 at Paris, France of natural causes at about 80 years of age. His body
was found incorrupt when exhumed in 1712. Finally, only his heart remaining
incorrupt it is now displayed in a reliquary in a chapel of the motherhouse of
the Sisters of Charity in Paris. He was canonized in 1737 by Pope Clement XII.
No doubt, Vincent DePaul would
have been highly thought of and favored by our current Pope Francis who insists
that we find Christ primarily not behind closed doors of chapels and
monasteries, but in the streets, among the poor, the destitute, the sick, the
lonely and the forgotten. His face gleams and shines brightly there, if only we
believe it, and take the time to look and to help! May we do so this day, in
imitation of St. Vincent DePaul, the Vincentian Fathers and the Daughters of
Charity!
I am
the good shepherd, says the Lord;
I know
my sheep and mine know me.
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