Introduction

The title that was suggested to me for this evening's talk, and one that I enthusiastically accepted, is Towards A Civilization Of Love And Justice.  This is quite an endeavor, an undertaking of the Church, a gospel mission, and an activity of a civilization of love that Popes since Vatican Council II articulated and disseminated with tireless tenacity.  I refer principally to Paul VI in Populorum Progressio (On the Development of Peoples), section 83 and John Paul II in Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (On Social Concern), section 33 and Novo Millennio Ineunte (At the Beginning of the New Millennium) section 58.   This is also a significant undertaking for our world as cited in moving speeches given at the United Nations in this very city.  It is a political agenda for all heads of government and an electoral activity for the citizens of every country.  Moreover, who among us would not rally around this topic?  Who would not want to make their way, individually and as a society, towards greater love and justice?  In saying this, I have the particular thought of your city tragically tested in September 2001 by the consequences of a lack of love and justice.

As we can see, the subject matter is broad and I must first define my topic and set its limits; but before doing this, allow me to express my joy and gratitude in being present here this evening.  Saint John's University is in fact a perfect setting to discuss such a topic, for Saint John's signifies acceptance, encounters, tolerance and fearlessness in initiatives of human and spiritual advancement... therefore, thank you, Father Harrington, for your invitation. Thank you, Father McKenna, this Province has direct links with Saint John's and thank you to each of the Trustees of Saint John's for this invitation that, through me, you have extended to all Daughters of Charity from Beijing to Kinshasa and from Warsaw to Buenos Aires.

Now I will return to my topic for this evening.  We are going to make a journey through the 19^th to the 21^st Centuries with a slight detour through the 17^th Century.  First, I am going to introduce a woman and a man from the 19^th Century whom most would consider individually, but together they achieved magnificent things.  Then we will go back in time to meet another man and another woman whom most would also regard individually but, together, they too, accomplished wonderful works.  My final section will bring us to our 21^st Century to look at what we can do together toward a civilization of justice and love.

PART ONE - FREDERIC AND ROSALIE IN THE 19^TH CENTURY

Sister Rosalie Rendu and Frederic Ozanam together worked for a civilization of love and justice.  Most would separate Rosalie Rendu (1786-1856), born to a simple and fervent Catholic family in the countryside of Confort (East Central region of France) and Frederic Ozanam (1813-1853), born in Milan to a good, educated, middle class Catholic family originally from Lyon.  One, after brief training, entered the Daughters of Charity and passed her life in service to those who are poor in the Mouffetard district of Paris.  The other had a remarkable European university career, married and was the proud father of little Marie.

What brought these two people together was their life activity and mission "towards a civilization of love and justice".  They were two exceptional people united by one same love of Christ and one same determination to serve Christ in those who are poor.

An Awareness

Jeanne-Marie, the future Sister Rosalie, was born in 1786.  The French Revolution had broken out in 1789 and during the troubled times that ensued, the family home received and hid hunted priests, one of whom was the Bishop of Annecy.  It was within this difficult religious climate that Jeanne-Marie grew up.  She desired to give herself to God and to serve God in persons who were poor.  On May 25, 1802, she entered the Seminary (novitiate) of the Daughters of Charity in Paris.  Shortly thereafter she was sent to a house in a very poor district of Paris where she devoted her life to alleviate the sufferings of all.

We are now among the working class of Paris.  The 19^th Century had been a time of birth and development of the great industries.  This also gave rise to new miseries and forms of poverty in the cities and towns, as so well described by Honoré de Balzac in La Comédie Humaine, Victor Hugo in Les Misérables and later on in the writings of Emile Zola.  During this time, industry rested on the principle of economic liberalism.  The relationship between employers and employees was not regulated or controlled.  This was to the detriment of those who were called "hand laborers".  Faced with this situation we see what was called "socialist ideas and thinking" forming in Europe.  Karl Marx's "Communist Manifesto" dated 1848 reveals this perspective.

An Encounter

During the days of rioting by a violently angry working class in July 1830 and February 1848 - the result of despair and inequality - barricades and bloody battles were the marks of opposition to the powerful.  Archbishop Affre, Archbishop of Paris, was killed trying to intervene between the fighting factions.  Sister Rosalie was deeply grieved and climbed the barricades to try and help the wounded fighters irrespective of the side they were fighting on.  Without any fear, she risked her life in these confrontations.  Her courage and sense of freedom commanded admiration.  When order was reestablished, she tried to save a number of the people she knew and who had become victims of fierce repression.  It was also Sister Rosalie who organized the assistance provided during the cholera epidemics of 1832 and 1846.

A Commitment

In this context and environment, Sister Rosalie's qualities of devotedness, natural authority, humility, compassion and organizational abilities would be revealed.  With her Sisters, she opened a free clinic, a pharmacy, a school, an orphanage, a childcare center, a youth club for young workers and a home for the elderly without resources.  Soon, an entire network of charitable works would be established to counter poverty.

This simple country girl, who was beatified by John Paul II in November 2003, became aware of poverty, desired to serve those who were deprived in the name of Christ and thus practiced Social Justice before the papal social justice encyclicals were written.

During the same century, around 1830, in the heart of Paris, there lived a group of young university students who were committed Catholics. They resided in a working class environment marked by the poverty of the beginnings of industry.  These young people were University students.  The most well known among them was Frederic Ozanam.  Frederic became a member of the influential academic community of the time. He earned two doctorates and spoke nine languages (Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian, English, German, Sanskrit and French).  He was a refined man with a strong spirit and great faith.

An Awareness

It was as a Catholic and a Christian that Frederic took action.  He was spurred on by a socialist fellow-student - "When will the Church stop courting the rich and take care of those who are poor?"  Frederic convinced his friends to move into action and thus the "Conference of Charity" came into being on April 23, 1833.  That day, Frederic celebrated his twentieth birthday.  He had founded, with some friends, what would become the Conferences of Saint Vincent de Paul, now called the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul.

An Encounter

When these five or six young men, who had preserved their faith from the antireligious influences of their day, wanted to put their storm tossed belief under the protection of charity, they sought out Sister Rosalie.  She knew them all and had already made several of them apprentices of her work.  She would tell them the families that needed to be visited (Viscount de Melun, "The Life of Sister Rosalie").  "My sons", she would say to them, "you will find great wants among many of those who are poor.  The world says not to love them... it is their fault that they are in desolation.  And thus we avoid the responsibility of charity" (A.M. Carranza, "Ozanam and His Contemporaries").

A Commitment

Sister Rosalie, from a rural background, was urged by the same spiritual love for those who were poor as the young academic educated in the big cities of Lyon and Paris.  Sister Rosalie was involved on the battlefield.  She was directly grappling with the consequences of social injustice.  Frederic was an academic, able to rise above the causes of injustice, expose them, and seek to remedy them.  He put into writing what Sister Rosalie practiced.

On November 13, 1836, Frederic wrote to his childhood friend Louis Janmot, "The greatest question which is agitating the world today is neither one of the form of government nor of persons; it is a social question.  It is a struggle between those who have nothing and those who have too much; it is the violent clash of opulence and poverty, which is shaking the ground under our feet.  Our duty as Christians is to throw ourselves between those two camps in order to help accomplish through Charity what Justice alone cannot do."

Frederic Ozanam, a Professor at the Sorbonne University in Paris, began a newspaper called "The New Era" ("l'Ère Nouvelle") wherein he would present his new and modern ideas that sometimes appeared revolutionary; and yet he was perfectly clear-sighted.  He saw the birth of a new world; he wanted Christians to be pioneers in the struggle for Social Justice. 

On April 19, 1848, he wrote in "The New Era":  "When the God-Man pronounced these words, 'You are all brothers (and sisters)... I have come, not to be served but to serve... whoever wants to rank first among you must serve the needs of all,' He provided the foundations for a new society which, by on-going development and continuous progress, was to lead to modern democracy."  Frederic addressed the political leaders of his day with a freedom of speech that still seems relevant today: "We respect the extent and difficulty of your responsibilities, but you have achieved nothing if you neglect the tremendous question of misery and distress that continues to move forward."

PART TWO: VINCENT AND LOUISE IN THE 17^TH CENTURY

As I mentioned earlier, we are now going to make a two century detour back in time to meet two people whom most would regard separately but, who, like Sister Rosalie and Dr. Ozanam, worked together to relieve the great misery and distress of their time.

An Awareness

Vincent de Paul once stated, "The poor people of the countryside are dying from hunger and are damned".  Vincent de Paul, a peasant who became a priest, decided to place his entire life and efforts at the service of those who are poor.  Thus, in 1617, coming from his awareness of needs, he founded the "Confraternities of Charity" (the 'Ladies of Charity' and today are called the 'International Association of Charity" - the AIC) and in 1625 the Congregation of the Mission (Vincentian Priests and Brothers). 

An Encounter

In the 1620's, the priest Vincent de Paul was asked to provide spiritual direction to a young widow of the aristocracy, Louise de Marillac.  Louise admitted to having hesitated in placing herself under the direction of a priest whose origins and social journey had been so very different from her own.  Yet, from this encounter sprang forth the most remarkable collaboration and accomplishments.  To a seemingly depressed and anxious woman, Vincent offered a commitment to charity and caring for and about others.  He began by offering her modest activities, "Please do me the favor of sending two or three shirts, ...Please send four more shirts... ." (Letters from 1627).  Then Vincent asked his directee to be responsible for visiting the Confraternities of Charity in Paris and in other more distant areas.  Louise would see, with her own eyes, the immense misery and distress of those who were poor in the cities and in the countryside.  Her awareness had been awakened and her executive ability responded.

A new and decisive stage was developing in Louise's life.  She felt it was time to bring together the young "servants of the poor" that the Ladies of the Confraternities of Paris were sending as their replacements to the homes of those who were poor.  Louise wanted to unite them in her home to provide training and spiritual formation and live a life in common.  After being held back for a time, Vincent gave her "the green light" for this endeavor.  The Company of the Daughters of Charity was born November 29, 1633, two centuries before the first Conference of Charity of Frederic Ozanam and his companions.

A Commitment

            From then on, and continuing for almost 30 years, Vincent and Louise's collaboration opened the way for the most diverse initiatives of their day - home visits of those who were sick, visiting "convicted" prisoners, adoption of foundlings (about 400 a year), hospitals, schools... and the list goes on.  The only criteria for these initiatives were those concerning poverty:  "You have a vocation which obliges you to help, without any discrimination, all sorts of persons, men, women, children, and in general all persons who are poor and in need of your assistance..." (Coste, Conferences to the Daughters of Charity, January 6, 1658, p. 1028).

One Same Love

Love of Christ and love of those who were poor energized Vincent and Louise.  They were both, at the same time, mystics and realists.  Eight months after Louise had gathered the first Daughters of Charity together, Vincent instructed them saying, "...serving those who are poor is going to God and you should see God in them" (Coste, Conferences to the Daughters of Charity, July 31, 1634, p. 4).

Those who are poor are God's preferred ones, the preferential ones.  "Make God known to those who are poor...," stated Saint Vincent to his Missionaries, "...and announce Jesus Christ to them; tell them that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand and that it is for the them" (Coste, Conferences to the Congregation of the Mission, December 6, 1658, p. 602).

This has been the Gospel for two thousand years.

PART THREE: AND WHERE IS THIS GOSPEL IN THE THIRD MILLENNIUM?

"The poor you will always have with you."  These words of Jesus can be understood in many ways.  My context this evening is that it illustrates what we see all around us, the everyday images of our world as presented by the Media... or as the everyday faces of the misery and suffering seen with our own eyes, as lived in New York, Paris, Bombay and Beijing or as observed in venturing into the jungles of Africa or Amazonia.  All of these marginalized people of our society, in large cities and those in the remotest of areas, are a living criticism of our 21^st century, a century that rightly prides itself in so many scientific and technological conquests and progress. 

Are not the sentiments of Saint Vincent de Paul and Saint Louise de Marillac regarding the material and spiritual misery and distress of the 17^th Century current for today?  Would Rosalie and Frederic find situations to devote themselves to today?  Many, in following them, have continued in their footsteps.  First, allow me to simply give some examples of the work of the Company of the Daughters of Charity and then present you, present all of us, with an appeal that will conclude my presentation.

The Daughters are international and are present today in 93 countries.  (Much like your own University community with student representation from 96 countries.)  Like Louise, Rosalie and many others from the 17^th Century to our present day, thousands have heard the call of Christ and have entered our Company (Congregation/Society of Apostolic Life) to give themselves to God, in Community, for the service of those who are poor.  These sentiments - given to God, in Community, to serve those who are poor - almost the same as those of the 17^th Century, bring out what is essential.  The Charism, the distinctive purpose has not changed, but its expression from the 17^th to the 21^st Centuries has evolved.

The Charism, the sense of service in the Company, remains the same: coming to the aid of those who suffer, for within them we see the suffering face of Christ - "... what you did for one of my least brothers or sisters..." (Matthew 25: 40).  Perhaps it would be best to quote from our rule of life, our Constitutions and Statutes to make this point.  "One same love inspires and directs their contemplation and their service; through faith, they know that God awaits them in those who suffer." (C.1.4) The Daughters of Charity draw their energy from prayer and renewal in the Eucharist so as to "always act with gentleness, cordiality and compassion," to use the words of Saint Vincent.

Naturally, our service has evolved since the 17^th and 19^th Centuries.  The Sisters try to balance the use of the most recent technological advances while seeking the financial assistance of a great number of benefactors in order to provide quality services.  Allow me to give you a couple of examples to illustrate this.

1.  The Children Of The "Charity Classes" In Vietnam

Our Community provides children who have no schooling with free "charity classes" as well as school uniforms, books, school materials and a good lunch.  These classes are for primary school children between the ages of seven and fifteen.  It was difficult to get this work started because the children had to earn money to support their family and school was secondary.

Only 62% of the children go to school. I think the real percentage of attendance is, in fact, lower because State schools do not give free tuition and many people who are poor do not have the money to send their children to them.

We help families to overcome this difficult situation by teaching the children.  Education is the only way to help them escape from ignorance and destitution.  We think that the person who cannot read or write is condemned to ongoing poverty and this situation creates new problems for the family and for society in general.  Today, thanks to the "charity classes" there are some children who even go on to university while others are able to earn a living, most of them retaining the spirit of the "charity classes," which is loyalty, charity and mutual sharing.

To promote a good relationship with the families of the children they support and teach, the Daughters of Charity and the teachers visit the pupils in their homes.  These visits have to be made between 8 and 9 p.m.  Sometimes they come across very moving situations, for example: the father is paralysed, the mother has tuberculosis, the eldest son is a drug addict and the grandmother has to do domestic work in order to feed five little ones and the two sick adults.

In the "charity classes" the teachers give themselves wholeheartedly to the children, with no thought for their time or their own health: they try to give these children the love they have been deprived of and to bring some human dignity into a situation of poverty where people are marginalised.  But the teachers also find a meaning in their own life as they educate these stray children through their devoted work, the understanding they show, their smiles of encouragement, all this given in a great spirit of love and service.

"Multiple are the forms of poverty and multiple the forms of service, but one is the love that God bestows on those whom he has called and assembled." (C. 1.8)

Those who are poor are always at our door, in our streets, in the hospitals, in our houses: they are men, women and children seeking happiness and very often they have a hunger for the Absolute, a thirst for God.  We are happy to show them a little tenderness as we try always to see in them the face of Christ.

2. Formation And Education Of Mothers In Morocco

We try to get mothers to understand that they have to take care of their babies by introducing them to the basic concepts of hygiene and nutrition.  We also teach them about childhood illnesses such as gastroenteritis, and skin complaints (ringworm, scabies, parasites...) showing them how to deal with these and what they should do to ensure the well-being of the child and of their family.  We stress the need for order and cleanliness in the home and we speak to them about their concerns and their aspirations. 

In the waiting room at the Centre, we hold literacy classes for married women.  We also teach them to sew so that they can keep clothes in good repair.  We know that education is the best thing we can offer them.

The town authorities authorised us to start a health service in the rural area south of Ksar el Kebir, about 10 km away from the village.  The people themselves helped us to dig a well and build a mini-dispensary measuring 24-26 sq m.

For two years, two Sisters were working there with no running water and no lighting.  We had to bring water in bottles from our house because the water in the well is not drinkable.  It was very small but at least it was a starting point for our work with this rural community where the people were struggling on their own against health problems, the difficulty of providing schooling for the children, and starting literacy classes.  The adults in this rural community have practically no financial resources.

The Lord has prepared wonderful ground for us to teach these people human and spiritual values, to offer them our friendship, and to make them aware of their dignity and the very important role they can have in society.  We help them towards self-awareness and to development as free and mature women in their religion and their culture.  The work we do here demands from us: the ability to listen, a welcoming attitude, kindness, generosity, sincerity, approachability, respect and dependability. 

These two examples, chosen from among many, are symbolic of the proximity, the closeness of the Daughters of Charity to those whom we have the honour of serving.

Conclusion

"History is the teacher of life" and what we have spoken about this evening brings us quite obviously to the future.  I mentioned earlier an appeal to listen together.  This appeal, this call has been sent forth for two millennia by Jesus Christ and is found in the prophesy of Isaiah as read by Christ in Luke's Gospel:  "The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me.  He has sent me to bring the good news to those who are poor..." (Luke 4:18).

This is a call that has been taken up throughout the centuries by the Church.  During Saint Vincent's time, his disciple, Bishop Bossuet, stood before the King of France and his Court and used the words "the eminent dignity of those who are poor." In Rosalie's day, the Archbishop of Paris died on the barricades built by a starving people.

In our present day, Pope John Paul II has said to the Daughters of Charity, "In a time of computers, do we know the exact worldwide number of those who are illiterate, the number of abandoned children, those who are malnourished... or people living in shanty towns?  Dear Sisters, have eyes and heart only for those who are poor" (January 11, 1980).

And finally, who can we best listen to, here and now at Saint John's University, than this same John Paul II in his Apostolic Exhortation "Ecclesia in America" given to the Church of the Americas on February 7, 1999:  "The Church in America must incarnate in her pastoral initiatives the solidarity of the universal Church towards those who are poor and those who are outcast of every kind... Concern for those most in need springs from a decision to love them in a special manner (Section 58).  'I am with you always, even to the end of time' (Matthew 28:20).  Trusting in this promise of the Lord, the pilgrim Church in America prepares enthusiastically to meet the challenges of today's world and those that will come in the future" (Section 75).

With such assurance and brought together through and in Christ, how can we not become committed to help build a "civilization of love and justice"?

Together, this evening, we have noted how awareness was awakened in Rosalie and Frederic and Vincent and Louise.  We have heard how the hand of God led Rosalie to encounter Frederic and Vincent to encounter Louise thus leading all of them to encounter Christ in those who were poor.  And how, from this awareness and encounter sprang forth a life commitment that transformed each of them and the world around them in moving "towards a civilization of love and justice."    Now I am turning to you, everyone here present:

-        representatives of the Vincentian Family (members of the AIC/Ladies of Charity, Vincentian Priests and Brothers, Daughters of Charity, Vincentian brothers and sisters of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul)

-        representatives of Saint John's University - Trustees, Faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students and alumni

-        friends of the Vincentian Family, Saint John's University, and the Vincentian Center for Church and Society

I am turning to you with these words.  All of you are, in some way, a part of, connected to or acquainted with this institution that is vibrantly academic, American, Catholic and Vincentian.  The hallmarks of education for charity/love, justice, service and advocacy, inherited from the past, are already moving you towards a civilization of love and justice.  I now ask you to go deeper into the lives of Vincent, Louise, Rosalie and Frederic and imitate their energy and steadfastness.  Together let us make the goal of moving "towards a civilization of love and justice" our first, our primary commitment in life.

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