"St. Vincent left a wonderful gift within the Church. He has placed it, to a large extent, in your hands and in mine. Pass it on to the young." (Bob Maloney to theVincentian Family)
Indeed, Vincent left a wonderful gift to the Church.
We all know and appreciate his passion for the poor. His foundations came out of his passion for the poor.
Vincent was also a genius in organizing and networking. His passion for the poor expressed itself through an empowering humilty that invited others to share their gifts. As Bob reminds us,
"St. Vincent was adamant about this. Few saints are as concrete as Vincent de Paul. He realized that effective evangelization and service of the poor would require organization. To accomplish this end, Vincent created numerous lay groups ("The Charities") and founded two communities.
"He brought the same organizational skills to the formation of the clergy. He felt that the poor would be served well only if there were good priests to minister to them, and, to that end, he organized retreats for ordinands and priests, the Tuesday Conferences, and founded 20 seminaries.
"Nor did he stop there. He marshalled all of the resources he could find in the service of the poor: young and old, men and women, clergy and lay, the rich and the poor themselves. The seeds of his organizational gifts have continued to spread even to this day through the countless lay members of AIC, the St. Vincent de Paul Society, the Miraculous Medal Association, the Vincentian Marian Youth groups, and the more than 260 institutes founded in St. Vincent's spirit."
Sometimes we are too familiar with his individual accomplishments to see his genius and relevance to today. This could in effect be a kind of blindness to the power of this charism as we enter the new millennium.
Sometimes I wonder whether his genius at networking is a kind of "forgotten truth" about Vincent.
The truth is that he was convinced that others shared his vision and would be generous in their response to needs. "The poor suffer less from a lack of generosity than from a lack of organization."
The truth is that he was humble enough to ask others to help. He was not wedded to any messianic delusions, tendencies of thinking that he had to do it on his own.
The truth is that he was adept at involving others in what he saw needed to be done. He found his strength in accepting his limitations.
The truth is that so often he had the courage and the skill to walk where none had walked before. Over 375 years ago he gave women a role in the church by organizing female charitable organizations. "I have wished to give women a ministry in the Church, the ministry of charity" and again "For more or less eight hundred years women have had no public occupation in the Church. Now this same providence is appealing to some of you." (as quoted in "Like a Great Fire")
"How conscious have we been of his legacy?" is a question that needs to be asked and answered.
We have long been noted for our practical, hands-on concern for the poor. We can be grateful for this heritage which is manifested in so many ways today. One of our cousins, Sr. Theresa Capria, SC commented that in her experience "whenever 'Vincentians' get together they click and understand each other. They speak the same language of practicality. The DNA is there."
And why not? We have all been nurtured on the words "Let us love God but let it be with the sweat of our brows and the strength of our arms."
With our sense of practicality we now seem to be realizing that our service will be all the more effective to the extent we collaborate. There is a growing realization that our sweat will bear more fruit if we join hands.
To the degree we understand this aspect of Vincent we will be challenged to be more than "lone rangers" whether individually or as a Congregation in the midst of the wider family of followers of Vincent.
Vincent's gift of passionate yet humble networking and organizing corresponds to today's spirit and needs. Once again Bob suggests a "sign of the times".
"The third millennium will be the millennium of solidarity, of networking. It will also be the millennium of the laity, as Pope John Paul II has already proclaimed on numerous occasions." (Missionary, p. 24)
John Paul II once wrote to the Bishops of France:
"Many priests suffer from being on their own, from facing tasks which are beyond their strength, and this is understandable. But have they known how, through their trustfulness, to create a climate which would allow the laity to offer their help? It seems to me that you still need to aid your priests, who in other respects are so laudable, toward a better understanding of their role as animators."
In this Vincent was well ahead of his time and is still relevant to today.
What a common sense approach backed by a renewed ecclesiology and echoed by our documents.
Vincent's genius strikes me not only as a gift in keeping with the new millenium we are moving into. It is also one that is desperately needed.
Look at the four givens highlighted by Bob in his address during the week the wider family gathered in Rome.
Do we need a clearer summary of both the need for organization and the resources at our disposal?
This is what I am sure is behind Bob's statement
"... one of the great challenges for the third millennium must be collaborative projects. These are already taking place in many, even most, of your countries. I encourage you to join forces all the more in the future. " (Address to Family, p. 23)
Vincent's gift can be fire for the 21st century if we will seize it. Vincent's gift is to a large extent in our hands
The "laborers are few but the harvest is great" It is no secret that our numbers are declining in the Eastern Province... and indeed in the Northern hemisphere. But remember the size of the Congregation at the time of Vincent's death and how it spread. The Eastern Province has just about the same number today.
We risk doing a disservice both to the poor and to the early followers of Vincent if we do not use this gift and pass it on to the young.
Do we have the courage and daring to work collaboratively to bring this fire to the 21st century? Will we use it? Will we pass it on?
Can we find in these documents the fuel we need to keep this fire burning?
The answer is up to us.
What about the General Assembly and its Final Document?
It was an enriching and powerful experience for those who were there. But what of the documents it produced? It almost seems as if "the mountain labored and brought forth a mouse." The final document of the Assembly hardly seems filled with fire or explosive material.
It can be summed up very handily under the sketchy rubrics of Challenges, Convictions and Commitments. Simple and clear enough!... But I must confess, the document, at first reading, is not very exciting or stimulating reading. One can read them very quickly and take the impression that the next steps are primarily the business of the Curia and Provincials.
However, beneath its prosaic style is a deceptively radical and powerful document. It speaks the truth that together we can do what separately we can not.
As I reread and indeed studied it, I found myself moving from frustration at how meager the result of the Assembly seemed to an excited realization that if we take this document seriously we will bring the fire of Vincent to the 21st century and the poor he was so touched by.
The document speaks of a prophetic stance but not the kind of prophetic stance that we identify with dramatic confrontations.
Ultimately, confrontations, no matter how dramatic, are of little value if nothing occurs as a result. Rather, prophets call us to organize our lives in a way that makes it possible for us to take up the challenge gtiven to us by God - that of taking sides with the poor and those cast aside and forgotten by the powers that be.
The prophetic challenge in this document is throughly Vincentian and is also as understated as Vincent himself was wont to be. When prophecy is based in love it becomes less dramatic and more effective.
It contains the kind of power that Vincent unleased in his time. It is this spirit that I find in the document. It calls for concrete and effective actions in the face of ills that seem to overwhelm us.
Vincent was the truly effective prophet. He was not a systems theorist but simply one of the great systems activists of all times. Vincent did not get side-tracked on the path of simple denunciation. Vincent followed the path from denunciation to constructive proclamation, from protest to witness. He worked beyond the limits of his strength always enlarging the circle of those serving the needs of his beloved poor. Vincent lived by the simple self-evident truth that together we can do what we can not do separately.
The General Assembly has embodied the spirit and implications of this truth in two areas - collaboration and formation which are the life force of the 5 areas of commiment called for in the Final Document:
The document reminds us of the expanding "circle of poverty "and the new forms of poverty. It also challenges us to expand the "circle of solidarity" and to be more profoundly Vincentian in unleashing the fire of Vincent's gift through the power of collaboration.The document becomes exciting when this inner logic and it implications begin to sink in.
The inner logic reveals itself especially when this document is read in the light of Bob Maloney's three addresses to the Assembly - he State of the Congregation", "The Vincentian Family" and his "Closing Address". The Final Document picks up Bob's insight into the possibilities of collaboration and formation.
Collaboration is the key to unleashing its fire. The genius of Vincent is well summed up in the thought that the poor do not suffer from a lack of generosity but from lack of organization. It is probably not so much a question for us of adding works but of "working smarter" in works we are already engaged in.
As I travel in my capacity of fostering family collaboration, I have been impressed by how other branches "love what he loved and practice what he taught." I am amazed at how many areas of potential overlap there might be in our efforts.
In terms of direct service, collaboration calls for us to avoid reduplication and reinventing the wheel. More positively it opens wide the doors to more effective service.
In terms of working for the long term solutions and the structural change as John Paul II challenged us, the effectiveness of our advocacy can be geometrically multiplied when we as a family unite around common issues whether at the local, regional or international level. As Vincentians we are challenged not to merely rescue people from the river but to go upstream and find out who or what is throwing them in.
There will no doubt be new possibilities for direct service and advocacy of structural change arising from collaboration. Do we not have a heritage in our genes of "creativity unto infinity"? In this new millenium should not collaboration be the special focus of our creativity?
It would almost seem a scandal if we do not use this gift which is our for the taking.
There is a special kind of formation which is required for creative collaboration
We have grown up in isolation from other members of the family. We don't know one another and in some cases have unreflected biases hidden in our hearts. Sr. Gertrude Foley, former Regional Superior of the Greensburg Sisters of Charity , says it well
"I believe that the idea of building a network among Vincentians, Daughters and Sisters of Charity, Ladies of Charity, and the St. Vincent dePaul Society is to restore something essential in our tradition. The centuries that saw the separation of our efforts were a detour on our journey. Many historical events can account for these separations and distinctions, and as St. Vincent would say, it is all in God's Providence." (Presentation to "Vincentian Visioning 2000" at St. John's University, April 19, 1997)
It is as if, now that the siblings have grown up, it is time for us to rediscover and honor our common heritage.
Some may see this as an added burden which will get in the way of doing the real work of our ministry. Rather if we invest the time it will allow us to to do this work much more effectively. A case of spending time to save time.
We can not collaborate with people we do not know. So now it is necessary to make extra efforts to get to know one another. This will entail going beyond our current definitions and horizons of the meaning of "Vincentian".
Many of us grew up in the era of reading the spirituality of Rodriguez and a more or less Jesuit based formation. Lately we have come to rediscover the richness of our Vincentian heritage. But I suspect we have not yet recovered an awareness of the kind of atmosphere the early CM'S breathed. Just look at the close collaboration of Vincent and Louise.
In our formation, whether initial or ongoing, we need to pay attention to this "forgotten truth" about Vincent and his followers
This will entail a formation which will also foster learning the skills of collaboration.
Above all it will call for conversion to collaboration. The Final Document makes this explicit when it says
"We recognize, as members of the Congregation of the Mission, the need for a change of heart if we are to collaborate generously with other members of the Vincentian Family and so recognize the gifts and talents of others in promoting the reign of God." (p. 5)
This is an ongoing task. I do not mean to imply we have not been collaborating. This is not a new task. I merely wish to underscore the importance of refining our skills. Without this we could degenerate into a Pharisaical self-justifying reciting to each other of all that we do.
Given our lack of contact with one another it is important to create conditions for contact The very first steps would involve identifying the other members of the family who work in our locality if not already known. Then there needs to be contact. We need to learn their stories and share ours.
To me it was striking that when Bob was asked publicly at the General Assembly what he did for his own ongoing formation as Superior General he immediately responded that it was in listening to confreres and family members around the world that he learned the most.
There are so many different ways Vincent's charism is being refracted by individuals and various branches. As we share our stories effective and creative collaboration will follow.
This Jubilee Year provides a special context and motivation for responding to this call for conversion. It is a great opportunity as the entire church reflects on the passage from Luke which we regard as foundational in Vincent's life.
The Congregation of the Mission stands in tradition of jubilee and perhaps we have here another forgotten truth.
Is not the foundational text of the Congregation the same as that of the Jubilee?
"One of the principal scriptural texts in our own Vincentian tradition is precisely a jubilee text. We find it in the prophet Isaiah (61:2). Jesus used it at the beginning of his public ministry (Lk 4:18 19). And St. Vincent made its first words the motto of the Congregation of the Mission. We all know the text by heart:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; therefore he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor; to proclaim liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind and release to prisoners, To announce a year of favor from the Lord.
Notice that Jesus' mission, and ours too, is to announce the jubilee, 'a year of favor from the Lord.'
Lent will provide an opportunity to deepen our conversion to a specifically Vincentian way of ministry. We can use this season of conversion as a time to own our own poverty and limitations and be converted to a deeper spirit of collaboration.
The General Assembly lends the weight of the gathered representatives of the worldwide congregation to this call for collaboration. In Rome we gathered together as 119 confreres from 50 provinces in 37 countries. Whatever the differences among us there was no doubt about our common commitment to the poor.
As we were touched by the stories told by other followers of Vincent during the week of the family in Rome, a conviction grew. The majority of the delegates began to see the power inherent in collaboration.
Once that fact was realized it was not long before some saw the enormous possibilities. Like entrepeneurs who look at a piece of property and see so much more that is possible, the delegates and the leadership of each of the groups glimpsed what could well be the defining vision of Vincent's charism as we move into the new millenium.
Its central insight is as simple as it is bold. "together we can do what separately we can not". Together with the Vincentian Family we members of the Eastern Province can make some real strides to "renew the face of the earth" in the area in which we labor.
In this we echo the AIC (as the International Association of the Ladies of Charity is called) motto "together against all forms of poverty" It invites us to look at the world and our Vincentian world differently.
It also echoes the words spoken in 1995 by Eugene Smith, then National Vice-President, Saint Vincent de Paul Society, as he raised some powerful questions. He asked can we:
It does seem to me that the answer ought to be yes.
Perhaps we are faced with something of a Copernican shift, in that the Congregation of the Mission sees itself as part of the Vincentian universe rather than as the sun around which the other branches of the family revolve. We are no longer "lone rangers" but part of a family inspired by the same vision bringing different gifts and insights to the tasks at hand. We must come to see ourselves as animators and players in a symphony led by the spirit rather than as soloists playing our own tune.
I know that as I reflect on my own experience of being a Vincentian I have moved through various understandings of what it means. At the risk of oversimplfying my own pilgrimage I am beginning to name a shift from at least impliciting thinking of myself as a priest who was attracted to Vincentians as a youth and happened to become a Vincentian to being a Vincentian who is called to serve the poor as a priest with others inspired by the gift of Vincent - Vincentians.
Paul's analogy of the body jumps to mind here. All parts of the body need each other. There is one body.
The General Assembly invites us to look at the Basic Thrust of our province through the lens of collaboration.
If we live this we can truly bring the fire of Vincent to a broken world. Against this backdrop I personally was very moved by some passages from Bob's closing address.
"There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat; and we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures." (Julius Ceasar, Shakespeare Act 4, Scene 3).
"As we end this Assembly, my brothers, I encourage you to seize the tide. Seize this time of grace. Seize the momentum that is building up in our Vincentian Family to move forward as a peaceful army, uniting our energies in concrete works of charity and justice in the service of the poor. "Grace has its moments," St. Vincent tells us (SV II, 453). Can we together seize this moment to grow as a family in a profound Vincentian spirituality and to formulate collaborative projects in which we stand with and work with those who are most abandoned, for their own integral human development?" (p. 27)
What's next? There a many implications at the International and Provincial level which others have responsibility for.
What kind of commitments are we called to make at the local and personal level?
At the local level we are called to evaluate our projects and structures in terms of:
We are called to create conditions for collaboration, coordinate what is already happening and plan specific new projects if called for.
On the personal level we are called to a "change of heart" whose significance goes beyond structural initiatives and changes. Without grappling with the Copernican shift in our view of the Vincentian universe we are simply moving deck chairs. Let us not fall into thinking that now that the Assembly is over we can go about business as usual. The church was forever changed after the Vatican Council. The Congregation should be forever changed after the Assembly of 1998.
As Bob writes so passionately
"I urge you to go forth with renewed vigor, filled with the conviction that God is calling our family to deepen our commitment to follow Christ as the evangelizer and servant of the poor, to sink deeper roots into his person, to resonate with his passion for the truth, to listen humbly with him to the cries of the poor and the calls of the Church, and to formulate and carry out concrete, practical, collaborative projects that will really make a difference in the lives of the most abandoned.
"Go forth, my brothers, with peace and joy. There is a tide in our Vincentian Family. Seize it as a moment of grace." (Bob Maloney, Closing Address, p. 29)
Some questions for reflection:
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