Principles Grounding Those Activities
Many principles guided Vincent's activities, but two especially lay at their ground. [22]
1. He listened to God's voice in events and people.
Many have pointed out the importance of events for Vincent. In fact, it is commonplace to talk about the "experience of Gannes-Folleville" and the "experience of Chโtillon." His conversion is not narrated in terms of a dramatic experience of grace occurring during prayer, but rather in terms of his realizing that God was speaking to him through tragic human situations: the miserable lot of the country poor, the abysmal education of the clergy, the abandoning of infants on the streets of Paris, the ravaging wars in the provinces.
Vincent also heard God's voice in persons. The peasant at Gannes, who made a startling deathbed confession to Vincent, became for him the voice of God calling him to found the Congregation of the Mission. The concerns expressed by the Bishop of Beauvais in 1628 were God's call to Vincent launching him on a lifetime of practical projects for the reform of the clergy.
2. He followed providence step by step.
"Grace has its moments" Saint (St) Vincent liked to say. [23] He was deeply convinced that God loves us, that he is father and mother [24] to us, and that he walks with us step by step. [25]
There are few themes that Vincent talks about more frequently than providence. He tells Louise de Marillac in 1634: "Follow the order of providence. Oh! How good it is to let ourselves be guided by it!" [26] At times, speaking of following God's providence, he urges others to moderate their indiscreet zeal. He tells Philippe Le Vacher:
"The good that God wishes to be done comes about almost by itself, without our thinking about it. That is the way the Congregation was born, that the missions and the retreats to ordinands began, that the Company of the Daughters of Charity came into being.... Mon Dieu! Monsieur, how I desire that you would moderate your ardor and weigh things maturely on the scale of the sanctuary before resolving them!" [27]
But at other times, in the name of the same providence, he urges confreres to act. In 1655 he tells Etienne Blatiron, the superior in Rome: "Do not stop pursuing our business, with confidence that it is God's good pleasure... Success in matters like this is often due to the patience and vigilance that one exercises... The works of God have their moment. His providence does them then, and not sooner or later... Let us wait patiently, but let us act...." [28]
Saint (St) Vincent sums up his esteem for God's providence in a lovely statement to Jean Barreau: "We cannot better assure our eternal happiness then by living and dying in the service of the poor, in the arms of providence, and with genuine renouncement of ourselves in order to follow Jesus Christ." [29]
Vincent as a contemplative.
"Providence as Courage for Renewal" Thomas McKenna, CM
It is easy to forget that many of his contemporaries regarded Vincent as a contemplative. Abelly writes that "his spirit was continually attentive to the presence of God." [30] He adds that a priest who knew Vincent well recalled seeing him contemplating for hours on end a crucifix held in his hands. If one is tempted to doubt the objectivity of Abelly's account, it may be helpful to examine Vincent's own words which, especially in unguarded moments, give us a glimpse of his heart.
In a conference to the Daughters of Charity, he tells the sisters that while contemplation is a gift from God, it is the normal issue of the spiritual life. He states that we engage in mental prayer and affective prayer by our own choice, but that we engage in contemplation only when we are grasped by God. It is very clear from his conferences that he regarded some of the Daughters of Charity as contemplatives. He encouraged them to become other St. Teresa's. [31] On July 24, 1660, when he spoke about the virtues of Louise de Marillac, he rejoiced at a sister's description of Louise: "As soon as she was alone, she was in a state of prayer." [32]
The naturalness with which Vincent speaks about contemplation is an indication that he himself was at ease in this world. Sometimes the thoughts that he expresses spontaneously give the same indication. A tiny note, found in his own handwriting, states:
"What then compares to the beauty of God, the source of all beauty and of the perfection of his creatures? Do not the flowers, the birds, the stars, the moon, and the sun borrow their attraction and their beauty from him?" [33]
Once, having been in a room lined with mirrors and seeing the movement of a fly reflected everywhere, he commented:
"If men have found a way to see everything that happens, even to the smallest movement of a tiny insect, how much more must we believe that we are always in the sight of the divine mirror of God's all-seeing vision." [34]
Vincent is eloquent at times when he talks about how he sees God. In explaining the first chapter of the Common Rules to the members of the Congregation of the Mission on December 13, 1658, he muses:
"Oh, if we had an eye sufficiently piercing to penetrate a little into the infinity of his excellence, O my God, O my brothers, what exalted sentiments of God should we not take away from it! We should say with St. Paul that eyes have not seen, nor ears heard, nor the mind of man conceived anything like it. God is an abyss of sweetness, sovereign and eternally glorious Being, an infinite Good embracing all that is good. Everything in him is incomprehensible." [35]
In speaking to his community of priests and brothers just a year and a half before his death, Vincent states:
The memory of the Divine Presence grows in the mind little by little and by his grace becomes habitual with us. We become, as it were, enlivened by this Divine Presence. My brothers, how many persons there are even in the world who almost never lose their sense of God's presence. [36]
Source: http://cm.famvin.org/en/whovincent3.htm |
