Patron of the poor

St. Vincent de Paul (1581-1660) was a French priest who identified and helped the poor of his time.

In 1605, while in Merseille off the southern coast of France, Turkish pirates abducted and shipped him to the northern coastal city of Tunis, Africa, selling him into slavery. In 1607 he escaped with his master, who had converted to Christianity.

Upon returning to France, Father Vincent began tutoring affluent families, which led him to witness the treatment and living conditions of convicts working manual labor as slaves in the galley ships at sea.

It was the inhumane treatment in the dungeons of their prisons when they weren’t serving on the ships–in places like Paris, Bordeaux, and Merseille–that disturbed Father Vincent.

Day after day chained by the leg and living on molded bread and water, the prisoners were often ill and covered in vermin.

Father Vincent began his work by visiting them, and eventually founded hospitals for them so they could receive humane care.

With the shortage of quality priests (heresy and corruption were rampant during this time in France), the saint also helped establish retreats for young men considering the priesthood, with philosophy and theology as required prerequisites for ordination.

This practice gave rise to the first seminaries in France.

Source: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15434c.htm.

Who were the poor in St. Vincent de Paul’s time in France?

The convicts and the ill-formed priests.

Who are today’s poor?

Today’s poor are much the same, though they exist in different forms.

Like France in the 1600’s, the poor in the United States are also the ignored outcasts of our society–the byproducts and throw-a-ways of today’s poisonous culture:

The dismembered preborn children and their post-abortive mothers and fathers, the elderly who are now legally being exterminated in eight states–Oregon, California, Washington, Colorado, New Mexico, New Jersey, Vermont and Maine–the drug-addicted and homeless, the confused and those in despair, and the abused and neglected children.

Source: https://deathwithdignity.org/states/.

Brokenness brought to Christ

Only Christ can heal these ills that infect our society.

Only, the people aren’t the “ills,” sin is. It is sin that leads to the degeneration and brokenness in our families.

St. Vincent de Paul wrote the remedy for such a widespread societal illness that is as applicable in our time as it was in his:

“Therefore, we must try to be stirred by our neighbours’ worries and distress. We must beg God to pour into our hearts sentiments of pity and compassion and to fill them again and again with these dispositions.”

Source: Divine Office Breviary, Liturgy of the Hours, September 27, 2022, https://www.universalis.com/-400/readings.htm.

And properly-placed compassion means only one thing: bringing people to Christ for restoration and regeneration by teaching them the truth in love.

St. Vincent de Paul, pray for us.