TAKE THE FIRST STEP

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Vincent de Paul. On April 23, 1833, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul was founded by Frédéric Ozanam and six companions.   Most American Catholics have heard of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.   For over 170 years, it has been present to the needy among us. 

In a very real sense, the ultimate mission of St. Vincent de Paul, as well as the society that bears his name, began in 1617.   St. Vincent heard about a local family where everyone was sick and without any means of help. Although his parish responded with abundant kindness for this unfortunate family, the family needed help beyond immediate care.   So Vincent established the first of many societies that bear his name. 

According to Butler’s Lives of the Saints, “Into [this first society], he wove the fundamental principles of his own spirituality: to see Christ in the poor and to thus become holy and to establish a personal charity that takes a person spiritually and materially into the very hovels of the poor.” Giving money and food is good and a necessary form of charity to meet a person’s material needs, yet there most often is a deeper need that is not so easily met.  It is a need that requires a personal engagement to hear the person’s story, to develop some level of a trusting relationship that will lift them up to move beyond the need for charity.   Their situation may have been caused by a one-time event that they could not recover from, or a situation beyond their control that contributes to their need for charity.   All too often there is a systematic societal barrier that makes climbing back to self-sufficiency all the more difficult.

Our local branches of the St. Vincent de Paul Society continues this same mission.  Much like the apostles whom Jesus sent on their new journey, empowered with the authority to cast out demons and cure diseases.   Can you image the look on their faces?  With the response you want us to do what? You want us to go and "Take nothing for the journey, neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money, nor let no one take a second tunic.” (Lk 9:3)  As ill prepared or uncomfortable they may have been to be completely dependent on the hospitality of those to whom they minister, they only needed the power and authority given by Jesus.  All they had to do is take the first step, and go.

Just like the apostles and the St. Vincent de Paul Society members, we are being sent out.  Nourished by this meal of the body and body of the real presence of Jesus, no matter how ill-equipped we may feel, we are being empowered by the Holy Spirit to reach out to personally engage those most in need.  Pope Francis, in a radio address at the conclusion of the Year of Mercy underscores that, “the poor are not a problem: they are a resource from which to draw as we strive to accept and practice in our lives the essence of the Gospel.”  Will you take the first step?