It gives me joy to mention this here…here in Rome. Vincent truly believed in partnership in the church and that is why he listened, learned and trusted the instincts and wisdom of Louise.
Together they imagined and gave birth to a movement that has inspired us all.They started a revolution of tenderness… a revolution to humanize and put a face on the stranger and the vulnerable. Our Founders knew the need to lock eyes and to join hearts with those to whom human dignity and human rights were denied.
With zeal, with a passion, Vincent and Louise responded to human needs and organized institutions to keep charity alive, keep love expressed. Yes, we are witnesses to, and partners with them in that long evolution of service….. service given in both humility and simplicity.
Vincent and Louise instructed all of us, the Vincentian family, to ask forgiveness of those receiving our help….receiving our love. How well they knew that the “giver is the getter and the getter is the giver”! It really was…it truly is… love touching love.
Let us gather here these days with a genuine attitude of gratitude knowing,… that God still has faith in us… and knowing, that we still have faith in each other.
Let us promise to touch each other and our world with, a tenderness that transforms and with a truth that challenges.
Ours is an age of something radically new. It is more than a reformation. It is to be… an EVOLUTION in love…an EVOLUTION in solidarity, “a Love Inventive to Infinity.”
Reflection Questions
Are we on board with this revolution to humanize and put a face on the stranger and the vulnerable?
How will people know we are on board?
Once we put a face on a “stranger”,the stranger ceases to be strange.
By God’s grace alone,
Ed Ambrose,St. Joe’s,AA,1957