Ecclesiology is a fancy word for the study of the church. I have had many courses in ecclesiology of the last 60 years. I consider Pope Francis’ metaphor of church as “field hospital” the most stimulating insight into the Church.

“I see clearly,” Francis said, “that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds. And you have to start from the ground up.”

Francis dreams not merely of individual Christians going out into the world to help; “it would be wrong to see [the church’s mission] as a heroic individual undertaking, for it is first and foremost the Lord’s work, surpassing anything which we can see and understand.”

The approach is from below. As Francis has written in Evangelii Gaudium,

“An evangelizing community gets involved by word and deed in people’s daily lives; it bridges distances, it is willing to abase itself if necessary, and it embraces human life, touching the suffering flesh of Christ in others.”

Vincent’s “Rented Room” ecclesiology

I am certain he did not think of his instruction to the early Daughters of Charity as an ecclesiology. I am not even sure he would have heard of the word. I know I never made the following connection until a few days ago.

Listen to what he told the early Daughters. They were to have,

• for monastery only the houses of the sick,
• for cell a hired room,
• for chapel the parish church,
• for cloister the streets of the city,
• for enclosure obedience,
• for grill the fear of God,
• for veil holy modesty…, and continual confidence in Divine Providence…

The Daughters of Charity differed from religious congregations of that epoch because they were to encounter the poor, to see them in their homes.  They maintained the necessary mobility and availability and lived among those whom they served.

In effect they were staffing a field hospital envisioned 400 years ago.

But there is more…

In recent times I have been realizing the significance of Vincent’s unrecognized strategy of involving the untapped resource of the laity in ministering on the field of battle.

He actually mandated both the Daughters of Charity and his own “little company” of men to establish “confraternities”. In these confraternities of laywomen especially ministered to the spiritual and physical needs in each parish. They staffed a “field hospital’.

I have come to realize fostering lay ministry was in effect his main pastoral strategy. In effect, he anticipated what we have called over the last century the “Action of Catholics”,”Catholic Action”, the “Apostolate of the laity”, and the universal call to holiness especially through the service of washing one another’s feet.

The AIC and the SVDP have long operated as the lay staff of Francis’ “field hospital”.

I see the amazing spread of new confraternities of professionals in various fields with, in many instances, the inspiration and support of members of the Congregation of the Mission and Daughters of Charity. Our early history is repeating itself.

Just yesterday I learned of a Zoom meeting with over 150 participants from new “confraternities” of professionals in 13 different fields representing some 2000 members.

Years ago, there was a wonderful booklet put out in 3 languages under the title of “Like a Great Fire”. Spreading like a great fire we can see this new movement confraternities as re-imagining the Vincentian charism.