Fr. Tomaž Mavrič, CM, Executive President of the Worldwide Vincentian Family, looks back on his six years of leadership. As I read his almost 3,000-word letter, I had the sense of a man opening his heart to over four million followers of Vincent.
I offer the following excerpts as an example of what I consider his Vincentian Mindwalk.
Mystics of Charity for the XXI Century and Beyond
He writes…
- I tried to discover for myself and, at the same time, share with you, what I eagerly hoped to understand in greater depth; that is, what it means to become a “Mystic of Charity.”
- The theologian Karl Rahner, at the end of the 20th century, pronounced these prophetic words: “The Christians of the 21st century are going to be mystics, or they will not be.”
- Why can we call Saint Vincent de Paul a “Mystic of Charity”?
- it was his mystical experience of the Trinity and in particular the Incarnation that was the font of all his actions in favor of poor people. … Vincent lived in a century of mystics, but he stood out as the Mystic of Charity.
- Being a mystic implies experience, the experience of Mystery. For Vincent it meant a deep experience of the Mystery of God’s Love. He looked upon the world with the eyes of Abba and Jesus and embraced everyone with the unconditional love, warmth, and energy of the Holy Spirit.
- Vincent’s mysticism was the source of his apostolic action. The Mystery of God’s love and the Mystery of the Poor were the two poles of Vincent’s dynamic love.
- But Vincent’s Way had a third dimension, which was how he regarded time. Time was the medium through which the Providence of God made itself known to him. He acted according to God’s time, not his own. “Do the good that presents itself to be done,” he advised. “Do not tread on the heels of Providence.”
- Another aspect of time for Vincent was the presence of God here and now – “God is here!” God is here in time. God is here in persons, in events, in circumstances, in poor people. God speaks to us now in and through them.
- We have to sanctify those activities by seeking God in them, and do them in order to find Him in them rather than to see that they get done.
- You might describe Vincent as a “bi-spectacled” mystic. That is to say, he was (seeing) experiencing the same God through two different lenses, both at much the same time. One lens was his own prayer; the other was the person who was poor as well as the world he or she lived in.
- Each angle of view influenced the other, the one deepening and sharpening the perception of its opposite. Vincent “saw” (and felt) God’s love through both these perspectives at the same time and acted vigorously to respond to what he was seeing.
Fr. Mavric then shares his insights into these pillars of Vincent’s spirituality
- Incarnation.
- Eucharist
- Blessed Virgin Mary.
- Spiritual Direction
- Sacrament of Reconciliation
- Faith Sharing
- Providence.
- The Sick and the Elderly
He concludes
- What made Saint Vincent a Mystic of Charity is the fact that prayer was at the center of his life. Prayer takes on a transforming power.
- At the beginning of this letter, I wrote that the searching for what it means to be a Mystic of Charity does not end here by any means; let us continue to immerse ourselves in the richness and depth of its meaning.
Fr. Mavric’s letter is worth reflecting on in smaller portions over the 40 days of Lent.
Mystics of Charity for the XXI Century and Beyond
Click below for an audio version of this Vincentian Mindwalk
Excellent report and thank you for the link to Father’s letter.
“… the font of all his actions in favor of poor people.”
I had to look up “font” because the more common usage of that word in my little world had been the particular type used in printing (online and physical). Oddly enough, the definitions online mention the primary meaning as being a receptacle (baptismal water, holy water, oil) but also more metaphorically, a source, origin or wellspring. Finally, it gets that printer’s term. My first recollection of “font” was Baptismal fonts and holy water fonts, so I suppose I should not have jumped to the printer’s usage first. However, it opened up my eyes to something else.
When we speak, we have the luxury of intonation and stress and word choice to get our meaning across. In printed text, all of those get conveyed through the font used, or at least, they try to. An example from this article is the quote from Karl Rahner: ““The Christians of the 21st century are going to be mystics, or they will not be.” That “will not be” could interpreted to mean simply “will not be mystics” although the assumed interpretation is that he meant “will not be Christians.” A font change could have added some clarity to it.
But that conjured up a different image for me of Vincent and those who have followed him. Jesus is the Word, expressing for us the Father’s love and regard for us. Sometimes the Word has gotten lost in various contexts or situations. The “font” helps make the Word more visible, more recognizable, more easily related to. That helps me understand Vincent’s call to Mysticism and why we as Vincentians need that as well – bring the Word to life in our own world and in the everyday circumstances of the People in need we encounter.
There’s so much more to that letter. Thanks for a Lent’s worth of reflections.
Heavy stuff. Should have used a bolder font.
Hi Fr. John, I may have missed some Mindwalks and I don’t know whether you already gave a website where we also could be these Mystics of Charity by sending right away our contributions, even if very small, as in my case, for our Ukrainian brothers and sisters.
Thank you.
John, please allow me to recall Pope Francis’ 2013 interview with his fellow Jesuit Antonio Spadaro.
In it, Francis insists that “Ignatius is a mystic, not an ascetic.” He continues, “It irritates me when I hear that the Spiritual Exercises are ‘Ignatian’ only because they are done in silence. In fact, the Exercises can be perfectly Ignatian also in daily life and without the silence. An interpretation of the Spiritual Exercises that emphasizes asceticism, silence and penance is a distorted one….”
He laments those “periods in the Society in which Jesuits have lived in an environment of closed and rigid thought, more instructive-ascetic than mystical.”
According to the Pope, “the Jesuit always thinks, again and again, looking at the horizon toward which he must go, with Christ at the center. This is his real strength. And that pushes the Society to be searching, creative and generous. So now, more than ever, the Society of Jesus must be contemplative in action, must live a profound closeness to the whole church as both the ‘people of God’ and ‘holy mother the hierarchical church.’”
As for St. Vincent, most Vincentians, for sure, have no doubt that he was a Mystic of Charity. And I pray every morning that we be so, saying: “Father in heaven, we ask in earnest for your Holy Spirit. May this Advocate teach us to pray and to reflect, to grant success to our every effort and endeavor, and to guide us to all truth, reminding us, especially at the Eucharist, that ‘we live in Jesus Christ by the death of Jesus Christ, and that we ought to die in Jesus Christ by the life of Jesus Christ, and that our life ought to be hidden in Jesus Christ and full of Jesus Christ, and that in order to die like Jesus Christ it is necessary to live like Jesus Christ.'”
Thinking about the Mystics of charity, I cannot but think about what I saw today, watching the Italian news on RAI TG1:
a man decided to leave his own family in Italy (wife, 5 and 19 years old children, a job at a bank), to enlist as a volunteer soldier in the Foreign Legion to go and help our Ukrainian brothers and sisters.
He stated that he was not doing it for any religious or political reasons but just out of his desire for Justice.
May God help us ALL!