I knew the letter was coming. But I never expected to be drawn as deeply into it. Pope Francis wrote an Apostolic Letter on the 400th anniversary of the death of Francis de Sales. I was surprised by how much resonance I found with St. Vincent.
Vincent trusted collaborator
He had me when I read …
“Saint Francis de Sales felt that there was no better place to find God, and to help others to find him, than in the hearts of the women and men of his time.
He had learned this, from his earliest years, by developing a keen insight both into himself and into the human heart.”
Vincent said much the same in many ways.
This is not surprising. Vincent knew and was influenced deeply by St. Francis de Sales.
But he was also a trusted collaborator of St. Francis and St. Marie de Chantal, co-founders of the Visitation Sisters.
Vincent’s first biographer, tells us these saints so esteemed him that they chose him as superior of the first monastery of the Visitation, a position he held for some 40 years.
Pope Francis reminded us…
“(Francis’) writings were no theory concocted behind a desk, far from the concerns of ordinary people.” His teachings were the fruit of a great sensitivity to experience.”
Francis was impressed and intrigued by the great issues emerging in the world, by the novel ways in which they were being approached, by the new and remarkable interest in spirituality and the unprecedented questions it raised.
In a word, he sensed an authentic “epochal shift” that demanded a response couched in language both old and new.
St. Francis de Sales, Vincent, and “epochal change”
What really caught me was the way he highlighted St. Francis’ relevancy for today.
One could say that today we are not living an epoch of change so much as an epochal change.
The situations that we are living in today therefore pose new challenges which, at times, are also difficult for us to understand.
Our time requires us to live problems as challenges and not as obstacles: the Lord is active and at work in our world. Thus, go out into the streets and go out to the crossroads: call all those whom you find, excluding no one (cf. Mt 22:9).
Accompany especially those who are on the roadside, “the lame, the maimed, the blind, the dumb” (Mt 15:30). Wherever you may be, build neither walls nor borders but village squares and field hospitals.
Pope Francis is convinced that Francis de Sales’ “flexibility and his farsighted vision have much to say to us,” especially in recognizing the real-life struggles of ordinary people and judging faith by love.
Finding holiness in the midst of societal change
Like the Second Vatican Council would teach 350 years later, the Pope wrote…
St. Francis de Sales knew that every person was called to holiness and that the call was specific to each person and his or her talents, shortcomings, and state in life.
St. Francis de Sales encouraged the faithful “to keep asking at every moment, in every decision, in every situation in life, where the greatest love is to be found.”
“To live in the midst of the secular city while nurturing the interior life, to combine the desire for perfection with every state of life, and to discover an interior peace that does not separate us from the world but teaches us how to live in it and to appreciate it, but also to maintain a proper detachment from it — that was the aim of Francis de Sales, and it remains a valuable lesson for men and women [especially Vincentians] in our own time”
How do we find God in the midst of change?
See also “The challenge of Vincentian Imagination” and “Do Vincentians Lack Imagination?”
Thank you father …you have provided a lot to think about! Especially important for Vincential schools and universities identifying and forming the influencers.
The above commentvwas tied to a the June 2021 post referenced at the bottom of I Never Saw it Coming” , ie “DO Vincentians Lack Imagination” in particular on identifying and forming the influencers.
Hi Father,
As we once discussed, I am in awe of connectedness: the seemingly random meeting of two or more skilled persons which results in a greater than additive sum of their achievements and successes.
Saint Vincent’s and Saint Francis’ meeting resulted in profound changes to our educational system and methods of caring for the poor vulnerable worldwide.
Over the years I have noted other valued partnerships:
Songwriters Lennon and McCartney: their chance meeting on a Liverpool bus resulting in the greatest paradigm shift in popular music since the advent of the “big band era”
Songwriters Simon and Garfunkel meeting in second grade resulting in the movement of folk music from the fringes to mainstream.
Astronaut John Glenn and baseball player Ted Williams being assigned to the same fighter squadron in 1950 Korea and becoming friends. Both unknown at the time, Glenn became perhaps the most iconic astronaut and Williams perhaps the greatest baseball hitter who ever lived.
A similar relationship between singer Johnny Mathis and basketball great Bill Russell which lasted from grade school until Russell’s death this past year.
On one block in Brooklyn in the 1940s eight kids played together. Six: the three Aspromonte brothers, the two Torre brothers and Sandy Koufax became baseball stars, one- Larry King, became a talk show icon, and the last, Fred Wilpon, who loved baseball but couldn’t play, eventually became an industrialist and owned the New York Mets.
I won’t advertise my ignorance and write about chance meetings in the Bible; certainly you know the impact of these relationships much better than I. Many wonder why the miracles of the Bible primarily occurred in Israel; they occurred in a small geographic area to permit connections in an age without phone, transportation other than donkeys, internet, movies, social media, and texting.
When we discuss “risks” prior to a procedure, the risks are not summative but multiplied. For instance if someone is planning on undergoing a hip replacement, the risk of a blood clot is about 3%. Undergoing a bilateral hip replacement at the same time boosts the risk not summatively to 6% but rather by the product of 3%X3% or 9%. Human gifts may be the same way. Two persons, such as Francis de Sales and Vincent de Paul both were granted incredible talents but by working together, reflecting together, and pondering together, reached perhaps greater achievement than each working independently.
I once believed in coincidences but now I am sure these connections are the result of the Holy Spirit.
Happy New Year to my dear friend.