based on the article "Vincent de Paul: What Moved Him? And What Moved Him Toward Those Who Are Poor?,” by Thomas F. McKenna, C.M. (2015) Vincentian Heritage Journal: Vol. 32 : Iss. 2 , Article 1.

1. W HAT MOVED HIM?
AN D WHAT MOVED HIM TOWA RD
THOSE WHO ARE POOR ?
St.VincentdePaul:
OnFirewithGod’sLove

2. “HE HAS SE NT ME TO...
B R ING GO O D NEWS TO THE POOR.”
LUKE 4:18

3. Probably occurring over a considerable
length of time, the scales begin to fall off
Vincent’s eyes and he catches the profundity,
the fire, of this passage. “This is what it’s all
about,” he realizes, “God’s love and
goodness, arriving in His Son to this world
and in particular to the poor people in it. This
is at the heart of it all. God is pouring out His
love and care on humankind, and especially
on those… who are looked upon as its least
members.”

4. GO D CHE RIS HE S
E ACH OF YO U,
PARTI CULAR LY THE
POO RE ST AMO NG YOU.
I AM T HE BRI NGER O F
GO OD NEW S TO YO U:
YO U’R E BEI NG LOVED
B Y GO D.

5. Vincent’s inner experience
of the divine…
What was its texture,
shape, and direction?
What was that interchange
that so fired up his heart?

6. The fuel in St. Vincent’s engine,
so to speak, was his underlying
and mighty fascination with
God’s loving. Vincent was
swept up into the force field of
that ever-flowing love. Over
time, he became more and
more enthralled with the pure
giving of God; with what Saint
Paul calls the lavish outpouring
of God’s Spirit.

7. Vincent was “drawn into” the Sending
that is always radiating out from God.
The Father is at all times sending forth,
commissioning, giving over His very Self
in His Son. In fact, that pouring-out is
precisely who Jesus is, the making-
present/sacrament of God — more
accurately, the presencing of God’s
loving. It was this facet within God, the
Sending, that so captivated Vincent, and
that took him further into God’s own life.

8. He sees where that love is
going. He is taken by its
direction, and that is out to the
farthest reaches and down to
the lowest levels. He comes to
appreciate that the divine loving
in Jesus is directed particularly
to the people on the bottom
rungs. And so those who are
poor become those to whom
Vincent feels especially sent to
love. Just as importantly, they
are a window to him onto where
God’s love is appearing in the
world. As the least of the
brothers and sisters to whom
Jesus is sent, they are the ones
in whom the Savior lives.

9. As Vincent engages with the
downtrodden, he senses being
a part of that current of God’s
out-flowing love to these men
and women. It is this attraction
to divine loving that informs
Vincent’s intuitions about
where to head in life, and how
to make his choices.

10. Vincent grasped and was
grasped by the pure generosity
that is sending the Word to the
poor, the Sending to which
Jesus gives flesh. St. Vincent’s
motivation is fed by this fiery
lived contact with the divine.
Fire enkindles fire.

11. Writing about the saints, Hans
Von Balthasar touches on this
point. The most important thing…
is not their heroic, personal
accomplishments, but their firm
obedience (or listening), coupled
together with a total commitment
to their mission. […] the saints
experience “a great
commissioning,” a growing urge
to go out from God to the world.
Is this not indeed the case with
Vincent? And to repeat, there is
the direction in which missioning
moves — toward the poor people
of the world, trying to be God’s
love for them, and at the same
time finding in them God’s love.

12. So the disciple of
Vincent is called to be
not only an imitator of
what Jesus did, but
more than that he/she is
to be swept up into
bringing the love Jesus
offers, taken into that
act of Sending always
going on in God. This is
to follow Vincent as he
follows Jesus Christ, by
stepping into the very
activity and dynamism
of evangelizing the poor.
YouTube/svdpusa

13. Through his writings, his
works, and indeed, his
spirit alive in present-day
followers, St. Vincent
continues to invite others
to step into the current.
Photo: stvincentdepaul.net

14. “ WE R EA LLY M UST G IVE OUR S E LVES T O
G OD T O I M PR INT T HE SE T RUT HS O N
O UR S OUL , T O OR G ANI Z E O UR L IVE S
ACCO RDI NG TO T HI S S PI RI T, AND T O DO
T HE W OR K O F T HI S ( GOD’ S ) LO VE. ”
HER E WE S E E VI NCENT ’ S COUNS EL T O
B EG I N F R OM T HE I NS I DE OF GO D.
CONF ERE NCE 2 07, “ON CHARIT Y,”
MAY 16 59 , CCD, 12 :2 14 -5 .

15. In the same conference Vincent
quotes another Scripture verse in
which Jesus declares, “I have come
to set the earth on fire, and how I
wish it were already blazing.” (Lk.
12:49) Vincent then challenges his
listeners: “So our calling... is to do
what? It is to set people’s hearts on
fire, to do what the Son of God did.
He came to set the world on fire to
inflame it with His own love... If our
calling is to go throughout the world
and spread the divine fire...how I
must burn with this same fire!”
Here, again, Vincent is not only
moving in a current or sharing a
wealth, but is burning with a spark of
the same fire as burns in God.

16. We honor St. Vincent in opening ourselves
to the same wealth that came to fascinate
him— that fathomless and fiery love flowing
from the heart of God in the person of his
Son, sent to bring the Wonderful News of
just that love to all of us, especially to
persons who are poor.

17. Source:
Ba s ed on "V incent de Pau l: What Moved
H im? And What Moved Him Toward Those
Who Are Poor?,” by Thomas F. McKenna,
C .M . (2015) V incentian Heritage Jour nal:
Vo l. 32 : Iss. 2 , Article 1.
Av ailable at: vi a.library.depaul.edu/vhj/
v ol32/iss2/1
Im ages: Depaul Image Archives, unless
oth erwis e not ed
presentation by