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Homily of the Day

Other Articles by Monsignor Dennis Clark, Ph.D.
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Let God Show You How to Live It

September 26, 2007

Hg 1:1-8 / Lk 9:7-9

There's a poignancy to the Lord's words in today's Old Testament reading: "You have sown much, but brought in little; you have eaten, but have not been satisfied; you have drunk, but have not been exhilarated; have clothed yourselves but not been warmed; and he who earned wages earned them for a bag with holes in it." How much of that rings true with our own experience too much of the time.

So much effort yielding so little. We have to ask why this happens. Is it, perhaps, because of some blindness on our part that leads us to invest our efforts in barren fields that can never yield the returns we desire? Is it because we hope to find joy, satisfaction and fulfillment where they can't be found? Yes. How many times do we have to look inside an empty room before we finally conclude that there's nothing there? Quite a few times, it seems. Do we need a new investment counsellor who can advise us better on how to invest our life? Probably so.

Most of us are not leading evil lives. But most of us are, to some degree, investing our lives and our hearts unwisely. Quite often we have the words right and the insights are there, but the deeds don't follow, at least not with any consistency.

What are we really longing for? Communion: to be a family with God and his people. And how do we become family? By loving and not counting the cost. You see, we know the answer, we've known it all along.

Now we have to let the Lord show us, step by step, how to live it. He's ready. Are you?

American Catholic’s Saint of the Day

September 27, 2007

St. Vincent de Paul

(1580?-1660)

The deathbed confession of a dying servant opened Vincent's eyes to the crying spiritual needs of the peasantry of France. This seems to have been a crucial moment in the life of the man from a small farm in Gascony, France, who had become a priest with little more ambition than to have a comfortable life.

It was the Countess de Gondi (whose servant he had helped) who persuaded her husband to endow and support a group of able and zealous missionaries who would work among the poor, the vassals and tenants and the country people in general. Vincent was too humble to accept leadership at first, but after working for some time in Paris among imprisoned galley-slaves, he returned to be the leader of what is now known as the Congregation of the Mission, or the Vincentians. These priests, with vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and stability, were to devote themselves entirely to the people in smaller towns and villages.

Later Vincent established confraternities of charity for the spiritual and physical relief of the poor and sick of each parish. From these, with the help of St. Louise de Marillac, came the Daughters of Charity, "whose convent is the sickroom, whose chapel is the parish church, whose cloister is the streets of the city." He organized the rich women of Paris to collect funds for his missionary projects, founded several hospitals, collected relief funds for the victims of war and ransomed over 1,200 galley slaves from North Africa. He was zealous in conducting retreats for clergy at a time when there was great laxity, abuse and ignorance among them. He was a pioneer in clerical training and was instrumental in establishing seminaries.

Most remarkably, Vincent was by temperament a very irascible person—even his friends admitted it. He said that except for the grace of God he would have been "hard and repulsive, rough and cross." But he became a tender and affectionate man, very sensitive to the needs of others.

Pope Leo XIII made him the patron of all charitable societies. Outstanding among these, of course, is the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, founded in 1833 by his admirer Blessed Frederic Ozanam.

Comment:

The Church is for all God's children, rich and poor, peasants and scholars, the sophisticated and the simple. But obviously the greatest concern of the Church must be for those who need the most help—those made helpless by sickness, poverty, ignorance or cruelty. Vincent de Paul is a particularly appropriate patron for all Christians today, when hunger has become starvation, and the high living of the rich stands in more and more glaring contrast to the physical and moral degradation in which many of God's children are forced to live.

Quote:

"Strive to live content in the midst of those things that cause your discontent. Free your mind from all that troubles you, God will take care of things. You will be unable to make haste in this [choice] without, so to speak, grieving the heart of God, because he sees that you do not honor him sufficiently with holy trust. Trust in him, I beg you, and you will have the fulfillment of what your heart desires" (St. Vincent de Paul, Letters).