THE SPIRITUALITY OF SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL

It has been said at times that to define the spirituality of Saint Vincent is to betray
Saint Vincent himself because the word spirituality never appears his writings. Definitely, it
was not, for the very simple reason that the word spirituality is a recent word, later than
Saint Vincent. It is a technical term to designate the conception and the idea of the spiritual
life proper to a person. In that sense, Saint Vincent evidently has his own spirituality and we
can ask ourselves what it is. On the contrary, a word that appears not only once but a
thousand times in Saint Vincent and with several meanings, is the word spirit. That is why
we should talk more about the spirit of Saint Vincent rather than the spirituality of Saint
Vincent. But in the end, conventions are conventions and I will employ without distinction
the terms spirit and spirituality.

Aside from that small problem of terminology, there is another basic problem. To
talk about spirituality or the spirit of Saint Vincent is difficult for three reasons:

1. Saint Vincent is not a theoretical or a speculative person. He never explained his spirit
or his spirituality systematically. He did not write any treatise nor unified synthesis of
his spiritual thinking. The only book he published is the Common Rules of the
Congregation, which, however, is a very small but very important book. If in some
place, we can find something similar to a synthesis of Vincent’s thought concerning
spiritual topics, it is in that book and there is no need to say so in the conferences that
explain it. I have been surprised to read some books concerning the Vincentian
spirituality that never, cite, not even once, the Common Rules. It is like attempting to
explain the theological thinking of Saint Thomas without citing his Summa Theologica.

Although Saint Vincent may not be a theoretical person that does not mean that he may
not be coherent in his thinking. On the contrary, he is one of the most coherent among
the saints.

2. The second difficulty in explaining the spiritual thinking of Saint Vincent is that to do it
well, you have to read the 14 volumes of his complete works taking into account, above
all, those that contain the letters. Ideas referring to the same topic can be found in pages
very distant from one another, so much so that it is necessary to relate them to one
another.

3. The third difficulty is that the spiritual doctrine of Saint Vincent should be deduced not
only from his words but also from the events of his life as he tells us that we have to
follow the Gospel: “He began to do and [then] to teach.” To know the spirituality of
Saint Vincent, one has to know his life. The well-known phrase of Saint Vincent “That
is my faith and my experience”1 should orient us in this field.

With this supposition, we have to admit that knowing about the spirituality of Saint
Vincent is very important for those of us considered as his disciples. The spirituality of

1
SVP II, 282.

1
 a religious family is nothing more than the spirituality of its founder. The spirituality of
a saint is not a mere intellectual exercise but the fruit of a lived religious experience and
the reading of the Bible in the light of that experience. Take the example of any of the
great saints of the history of the Church, Saint Augustine, Saint Benedict, Saint Francis
of Assisi or Saint Ignatius of Loyola and you will see how that rule is being fulfilled.
That surely applies absolutely in the case of Saint Vincent.

1) A spirituality of faith

a. Faith as a guide

As we know through his biography, Saint Vincent, in a specific

moment, was about to lose his faith under the assault of a terrible
temptation. The recovery of his faith was for him both the final test and
the start of his journey toward sanctity. From this experience comes the
conviction of Saint Vincent: “You have to begin with faith, never
admitting in our soul any reasoning contrary to this virtue, contrary to the
Sacred Scripture, contrary to sense and to the explanation of the
Church.”2 “The lights of faith are always accompanied by a certain
heavenly unction, which is secretly spread in the heart of the hearers.
From there, we can deduce that it will be necessary, both for our
perfection and for the salvation of souls, accustoming ourselves to follow
always and in all the things, the lights of faith.”3

Faith is, therefore, the point of departure of the spiritual life.

Adhering to faith is the prime principle of Vincent’s spirituality. That is
why, at the beginning of the second chapter of the Common Rules where
he presented the maxims that should govern the spiritual life of the
missionaries, Saint Vincent puts this final declaration: “Before anything
else, let each one stay well in this truth that the doctrine of Jesus Christ
can never deceive, while that of the world always leads to lies.”4

b. Faith as giving oneself to Christ

But faith is not merely the intellectual profession of a series of

abstract truths. It was perhaps for having understood it thus that Saint
Vincent suffered temptation. Faith is the self-giving of a man to the
living person of Jesus Christ. The temptation of the theologian of the
household of Marguerite de Valois came from the fact of his being lazy.
In fact, Saint Vincent freed himself from the same temptation in the
moment in which he formulated the resolution of giving himself to the
service of the poor “for the greater honor of Jesus Christ and for imitating
him with more perfection.” It is the phrase with which Abelly describes
2
SVP, XI, 116.
3
SVP, XI, p. 31, 723.
4
Common Rules, II, 1.

2
 the spiritual situation of Saint Vincent in the moment of his conversion.
For me, these words enclose as in a seed, all Vincent’s spirituality, for
they reveal to us the Christ to whom he was going to consecrate his whole
life.

Before anything else, it is a resolution “for his whole life.” It deals,

therefore, with an existential project that involved all his being in time
and space. There is also here the seed of the fourth vow of the CM and of
the company of the Daughters of Charity, although we may not know if it
deals strictly with a vow: Abelly states only that it was a firm and
irrevocable resolution.

On the other hand, we find here the Vincentian Christocentrism which

doubtless proceeds from his teacher Bérulle, under whose direction Saint
Vincent found himself at that time, and it also included nuances absolutely
proper to Vincent. While Bérulle sees Jesus as the Divine Word that
Christians should honor in all his states and which infinitely surpasses man
for his greatness, Vincent sees Christ as the incarnate Word whom Christians
should imitate in all his actions and non-actions, that is to say, in everything
he did and in what he did not do.

Abelly, to whom is attributed the first attempt to characterize Vincent’s

spirituality, says that the first thing that Saint Vincent inculcated in his
disciples, was the imitation of Jesus Christ. Nothing is more correct. Let us
open the Common Rules and we will see that they begin by saying that the
aim of the C.M. is to imitate Jesus Christ. Later, each chapter begins with
the example of Our Lord in the matter there. And even more, he will
formally declare that Jesus Christ “is the rule of the Mission.”5

To make this a reality, Saint Vincent gives only one means that includes
everything: to put on the spirit of Jesus Christ. Saint Vincent emphasizes the
rule as a universal, global, immediate means of realizing the concrete
imitation of the Teacher and of continuing his work. Now, having the spirit
of Jesus means having “the same inclinations and dispositions that Jesus had
on earth.”6 Which were those dispositions? Saint Vincent does not doubt.
He describes the spirit of Our Lord in these terms:

“But, what is the spirit of Our Lord? It is a spirit of perfect charity, filled
with a marvelous esteem of the divinity and of an infinite desire of honoring
It worthily, a knowledge of the greatness of His Father, to admire and praise
Him continuously.”7

5
SVP, XI, p. 130.
6
SVP, ES XI, 410.
7
SVP, XII, p. 108.

3
 In the spirit of Christ, therefore, Saint Vincent discovers three
fundamental attitudes:

 before all else his perfect charity, that is to say, his love
 the admirable appreciation – “marvelous esteem” - of the divinity
and consequently the infinite desire of honoring Him worthily
 and the knowledge of the greatness of the Father to unceasingly
praise Him.

We meet, undoubtedly, another of the traits of the Berullian spirituality

present in that of Saint Vincent: the sense of adoration. From this emanates
the fundamental role of the virtue of humility in Vincent’s spirituality. But
all that assumes in Saint Vincent its own colors, because it cannot be inferred
from chance that the order of the attitudes [of Jesus] seems inverted from that
one that logic would dictate: instead of knowledge – admiration – love, we
find: love - admiration – knowledge.

With that, Saint Vincent, after showing himself to us as man of faith,

reveals himself to us as man of charity but charity with a stronger meaning,
that of a theological virtue with God as the primary object and man as its
secondary object. Forgetting this would be confusing charity with
philanthropy and that would totally deform the first.

But having the interior dispositions of Jesus Christ is only the first thing
in order to be clothed by his spirit. The second is to do the same things that
the Lord did; and what did the Lord do? Saint Vincent finds the answer to
that question in his experience and in his reading of the Gospel. Experience
provided it through all the events that happened to him in the period of his
conversion. The temptation against faith ended the instant he resolved to
entrust himself to the service of the poor, and later on in Folleville and
Chatillon, he discovered the spiritual and material needs of the poor.

Reading the Gospel in the light of those events, Saint Vincent discovers
that what Our Lord did was to evangelize the poor.

“Our Lord Jesus Christ, when He came to this world, chose as principal
work that of helping and taking care of the poor. He sent me to evangelize
the poor, and if you ask Our Lord: “What have you come to do on earth?”
“To help the poor” - “Something more?” - “To help the poor,” etc. In his
company he had nothing but the poor and stayed only a little in cities,
conversing almost always with villagers and instructing them. Shall we not
feel happy ourselves to be in the Mission with the same purpose with which
he is committed to God in becoming man?”8

8
SVP XI, 108.

4
 Saint Vincent takes the Gospel literally. The Holy Spirit who spoke to
him through the events of his life impels him to it. And he did not ask, as at
times we do, for the meaning of the word, “poor.” For him, “poor” meant the
man in need whom he sees on the galleys, in Folleville, in Chatillon or in any
other village of France. I believe that Saint Vincent never heard a discussion
about the “anawin of Yahweh.” He thinks of the poor as those who have
nothing and die of hunger. Those are the poor whom Christ came to
evangelize.

Imitating Christ, therefore, is to dedicate oneself personally to the

evangelization of the poor. Saint Vincent believes that the essential mission
of the Church and of all Christians is to save the poor and that the true
Christian life – or at least, the true life of his disciples – can be nothing else
than a personal dedication to that mission. This is the messianic sign of
Jesus, the sign that Jesus is the Messiah sent by God. To my understanding,
the main nucleus of Vincent’s spirituality is this: to interpret the Christian life
as the imitation of Jesus Christ in his messianic mission, that is to say, in his
condition of evangelizing the poor. When he reads the answer of Christ to
John’s messengers, he takes it literally: “Go and tell John what you have
seen: the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the
dead rise, the poor are evangelized.”9

I think that at times, we, the followers of Vincent, take only that last
phrase of that evangelical text read by Saint Vincent: the poor are
evangelized. But Saint Vincent reads the whole passage because, naturally,
evangelization should be assumed in its totality; it cannot limit itself to the
announcement of the word, to preaching and to celebrating the sacraments. It
should embrace at the same time, all the works of mercy.

“If there are some among us who believe they are in the Mission to
evangelize the poor and not to take care of them, to remedy the spiritual and
not the temporal needs, I will tell them that we have to attend to them and
have others attend to them in every way by ourselves and by others…. To do
this is to evangelize by word and by deed; that is what is more perfect; and
that is what Our Lord practiced and the ones who represent him on earth have
to practice because of their responsibility and because of their character, as
priests are.”10

So then, for me, this is truly the essential nucleus, the true evangelical
vision of Saint Vincent who, reading the Gospel as a simple Christian,
understood that Jesus had come to evangelize the poor. It could be said,
perhaps, that in this way Vincent’s spirituality is simplified, but this is my
reading of Saint Vincent.

9
Lk. 7:22.
10
SVP, XII, 87-88.

5
 2) A spirituality of charity

a. Charity, the first disposition of the spirit of Christ

I mentioned before that it cannot be by chance that the order of

dispositions – today we would say attitudes – of Christ enumerated by Saint
Vincent may seem the opposite of what logic would dictate: instead of
knowledge – admiration – love, we find: love - admiration – knowledge. Let
us remember the definition of the spirit of Christ given by Saint Vincent that
we quoted at the beginning:

“But what is the spirit of Our Lord? It is a spirit of perfect charity, filled
with a marvelous esteem of the divinity and of an infinite desire of honoring
it worthily, a knowledge of the greatness of His Father, to admire and praise
Him continuously.”11

What then impresses Saint Vincent more about Christ is His infinite
charity. And since the spiritual life consists in reproducing in us the
dispositions of Christ, the first thing that we have to do is to put on charity,
the love of Christ.

Let us also remember the fundamental text (from Abelly) with which the
spiritual life of Saint Vincent began.

“In order to honor Jesus even more and to imitate him with greater
perfection, until then, he decided one day to take a firm resolution of
entrusting himself to him throughout his life for love of him to the service of
the poor.”12

So therefore, on one hand, the spirit of Jesus Christ is, before all else, the
spirit of perfect charity toward the Father and, on the other, Saint Vincent
takes the fundamental resolution of his life for the love of Jesus. This begins
by grafting ourselves into the heart of Christ whose deepest disposition is to
love his Father, and finishes by endowing ourselves with spiritual attitudes
which the practice of love for the neighbor, the love for the poor require.

b. The double object of charity

Saint Vincent amply explains on various occasions the double object of

charity: God and the neighbor and more concretely, the poor.

Love of God. Perhaps, we have somewhat neglected this aspect of

Vincent’s charity, especially in recent years. The importance of charitable

11
SVP, XII, p. 108.
12
Abelly, bk. III, chap. VI.

6
 action has been emphasized so much that we have forgotten the number of
times that Saint Vincent speaks about love for God, love for Jesus Christ.
Evidently, for him as for every Christian, the love of neighbor is love of God,
but this does not impede him from speaking about the love of God in himself,
including contemplative love. It is enough to read the very beautiful praise
which he offered concerning the virtues of Sister Jeanne Dalmagne,13 where
we find the phrases like this one: “She had a great love for God; she sighed
only for God and for the occasions of doing good for love of Him.”14 Or this
other that we find in the conference concerning the order of the day: “the
love of God is the only end for which to do everything.”15 No less significant
was his hope that the little Company “will serve God for the love of God
Himself.”16

Naturally, the love of God is inseparable from the love of neighbor, as

Vincent knew very well. Even more, Saint Vincent is the teacher par
excellence of that doctrine. In his mind and heart and, therefore, in his
spiritual doctrine, the sentence of Saint John occupies a privileged place: “If
someone says: ‘I love God’, and hates his brother, he is a liar; so, whoever
does not love his brother, whom he sees, cannot love God whom he does not
see.”17 That is why the indispensable complement of his thinking concerning
the love for God in himself is that of the need to love the neighbor for His
sake.

“Give me a man that loves God solely, a spirit elevated in contemplation

that does not think about his brothers; that person, feeling that this manner of
loving God is so pleasing to God that apparently He is the only one worthy of
love, stays to savor that infinite fountain of sweetness. And here is another
person who loves his neighbor, though vulgar and rude he may be, but loves
him for the love of God; which of those two lovers do you think is purer and
impartial? Undoubtedly, the second, since in that way, the law is more
perfectly fulfilled.”18

Going a little further in that direction, Saint Vincent will compare the
love and service for the poor with the love and service for God. “To serve
the poor is to go to God. And you have to see God in their persons.” 19
“Serving the poor is serving Jesus Christ.”20 “Always, naturally, service and
love of the poor should be done for love of God.” This is essential. Saint
Vincent had completely assimilated the ideas of Saint Paul in his hymn to
charity in I Cor. 13. That is why he affirmed “when we do or suffer

13
SVP, IX, 179-203.
14
Ibid, p. 193.
15
SVP, X, 616.
16
SVP, XII, 105.
17
I Jn, 4:20.
18
ES, XI-2, 552-553.
19
ES, IX-1, 25.
20
IX-1, 240

7
 something, if we do not do it or suffer it for love of God, it is useless. Even
should we be burned alive, or give all our goods to the poor as Saint Paul
says, if we do not have charity, and we do not act or suffer for the love of
God, it is useless.”21 Applying this Pauline doctrine to the daily life of the
sisters, Saint Vincent will say: “Of what use would it be to bring soup or
medicine to the poor, if the motive of this action were not love?”22

c. Affective and Effective Charity

Expressed in other words, that idea of loving service of the poor is

translated in Vincent’s teaching about affective and effective love. The first
one is rooted in the heart and is translated to interior acts of love, in fervent
effusions, in warm feelings toward the infinite goodness of God. The second
one is the practical application of those affections: the active service of the
brothers:

“You have to pass from affective love to effective love, which consists in
the exercise of works of charity, in service to the poor undertaken with
happiness, with enthusiasm, with constancy and love.”23

d. Spiritual and Corporal Charity

Lastly, it is interesting for me to emphasize that love, or charity, as Saint

Vincent understands it, includes both spiritual as well as material works of
charity. That is to say, you have to do for your neighbor all the temporal
necessities: food, clothing, housing, even burial, as well as spiritual goods:
consolation, education.

“Look, my dear sisters, it is very important to attend to the poor

corporally; but the truth is that, to take care solely of the body has never been
the plan of Our Lord in making your Company. There will always be people
to do that. The intention of Our Lord is that you attend to the souls of poor
sick people and that is why, you have to reflect within your very selves.
“How do I behave in my parish? How do I serve the sick? Do I do so only
corporally, or in the two ways at the same time? Because if I do not have
any other intention than that of attending to the body, ah that is little; there is
nobody, whoever he may be, who may not do as much.” A Turk, an idolater
can attend to the body. That’s why Our Lord had no reason to institute a
Company solely with that purpose, since nature is sufficiently capable of it.
But the same does not happen to the soul. Not everyone can help them in
that. God has principally chosen you to give them the instructions necessary
for their salvation. Think in your very selves and say: Have I perhaps done
something more than give to the body all the service which I have done to the

21
SVP, XI, 437.
22
SVP, IX, 20.
23
ES IX-1, 534.

8
 poor? If until now I have done nothing more than to distribute food,
medicines and other things referring to the body, I have not fulfilled my
obligation. Pardon, My Lord, for my past conduct! My Daughters, that is
not enough. You have to resolve to add to the service that you do to the body
the assistance to the soul in the future: Yes, my Savior, henceforth, I wish to
dedicate myself to giving to my sick people, all the spiritual service that I can
as well as their corporal service.”24

And one interesting observation: that the spiritual love for one’s neighbor,
that is to say, the effort for providing for him the goods of the spirit is at the
same time an exercise for love for man and for God. That is, to my
understanding, the sense of the famous statement of Vincent: “It is not
enough for me to love God if my neighbor does not love Him.”25

3) A spirituality of action

Vincent’s concept of affective and effective love necessarily led Saint

Vincent to a spirituality for action. Saint Vincent was convinced of few things
more than of the necessity that the disciples of Christ should be men and women
of action, or said with more emphasis, of the necessity of being workers,
laborers.

a. Action, the inevitable duty

That conviction also proceeds at the same time from his faith and from
his experience. Temptation against the faith suffered by his friend, the
theologian of the household of Marguerite de Valois and by Vincent himself,
was due to laziness. It stopped at the moment when Saint Vincent resolved to
work. The poor people of Folleville and of many other villages had been
abandoned because of the laziness of their pastors. Our Lord started his life
by works, and words came later, as Saint Vincent would tell us at the start of
the Common Rules of the Missionaries.

“The Church is like a great harvest that requires laborers, but laborers
who work…This is what we have to do and the form with which we have
demonstrate to God with works that we love Him. “Totum opus nostrum in
operatione consistit.”26 When it is said that the Holy Spirit acts in a person, it
means that this Spirit, in abiding in him, gives him the same inclinations and
dispositions that Jesus had on earth, and these make him work, I don’t say
that with the same perfection, but of course, according to the measure of the
gifts of this Divine Spirit.”27

24
SVP, X, 333-334.
25
SVP, XII, 262.
26
“All that we have to do is to work.” In my opinion, this is the exact translation of this Latin expression that Saint
Vincent loved to repeat.
27
SVP XII, 108.

9
 Saint Vincent’s appreciation for action pushes him to take action as the
first of the evangelical maxims that he will propose to the apostolic laborer.
“Seek first the Kingdom of God and all the rest shall be added unto you.”

At times, it is said that the first evangelical maxim, proposed by Saint

Vincent is simplicity. It is not true. The first of all is this, that of action.
Saint Vincent makes of it a splendid commentary that figures among his best
pages.

“So then, it is said that we have to look for the Kingdom of God.
Looking for it is not only a matter of a word but it seems to me that it means
many things; it means that we are to work in such a way that we aspire
always to what is recommended to us, that we work incessantly for God’s
Kingdom without remaining in a comfortable situation and remaining
indolent, listening to his interior to it put right but not to his exterior to give
oneself to Him. Seek, seek, this means concern, this means action. Seek God
in you, because Saint Augustine confesses that while he was looking for him
outside of him, he could not find Him; look for Him in your soul as His
favorite dwelling place. It is in the deeps where his servants, who try to
practice all the virtues, establish them. Interior life is necessary; you have to
achieve it. If it is lacking, everything is lacking. Those who have remained
without should be filled with confusion and should ask God for mercy and
amend themselves.”28

b. Action as care for one’s own perfection

The action Saint Vincent required is in no way a merely external action

or work, although it may be apostolic. On the contrary, the apostolic man
should be concerned above all else with his own perfection, with his own
interior life. We have just heard it: “Interior life in necessary, you have to
achieve it; if it is lacking, everything is lacking.” Giving oneself to God is
therefore, the primary action of the spiritual man. This idea returns from time
to time to the lips of Saint Vincent.

“Let us seek, gentlemen, to become interior men, to have Jesus reign in

us. Let us seek to depart from that state of lukewarmness and dissipation,
from that profane and secular situation that makes us busy ourselves with the
objects that the senses show to us without thinking on the Creator who has
made them, without meditation to abandon the goods of the world and not
look for the sovereign good. Let us seek, then, my brothers. What? Let us
seek God’s glory, let us seek the kingdom of Jesus Christ.”29

c. Prayer, the basis of action

28
SVP, XII, 131.
29
SVP XI, 131-132.

10
 In that context, prayer appears in Saint Vincent as the indispensable
condition for action, as its basis. Here, chosen a little at random is a cluster
of the thoughts of Saint Vincent concerning prayer:

Prayer is the means of knowing God and of knowing ourselves.30

Prayer is the sun that makes life possible on earth.31
Prayer is for the soul what food is for the body.32
Prayer is as necessary for the soul to keep it alive as is air to man or the
water to fish so as to continue living.33
The dress of the soul is prayer; to stop doing it is the same as not giving it
the proper clothing.34
Prayer rejuvenates the soul much more really than that which, according
to the Philosophers, rejuvenated the bodies through the fountain of
youth.35
Prayer is the life of all devotion.36
Prayer is the soul of the soul.37
Since a body without a soul is a corpse, so a person without prayer has no
strength or vigor.38

From that very high regard which Saint Vincent had for prayer springs
the insistence with which he recommends it:

“Prayer is so excellent that you will never do it too much; the more you
do it, the more you will like to do it if truly you are seeking God.”39

“If we persevere in our vocation, it is thanks to prayer; if we succeed in

our task, it is thanks to prayer; if we do not fall into sin, it is thanks to
prayer, if we remain in charity, if we save ourselves, all this is thanks
to God and to prayer.”40

“Let us not allow a minute of our time to go by without being in prayer,

that is, without having our spirit elevated to God; because, properly
speaking, prayer is, as we have said, an elevation of the spirit to
God.”41

30
SVP, I, 277-278.
31
SVP, X, 634; XI, 85.
32
SVP, IX, 408-410; 416.
33
SVP, X, 582-583.
34
SVP, X, 586.
35
SVP, IX, 417-418.
36
SVP, IX, 29.
37
SVP, IX, 416; X,571.
38
SVP, X, 521.
39
SVP, IX, 414.
40
SVP, XI, 407.
41
SVP, X, 422.

11
 “It is impossible for a Daughter of Charity to live without prayer.”42

For the missionary and for all those who work in the apostolate,
“Prayer is like an unshakable redoubt that will shelter all missionaries
from any type of attack; it is a mystical arsenal or like the tower of
David that will distribute all types of arms not only for self-defense
but also for attacking and conquering all the enemies of the glory of
God and of the salvation of souls. Prayer is necessary because,
without it, all action will remain fruitless.”43

“We should be like fountains full of virtue to prevent our water from
drying up.”

“We should posses the spirit that we want to animate the rest, because
nobody gives what he does not have. In particular, for the missionary
who preaches the Gospel, prayer is the means of knowing the truths
that he preaches; the book where he will learn what he should say.”44

“Prayer is the secret of the spiritual unction that the preacher should
have.” 45

“Prayer gives the missionary the power of touching hearts.”46

And summing up all of it in a phrase, prayer is so important for Saint

Vincent that he will exclaim: “Give me a man of prayer and he will be
capable of everything.”47

We have to be satisfied with this rapid enumeration of thoughts because

to explain systematically the complete theory of Saint Vincent concerning
prayer would require a conference completely devoted to the topic, perhaps
even a whole book.

d. The rule of action: the practice of God’s Will

To work, to act, to do is, therefore, for Saint Vincent, the first duty of the
apostolic man. Now, then, how to work, how to act? And in what? Action
needs a rule to direct it. What is that rule? We know it through Abelly:

“It can be said that conformity to God’s will was the proper virtue, main
and general virtue of the holy man that influenced all the rest. It was the
mainspring that activated all of the faculties of his soul and all the organs of
42
SVP, X, 583.
43
SVP, XI, 83.
44
SVP, XI, 85.
45
SVP, IX, 423.
46
SVP, IX, 423.
47
SVP, XI, 83.

12
 his body. That was the first motor of all his exercises of piety, of all his holy
practices and, in general, of all his actions.”48

We know it too through the words of the saint himself, with the
advantage that these will permit us to understand what is firm and conscious
about his choice of this virtue. We find them, for example, in his explanation
of the evangelical counsel, “I always do what pleases my Father.”

“You should know that there are various exercises proposed by the
teachers of the spiritual life and they practiced them in different ways. Some
have proposed indifference in everything. They have believed that perfection
consisted in desiring nothing or refusing anything of what God sends us.
They are raised to God on all occasions and they become indifferent to some
things or to others. This indifference is a holy exercise. What a holy exercise
it is to want what God wants in general and nothing in particular! Others
have proposed to work with pure intention, to see God in everything that
happens, to do and suffer everything for Him. This is very subtle. To sum it
up, the exercise of doing always the will of God is more excellent than all of
this. The reason is that it comprises indifference and purity of intention and
all the other ways practiced and advised. If there is some other exercise that
leads to perfection, it will be found eminently in this one.”49

This idea of conformity to God’s will, as a supreme rule of human action,

goes back very far in Saint Vincent. We can find it already in one of his first
letters to Louise de Marillac. “How little is needed to be a saint: to do the
will of God in everything!”50 In reality, Vincent had been filled with this idea
very early. While he was trying to finish his own projects, he had found
himself far from the way to sanctity, and had failed at one time and another.
When he decided to accept the will of God in his life, everything led him
toward sanctity. It was then a personal discovery. He embraced it even in
opposition to practices publicly praised by some of his spiritual mentors: the
holy indifference of Saint Francis de Sales and the purity of intention of
Bérulle. On the other hand, he copied it from another teacher whom perhaps,
Saint Vincent did not know personally but undoubtedly had read: the English
Capuchin, Benet of Canfield. He is worth reading because he teaches us
more than multiple studies of Vincent’s spirituality:

“And because that holy exercise which consists in doing always and in all
things the will of God, is a sure means to attain Christian perfection in a short
period of time, each one will do everything possible to become familiar with
it, putting in practice these four things:

48
Abelly, op. cit., bk. 3, chap. 5.
49
SVP, XII, 152.
50
SVP, II, 34.

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 1) Do properly what is commanded and avoid what is prohibited
provided that we know that the precept and prohibition come from
God, from the Church, from our Superiors or from the Rules or
Constitutions of our Congregation.

2) When various indifferent things are offered to us to do, give

preference to those that are repugnant to nature rather than to
those that give satisfaction to it, unless the things that please
nature are necessary. If such is the case, then, you have to give
them preference, although trying to look at them not so much as
being pleasing to the senses but as pleasing God. When several
things present themselves at the same time which, being
indifferent in themselves, are neither pleasing nor displeasing,
then it is fitting to do indifferently any of those, as offered by
Divine Providence.

3) Accept with equality of spirit, and as coming from the paternal

hand of God, everything that happens to us unexpectedly like
afflictions or consolations, be they corporal or spiritual.

4) Do everything for the single motive of fulfilling the divine will

and to imitate, whenever possible on our part, Jesus Christ, who
always did everything, for so noble an aim, according to what He
himself said: I do always the things that please my Father.”51

The doctrine of the conformity with God’s will makes the spirituality of
Saint Vincent one of the simplest but also the most practical of all the schools
of spirituality.

e) The style of action

Nothing remains for us to examine except that which I call “the style” of
action according to Saint Vincent, and which corresponds to the spirit of
Christ understood as an objective norm. In this field, everything is
dominated by the recipients of the actions of the Vincentian worker, that is to
say, by the poor. Both the five virtues of the spirit of the Congregation of the
Mission (simplicity, humility, meekness, mortification, zeal for the salvation
of the souls) and the three of the spirit of the Daughters of Charity
(simplicity, humility, charity) are justified on the one hand, because they are
the virtues that Our Lord practiced with preference and on the other, because
each of them responds to a special necessity of the apostolate among the
poor. The same thing can be said of the evangelical counsels of poverty,
chastity and obedience, that Saint Vincent decided should be professed
through a vow by both the Missionaries and the Daughters of Charity. If the

51
Common Rules, C.M., II, 3.

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 virtues are his style of action, the vows are its weapons, to counteract the
weapons of the enemy of the human race: greed, sensual pleasure, and pride.

Evidently, we could continue enumerating other aspects and applications of

Vincent’s spirituality. But that would lead us not to a Conference but to a book. What I
have tried is to show you a vision of his essential lines that to my understanding are the three
that I have just finished explaining. I want to end with the observation of one of the best
studies that exist concerning the spirit of Saint Vincent, the one by Henri Bremond, who
concludes his exposition with these words:

“Let us avoid taking the cause for the effect. It is not the love for men that led him to
sanctity; on the contrary, it is sanctity that has made him really and truly charitable. It is not
the poor who have given themselves to God; it has been God who has given himself to the
poor. Those who see him more as a philanthropist than as a mystic, those who do not see
him before all else as a mystic are imagining a Vincent de Paul that never existed.”52 Not
for this does Bremond ignore the condition of the man of action that Boudignon had
attributed with such energy to Saint Vincent. What he does is to show Vincent’s action in
its truest roots: “Mysticism has given us the greatest of our men of action.”53

On the other hand, in a more reasonable manner than Bremond, another expert on
Saint Vincent, Pierre Defrennes, shows the mystical character of Vincent’s spirituality,
indicating the multiple mystical traits that flow together in it; his passivity before divine
providence, his great desire for purification from nature, his thirst for God and his certainty
of having found Him. But he concludes with a doubt: “A mystic? In any case, not a mystic
of contemplation, but a mystic of action and events.”54 It is the conclusion recently
recognized by John Paul II in his book “Crossing the Threshold of Hope: “Also the
mysticism of marvelous men of action like Saint Vincent de Paul, John Bosco and
Maximilian Kolbe, has edified and constantly edifies Christianity in what is more
essential.”55

Jose Maria Roman, CM

52
p. 219.
53
p. 228.
54
p. 411.
55
p. 102.

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