The VincentianMissionary Spirit

“The secret for eternal youth is in having an ideal to achieve.”

Hélder Cámara, deceased Brasilian bishop, who was committed to the poor and affiliated with our Vincentian Family.

“El secreto de la eterna juventud es tener un ideal para dedicarse."

Today’s catholic church invites us to renovate our faith and to proclaim it with enthusiasm.

“You are the salt of the earth, but if it loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? You are the light of the world. (cf. Mt 5, 13-16).

Like the Samaritan woman, today’s people can feel the necessity to come near the well to hear Jesus, who invites all to believe in Him and to receive the living water that overflows from His being. (cf. Jn 4, 14).”

“That is why it’s also necessary today for us as church to be committed in favor of a new evangelization, to rediscover the joy of believing and renew our enthusiasm in communicating our faith”. (Motu Proprio Porta Fidei, 3,7).

Jesus was sent from the Father and under the Holy Spirit’s action, he proclaimed the Kingdom of God, through words and actions. He called men and women and communicated the new way of life, of fraternity and love.

“Go out to all the world and proclaim the Good News to all creation.” (Mk 16,15).

In our faith in Christ, when our sense of belonging and cohesion grows, our desire to communicate the Gift of this encounter also grows.

Communion is missionary, and mission desires communion.

Communion and mission are deeply united…

The missionary disciple, guided by the Holy Spirit, wants to make manifest the merciful love of the Father, everywhere and in everyone, especially in those who suffer the most.

We’re living in a historical moment where a true change is happening, where there’s a world that’s crumbling, and a new world that is emerging. It’s a time of crisis in a positive and negative way, full of enchantment and disenchantment, with new values, problems, possibilities: that calls upon the disciples and missionaries of Christ.

Saint Vincent lived and acted in the 17th century, in a society that was marked with great social inequality, with a lot of poverty and injustice. Throughout all of his life, Saint Vincent let reality and events speak to him. He knew and heard the cry of the poor of his time.

“If we asked our Lord why He came to earth, He would say: To help the poor! … Nothing was more important for Him than to work for the poor.”

The encounter with Christ in the poor showed Vincent that the poor are our “Lords and Masters”. In them Jesus reveals the true face of the Father, “the good God” of love, mercy, the protector and defender of the poor.

The Vincentian mission expresses and manifests a clear presence for the apostolate among the poor, paying special attention to social reality, especially the causes for unequal distribution of the world’s wealth.

In Christ evangelizer of the poor, Saint Vincent found the “true model and the great invisible outline by which we must measure all of our actions.” “Christ is the rule of the mission” and must be “the life of our life and the only aspiration that our hearts desire”.

Saint Vincent developed the mission as an act of love, which is lived by the generous and integral service to the poor.

It’s a “material and spiritual service”, “affective and effective”, through words and actions and it must lead to true love.

“Charity is greater than all rules and all things must relate to it”.

The missionary service to the poor is made in a spirit of communion and participation. The work carried out by Saint Vincent was a broad experience in solidarity, it was creative and diversified, and it counted on the collaboration of many people.

It was a communal and participative work, in a true sense networking, as we call it today. In communion and collaboration with bishops and clergy, he united the rich and poor, clerics and laity, men and women.

Saint Vincent’s missionary experience is truly a light for us all, a guideline for our actions today. It is a genuine path, that requires commitment, generosity and helps us to live our condition of disciples and missionaries of Christ.

Let us go to the poor! With increased faith, let’s be true

missionaries, let’s get to work!

Seek to love the God of the poor, Proclaim Jesus Christ with zeal. Tell them the kingdom of God has comeAnd heaven is their destiny.

Jesus Christ’s missionIs the same that he gave us.Today we continueHis salvific mystery.

Let’s raise our songs to the heavensTo God who called us to this missionWe are the instrumentsThat proclaim God’s desire.

What happiness, my brethren,Nor greater joy can people haveThe father will feelThe peace and joy that he gives us.