Saint Vincent de Paul

Priest, Founder of the Vincentians
(1581–1660)

Saint Vincent de Paul was born in 1581 at Ranquines in Gascony, France, the son of a peasant farmer. He was educated by the Franciscans at Dax and was ordained a priest in 1600 at the unusually young age of nineteen. In his early years he sought preferment and comfort like many priests of his time, but a series of providential events transformed him into one of the greatest apostles of charity the Church has ever seen.

A false accusation of theft, which he suffered in silence for several years rather than injure the reputation of the true culprit, was one of the formative experiences of his life. He also served for a time as a galley chaplain, where he encountered the misery of the galley slaves, men chained to their oars in conditions of brutal hardship, and this encounter opened his heart to the forgotten poor. Under the spiritual direction of Cardinal Berulle, the great French mystic, his interior life deepened rapidly, and he became a man of prayer as well as action.

In 1617 he preached a mission at Folleville that revealed to him the spiritual destitution of the rural poor, and from this experience grew his lifelong commitment to the evangelisation of country people. He founded the Congregation of the Mission, known as Vincentians or Lazarists, to preach missions to the poor and to train the clergy in seminaries. He founded the Daughters of Charity with Saint Louise de Marillac, the first congregation of unenclosed religious women to serve the poor in the streets and hospitals, a revolutionary innovation that changed the face of Catholic charity forever.

His works of charity were limitless: he organised relief for war-ravaged regions of France, ransomed thousands of Christian slaves in North Africa, established foundling hospitals, and cared for the sick in Paris hospitals with his own hands. He died on September 27, 1660, worn out by a lifetime of service. He was canonised in 1737 and declared patron of all works of charity by Pope Leo XIII. His feast is observed on September 27th in the current calendar, but he appears in July in some older lists.