Feast day: 27 September
St Vincent de Paul was born in 1581 in the village of Pouy, in the province of Guyenne and Gascony, France, to peasant farmers. His father’s name was Jean and his mother Bertrande de Moras de Paul. He was the third child of a family of six. He worked as a child, herding his family’s livestock but as he showed promise, he was sent to a seminary. His father paid for this by selling his oxen.
Vincent studied for three years at a college in Dax. It adjoined a monastery of the Friars Minor where he lived. Life at the university was very rough and battles were fought between the various factions, which escalated into armed conflict. An official was murdered by two students. However Vincent continued his studies and financed them by tutoring. He was ordained in 1600 at the age of nineteen at Chateau l’Evêque near Perigueux. The Council of Trent had stipulated that the age of ordination was to be be twenty four, so rather than fight a court battle, Vincent continued his studies. He received a Bachelor of Theology Degree from the University of Toulouse in 1604. Later he received a Licenciate in Canon Law from the University of Paris.
In 1605 Vincent sailed from Marseilles on his way back from Castres, where he had gone to sell property that he had inherited from a wealthy patron in Toulouse. He was taken captive by Barbary pirates, who took him to Tunis. Here he was sold to a fisherman but because he was sea sick, he was then sold to an alchemist. He became fascinated by his master’s trade and learnt how to prepare and administer his remedies. However the old man died and Vincent was sold to a former Catholic priest, who had converted to Islam to obtain his freedom from slavery. This man was now married with three wives. The second wife, a Muslim by birth, became convinced that Vincent’s faith was true and reproached her husband for renouncing his Christianity. He repented and escaped with Vincent to France in 1607.
Vincent then went to Rome to continue his studies until 1609 when he was sent back to France on a mission to King Henry IV. Here he made the acquaintance of Pierre de Bérulle, whom he took as his Spiritual advisor. He was introduced to Canfield’s “Rule of Perfection” (Canfield was an English Capuchin and his rule was written in the late sixteenth century). Vincent was well known for being irascible but he learnt to become more sensitive to the needs of people.
In 1612 he was sent as parish priest to the Church of St Medard in Clichy. However in less than a year Bérulle recalled him to Paris to serve as chaplain to the Gondi family. They were aristocrats, who had originally been Florentine bankers, and were favoured by the royal family. Vincent tutored the boy who became the famous Cardinal de Retz. When he entered the priesthood, he had intended to have a life of leisure. His attitude changed however when he heard the confession of a dying peasant.
The Countess of Gondi persuaded her husband to endow and support a group of able missionaries, who would work among poor tenant farmers and country people in general. This was the origin of the Vincentians (see below). The new community, Congregation of the Mission, would live at the Collége de Bons Enfant in Paris. The Gondis were also supervisors of the prisoners, who were galley slaves and Vincent began to attend to their spiritual needs.
On the death of her husband, Louis XIII, Anne of Austria became regent for her son Louis and appointed Vincent as her spiritual adviser. He helped her deal with religious policy and Jansenism. This, regarded as a heresy by the Catholic Church, essentially denied free will in the path to salvation and claimed that divine grace given to some could not be resisted but those who were denied this were damned. This became a political as well as a religious problem.
In 1617, Vincent began serving poor families in Paris, bringing them food and comfort. He organized wealthy women in Paris as the Confraternities of Charity, to assist with this work, collect funds for missionary projects, found hospitals, gather relief funds to assist victims of war and ransom 1,200 galley slaves from North Africa. This involvement of women led to the founding of the lay-led Ladies of Charity and Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul with the assistance of Louise de Marillac.
In 1622 Vincent was appointed chaplain to the galleys. After working among the prisoners, he founded what is now known as the Congregation of the Mission, or the “Vincentians”. These priests took vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and stability and were to devote themselves entirely to the people in the small towns and villages.
Vincent realised the importance of retreats for clergy at a time when there was great laxity, abuse and ignorance among them. He was a pioneer in clerical training and instrumental in establishing seminaries. He spent twenty eight years serving as the spiritual director of the Convent of St Mary of the Angels.
Vincent died in Paris in 1660. He was canonized by Pope Clement XII in 1737.
The Society of St Vincent de Paul, named after the saint, was established in 1833 by French university students, led by Frédéric Ozanam. It is dedicated to the service of the poor in memory of its namesake.
St Vincent de Paul, pray for us.