“Who do you say that I am?” This is a question Jesus says we are all going to have to answer. We answer this question with words, but even more importantly, we answer this question with our actions and with the way we live our lives each day.
St Vincent DePaul is the saint we celebrate today. You may know his name from the St Vincent DePaul society that helps the poor, which was originally founded in Paris in the 19th century. DePaul University in Chicago, the largest Catholic University in the United States, is also named after this saint.
St Vincent DePaul lived several centuries before the Society of St Vincent DePaul was founded, as he was born in 1581 in France. While a priest, he was on a voyage on a ship that was captured by pirates. He spent two years as a slave in Africa before he able to escape. He founded an order of priests and an order of sisters. Yet what St Vincent DePaul is known most for is his charity and the way he reached out to the poor and the needy – to children, to the elderly, to people of many different walks of life. Though honored greatly in his lifetime, he still remained humble, sincere, and honest. Vincent DePaul once said – “The works of God are not accomplished when we wish them, but whenever it pleases him.” We take reaching out to the poor for granted, but in the era in which Vincent DePaul lived, this was not always the case.
May we always live out our faith with the same courage that Vincent DePaul did, so that all will know whose disciples we are through our works and our actions.
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