Exchanging bread with the Beggar Christ
St. Vincent de Paul (1580-1660)
Vincent and the Beggar Icon by Meltem Aktas

He was born into a peasant family in Gascony, but Vincent de Paul did not intend to remain poor. He entered the Francis- cans and at the early age of 19 was ordained. He became a priest not out of holiness but to escape his family’s poverty, a life that was an embarrassment to him. When his father once visited him during his time in the seminary, Vincent refused to see him...he was ashamed of the clothing his father wore.

When ordained Vincent sought out various benefices in order to gain additional material comforts. His charm and social grace gained him the position of chaplain to Queen Margaret of Valois. Vincent was on his way to enjoying the entitlements of priesthood available at that time...until he recognized God’s call to him in a certain experience. Vincent responded to a request to hear the confession of a dying peas- ant. Following his absolution the man remarked that the presence of Vincent was the only reason why he would not die in mortal sin. Vincent awoke to the call of priestly ministry as being one that serves God through serving others. From that moment he dedicated his life to the poor. He ministered to prisoners and slaves. He saw a need to eliminate the spiritual as well as the material poverty of the laity. He realized that, if clergy received more spiritual formation, they in turn might better minister to the spiritual needs of their parishes. Hence he founded the Vincentians, a society of priests dedicated to the training of parish clergy and to rural mission work. Interestingly his past relationships with nobility became an important resource in his ministry. Past and present became intertwined, as “The rich vied to endow his projects, while the poor accepted him as their own.”1

At the turning point in his life St. Vincent de Paul realized that God is truth, God is love...and to find truth we must love and work and breathe in the midst of the human condition... no small amount of which is poverty. He came to realize that love of the poor does not mean sentimental, symbolic, or “feel good” gestures that self justify or relieve us of a more immersive presence to those in need. He was scornful of mere gesture. “Our love of God must be “effective,” he wrote. “We must love God.... But let it be in the work of our bodies, in the sweat of our brows. For very often many acts of love for God, of kindness, of good will, and other similar inclinations and interior practices of a tender heart, although good and very desirable, are yet very suspect when they do not lead to the practice of effective love.” 2

Christ said that the poor will be with us always. St. Vincent, however, realized the difference between accepting the ongoing existence of poverty and allowing it to be a hell of hopelessness. Hopeless poverty in an unacceptable human condition. The example of St. Vincent de Paul challenges us to jump into the swirl of poverty head first, to not allow our pre-occupations to keep us aloof and to project and rationalize rather than engage in some fashion (and each of us has our own unique fashion) in being present to poverty. He instructs us to witness poverty first hand, then to not change people but rather find small ways to open doors so that people can change themselves.

Vincent de Paul also wrote, “You will find that charity is a hard burden to carry... It is only because of your love, only your love, that the poor will forgive you the bread you have given them.”3 There is a paradox that occurs when one reaches this understanding – the tables turn and suddenly we are not giving bread but receiving it . There, in the face of utter poverty, one finds on occasion glimpses of the very face of Christ. Spend some time gazing on the Meltem Aktas icon “Vincent and the Beggar.” Consider the words of Louis Brusati when reflecting on the scene, “While Vincent is probably giving the bread to the beggar, it is difficult to tell by looking at the hands of the figures. It is possible that the beggar is about to place the bread in Vincent's hand. Herein lies the theological truth of the icon: Once we find Christ in the poor, the poor have as much to give to us as we do to them. The poor person becomes Christ and we become Vincent. In this exchange we receive from Christ, from the beggar, as much as we give.”4

The poor bring us to Christ, but this is not to say that the work is easy. Reflect on the icon again...see the pain and suffering in the worn faces and crippled bodies of Christ and Vincent. The rock that is poverty is slippery. Progress is incremental, maybe only infinitesimal...and this makes it difficult to love amidst the hardship. It does not always feel good. This is the cross, and the cross wears. Flannery O’Connor once wrote to her friend Louise Abbot, “What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.”5 The cross is a burden, but we must accept it...that is what Christ says following Him means.

The journey of St. Vincent de Paul started with a childhood of poverty, an aversion to it, an embarrassment for living it, and a determination to rid himself of it. The journey then led him to an escape from it, a clerical life offering comfort and social status. Finally the journey returned him to a life of material poverty...and paradoxically to a richness of life he had sought from the beginning. Where is our journey leading us? Cycling for Change is a call to pilgrimage, a chance to reflect where our journey is leading, to respond to the persistent whisper of Christ with which we wrestle, to allow Him to lead us to the poor, to ourselves become poor in spirit...and in so doing to find spiritual richness in living a life that St. Teresa Avila calls holy poverty. Slowly read the thoughts she shared with her fellow sisters concerning wealth and poverty...words that define for her and for us what has sustained value and meaning in life:

My daughters must believe that it is for their own good that the Lord has enabled me to realize in some small degree what blessings are to be found in holy poverty. Those of them who practice it will also realize this, though perhaps not as clearly as I do; for, although I had professed poverty, I was not only without poverty of spirit, but my spirit was devoid of all restraint. Poverty is good and contains within itself all the good things in the world. It is a great domain – I mean that he who cares nothing for the good things of the world has dominion over them all. What do kings and lords matter to me if I have no desire to possess their money, or to please them, if by so doing I should cause the least displeasure of God? And what to their honours mean to me if I have real- ized that the chief honour of a poor man consists in his being truly poor?

For my own part, I believe that honour and money nearly always go together, and that he who desires honour never hates money, while he who hates money cares little for honour. Understand this clearly, for I think this concern about honour always implies some slight regard for endow- ments or money: seldom or never is a poor man honoured by the world; however worthy of hon- our he may be, he is apt rather to be despised by it. With true poverty there goes a different kind of honour to which nobody can take objection. I mean that, if poverty is embraced for God’s sake alone, no one has to be pleased save God. It is certain that a man who has no need of anyone has many friends: in my experience I have found this to be very true. 6

1, 2 “All Saints, Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses of our Time,” Robert Ellsberg, pp. 420-422 (Crossroad Publishing)

3, 4 “Reading the Icons at Rosati House, Louis T. Brusati CM, http://www.imagoicons.com/rosati.html

5           Flannery O’Connor’s letters, collected by her friend Sally Fitzgerald in “The Habit of Being,” p. 354 (Vintage, 1979)

6           “The Way of Perfection,” St. Teresa of Avila, pp. 41-42