Saint Vincent de Paul

The vocation of this genial initiator of charitable and social action yet lights the path of his sons and his daughters today, of laity living in his spirit, of young people seeking the key to an existence  usefully and radically expended in gift of self.

To serve the poor better, Vincent willed "to gather around him churchmn free of all benefices so as to be albe to apply themselves entirely under the good pleasure of the bishops, to the salvation of the poor people of the fields, through preaching, catechism and general confession,, without taking any reward of any sort or manner at all." That group of priests, called "Lazarists," developed rapidly into the Congregation of the Mission. Vincent never ceased from inculcating "the spirit of our Lord" into his companions. He summed up that spirit in five dundamental virtues: simplicity, gentleness toward one's neighbor, humility as regards oneself, and then, asa a condition of those three virtues, mortification ans zeal, which are in some way their dynamic aspects. His exhortations to those whom he sent to preach the Gospel are full of spiritual wisdom and pastral realism: it is not a question of being loved for one's own sake but of making Jesus Christ loved.