INTRODUCTION TO VINCENTIAN STUDIES

Thomas Davitt CM

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Part I:

We have to start, I think, with a very basic question: Why are we all here, including myself? This session is organised by the International Formation Centre, so that gives us something to start with. We are here in connection with formation. It is an international centre, so different countries are represented in your group. We all have two things in common  -  we are priests, and we are members of the Congregation of the Mission. Obviously, then, we are here so that in some way our formation as priests of the Congregation of the Mission will be continued. "On-going" formation is an expression that came into common use not so long ago, to indicate that when a man left the seminary as an ordained priest he was not completely "formed" for his life and ministry. The formation started in the seminary but needs to continue afterwards.

What is true for us as priests is also true for us as Vincentians. When we left the seminary we did not leave as fully formed Vincentians; we had been given an initial formation as Vincentians, but that initial formation needed development. That is what this three-month session is all about. Speakers like myself will put various facts, ideas and suggestions before you, on which you will reflect and pray and which you will discuss among yourselves. Remember, though, that the on-going formation is done by you yourselves, not by me and the other speakers.

Let's start with the name Vincentians. Members of the Congregation of the Mission in English-speaking countries are called Vincentians, because our founder was Vincent; similarly Franciscans and Dominicans are called after Francis and Dominic. We, therefore, are men who at the start of the 21^st  century are part of a congregation whose history stretches back to Vincent de Paul in the 17th century. He formed his first followers, and as the group grew they in turn formed others, a process which has extended right down to ourselves today.

Because of this human chain stretching back from each one of us to Vincent de Paul, we need to know something about his end of the chain if we are to understand properly our end, to understand what we are and what we are supposed to be.   

The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et spes, says in #5 that the human race has changed from having a static concept of reality to having an evolutionary one. If we simplify that statement it means, among other things, that no group of people stands still over a period, but is changing in some way all the time, either for better or for worse. We need to take account of the changes which took place in the past and which are taking place at present. The first change that concerns us here is that made by Vincent de Paul to the Church in 17th century France.

But to understand that change we must first understand the man who was responsible for it, and before we can understand the man we must get to know him. It is not enough just to know what he did; we must also get to know what sort of a man it was who did it. (This point will be developed in a later talk). And this acquaintance with the man Vincent de Paul should contribute to our on-going formation in real practical ways.

He has been canonised, so he is called a saint. The Church teaches that saints are examples and models for us. In the Vatican II documents this is found in #104 of Sacrosanctum concilium, the Constitution on the Liturgy, and ##50-51 of Lumen gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church.

There is an obvious problem here. In what sense can a person from another historical period, from another country, from another culture, be a model or example for me today? How can a 17th century Frenchman like Vincent be a model for an Irishman like me at the start of the 21^st century? This is a real difficulty, not just playing with words. There are many differences between the two of us, country, language, culture, historical period, theology and spirituality of his time and mine, and many others.

We can approach a solution to this difficulty by starting with what we have in common rather than with what differences there are between us. The first obvious common factors are that we are both members of the human race, and we are both believers in God. I find something Pope Paul VI said helpful in this context. In October 1975, after the canonization of Justin De Jacobis, the Pope spoke from his balcony to the crowd in St Peter's Square. Perhaps it is because I was there that what he said impressed me. He said:

Just as natural things invite our admiration by revealing God's activity, his omnipotence, greatness and beauty, we can, and should, to an even greater extent appreciate his image restored to its perfection and reflecting his work and love, in the mirror of these heroic brothers of ours... We need human examples if we are to achieve a closer likeness to God. (Osservatore Romano, 27-28 October 1975)

We need human examples to let us see what God can do with, in and through persons who give themselves to him.

There is one word in that quotation from the Pope which needs explanation: he referred to these "heroic" brothers of ours. Heroism is rare in human affairs. The number of medals awarded to soldiers for heroism is very small in comparison with the number of men in the whole army, so it is not surprising that the number of canonised persons is very small indeed compared to the number of Christians who have existed, not to mention the rest of the human race. But it is important to realise that the saints are not put before us as models and examples to lead us to canonization, but to help us towards personal holiness. I think the puzzlement of many people stems from not appreciating this distinction. While canonization is exceptional, holiness is something everyone is called to, as chapter 5 of Lumen gentium> teaches. The canonised saints are persons who followed this call to an exceptional, heroic, degree.

The documents of Vatican II have some very helpful ideas which help us to understand  in what way saints can be models or examples irrespective of historical period, nationality or culture. The first passage we look at is the opening article of Lumen gentium. It says there that because of the Church's relationship with Christ it is a sign of two things and also an instrument for bringing into reality the two things signified. The two things are: union with God, and unity among people. It is important to remember here that in theological or liturgical documents what is said about "the Church" is almost always equally applicable to each individual member of the Church. So, when Lumen gentium says that the Church is a sign and instrument of two things, it means that each individual member of the Church is a sign and instrument of these two things. In other words, each one of us is, or is supposed to be, a sign of union with God and a sign of unity among people. And also each one of us is, or is supposed to be, an instrument for bringing into reality union with God and unity among people. You can see immediately how saints can be examples and models for us there.

There is a second passage in the Vatican II documents which is also helpful. It is in # 3 and #4 of Gaudium et spes. This passage gives practical guidelines for putting into practice the theory of the passage from Lumen gentium, to which we have just referred. At the end of #3 it says that the Church (and therefore each individual member of the Church) has only one aim: to continue Christ's work. And it explains this work under three headings: to bear witness to the truth, to rescue, and to serve. In the next article, #4, two important things are mentioned before we can carry out our continuing of Christ's work: The Church (and therefore each one of us) must scrutinise the signs of the times, and interpret them in the light of the gospel.

Chapter 5 of Lumen gentium says that each individual Christian is called to holiness in the ordinary circumstances of his or her everyday life. So, the first "signs of the times" which have to be scrutinised are the everyday circumstances of our lives. They then have to be interpreted in the light of the gospel. This enables us to bear witness to the truth, to rescue in some form, and to serve in some form. They are the words of Gaudium et spes. The words of Lumen gentium allow us to look at the same scrutiny and interpretation of our daily circumstances under the headings of being a sign of union with God and of unity among people, and also being instruments for bringing such union and unity into existence.

Now all these ideas: scrutinising and interpreting the signs of the times, bearing witness, rescuing, serving, sign and instrument of union with God and unity among people, are all independent of historical period, nationality, language or culture. And it is precisely under some or all of these headings that we can take saints as models or examples. Or, in our present context, Vincent can be a model for us under some or all of these headings.

I think that what I have said should have removed from us any idea that Vincent is a model in the narrow sense that we have to do precisely what he did. We try to see how he scrutinised the signs of his own times and interpreted them in the light of the gospel. We try to see how he bore witness to the truth, rescued those in need of rescue, and served those in contemporary need. We try to see how he was a sign of union with God and of unity among people, and how he was also an instrument for bringing other people into union with God and bringing unity among divided people.

Vincent lived in France in the 17th century; we live outside France and in the 21st century. This means, quite simply, that anything in Vincent or in his ministry which was specifically French or specifically 17th century must be ignored by us when it comes to taking him as a model. We must know these things, of course, if we are to know the man, but they are an aspect of him and his ministry which we do not take as examples.

For example, some things obviously 17th century would be difficulty and slowness of travel and communication; medical matters; the role of the king, queen and nobility. When we come across these in Vincent's letters or conferences we automatically, without really thinking about it, leave them aside as not relevant to ourselves. But we also have to remember that Vincent's theology was 17th century, and in many things very different from ours and as unacceptable to us today as would be his ideas on medicine or travel. For example, he was quite convinced that simple inculpable ignorance of certain basic Christian truths automatically led to eternal damnation (XII 80); in a way, that was the driving force behind his idea of rural missions. His understanding of sacred scripture would also be unacceptable today. He believed, for example, that only a small number of the human race would be saved. He deduced this from certain passages of scripture: only seven or eight were saved in Noah's ark, only five of the ten virgins in the parable were admitted, only one of the ten lepers healed by Jesus returned to thank him (XII 126). The theological and scriptural insights of his own time were some of the signs he had to scrutinise and interpret. He is an example for us, not in the sense that we accept his theological or biblical reasoning, but in the sense that he used what theological and biblical studies made available to him in his day and we follow him by using what theological and biblical studies make available to us in our day. We put these contemporary insights to use in our ministry, as he put what was contemporary for him to use in his ministry.

But the most obvious "sign of the times" which has to be scrutinised and interpreted in the light of the gospel is myself. I cannot take Vincent as a model in any practical sense if I do not have a realistic knowledge of myself, based on facts. These facts include my personality and character, my skills and talents, my training, expertise and experience, my limitations and weaknesses. These are all facts, and to ignore facts is always dangerous. As facts, they have to be scrutinised if I am to understand how, for me personally, Vincent can be a model and example. Two further things have also to be considered, my likes and dislikes; they are facts and cannot be ignored, but they will be taken into account in a somewhat different way than the other facts mentioned.

All that I have just said about myself as a sign of the times also applies to other people. They have to be scrutinised, and interpreted in the light of the gospel. After all, being a sign, being an instrument, bearing witness, rescuing, serving are all directed towards other people.

A knowledge of myself and of other people, plus the everyday situations in which I find myself, are the scaffolding which enables me to carry out the work of bearing witness, rescuing and serving, and of being a sign and instrument of union with God and unity among people. Many signs of the times will normally not be within my personal control; they will simply be there, and I will not be able to change them. But what will be within my control, to a large extent, is my reaction to these things. And Vincent can obviously be a model and example in this matter: I can learn how he reacted to his knowledge of himself, to his knowledge of other people, to the everyday situations in which he found himself.

*****

Part II:

I mentioned already that as Vincentians we have to get to know Vincent de Paul, the founder of our Congregation. This is not just my own personal idea. #8 of our Constitutions says that all members of the Congregation should study "the example and teaching of St Vincent".

And when James Richardson was Superior General he wrote a letter to all confreres, dated 25 January 1976, in which he said:

There is a growing impression that numerous confreres of all age levels do not really remember St Vincent: his life, his works as related in biographies, and his teaching contained in the Common Rules, in his letters and in his conferences.

I have the impression myself that many confreres' ideas about knowledge of Vincent are limited to a  knowledge of the main facts of his life, a knowledge of what he did during his lifetime. I do not think that that is enough. My personal opinion is that there should be three stages in our getting acquainted with Vincent:

       First:  Getting to know the facts of his life, 

                  what he did;

       Second: Getting to know what sort of a man it was

                     who did these things;

       Third: When we know what he did and what sort of

                  a man he was, then we should be interested

                  enough in him to want to know his opinions        

                  on various matters and what advice he gave

                  his companions.

And it is important to emphasise that all three of these stages of knowledge should in some way affect our personal lives. We do not study Vincent in the same was as we might study another historical character. We could study Julius Caesar or Christopher Columbus, for example, and discover a huge amount of interesting material about them without such material affecting our lives in any way. Vincent is, of course, an important historical character, but for us he is supposed to be more than that. We have joined a group which had him as its founder, and in English-speaking countries we are called after him, Vincentians. This means that in some way we are supposed to be 21st century images of him. We cannot be that unless we know what he did, know what sort of a man he was, know his views on many important topics, and try to adapt such views to our own circumstances today.

The first of the three stages I referred to above is getting to know the facts of his life, getting to know what he did. This means reading one or more biographies of him. From the very moment we entered the Congregation part of our initial formation was reading a biography of Vincent, and this practice continued as long as we were students. There are some confreres, I think, who never opened a biography of Vincent after they were ordained.  That, if true, is a pity. All of us first read a biography of Vincent when we were teenagers. That means that we brought to our reading a teenager's understanding and experience. But a teenager's understanding of Vincent is not adequate for us in adult life. If we go back, ten or twenty years later, to the same biography we read as teenagers it will make a very different impression on us because we will be bringing to it ten or twenty years of extra experience. This will mean that we will understand some things which, perhaps, we either did not understand  at all or understood in a very limited way simply because we lacked experience. And remember I am speaking merely about the facts of his life, the first of the three stages; the same is even more true when we come to the other two stages.

I want to put in a recommendation here. Vincent de Paul was French, he wrote his letters and spoke his conferences in French, and a very large amount of material on himself and our Congregation has been written in French. A person who reads French has a great advantage over a person who cannot do so. If any of you have even a small knowledge of French I would urge you to make use of it and to try to improve it. If any of you is ever offered the opportunity to take courses in either beginners' French or French for those who already know some, I would strongly advise you to accept it. Many biographies have been translated from French into other languages, and broadly speaking the translations are usually almost as good as the originals. But when it comes to Vincent's letters and conferences no translation is as good as the original, and some translations can be quite bad. I'll come back to this matter when I am speaking about his letters and conferences.

Louis Abelly

The first biography of Vincent de Paul was published only four years after his death, in 1664. It was comissioned by René Alméras, the second Superior General. I am not sure why he did not commission a confrere to write it, but I suspect it was because of Vincent's own belief that members of his Congregation should not write books. The man Alméras chose was Louis Abelly, an already established writer. He had known Vincent for about thirty-five years, had been a member of the Tuesday Conferences, had given missions with them and with confreres. He lived in Paris and was in very frequent personal contact with Vincent. Vincent asked him to take on the direction of the Daughters of the Cross, and also the chaplaincy to the General Hospital for beggars which Vincent did not want his own Congregation to have. In a letter to a confrere in Rome Vincent recommends one of Abelly's books (VII 481). For writing the biography  Alméras allowed him access to written materials and Vincent's two secretaries, Brothers Bertrand Ducournau and Louis Robineau, gave him their full cooperation.

The book was translated into Italian in 1912, into English in 1993 and into Spanish in 1994.

The original work underwent various editions and adaptations over the years, and the first edition, usually quoted by later authors, was not always easy to find. In 1986 a facsimile edition of the first, 1664, edition was published in France and most Provinces, as well as many houses and individual confreres, purchased copies, so it is now easy to have access to it. Since the book was so important I used to wonder why an English translation had never appeared before 1993. I think the answer is simply that all the confreres of the Irish Province knew French, as they had done some or all of their formation in Paris. When the custom of going to Paris dropped out the level of knowledge of French dropped down, and when a new biography of Vincent appeared in 1889 by Mgr Louis-Emile Bougaud it was translated into English by an Irish confrere, Joseph Brady, and became the standard biography in English until that by Pierre Coste was translated into English by Joseph Leonard in the 1930s.

Abelly's biography has one enormous advantage over all subsequent ones; it was written by a man who had known Vincent from the mid-1620s up to his death, and he was also able to draw on the memories of other people who had known Vincent and lived with him.

His biography also has some obvious defects. First, he was not satisfied with Vincent's literary style and very often when he quotes passages from letters or conferences he alters them to make them conform to what he considers a better literary style. In cases where Abelly's version and Vincent's original version can be compared the differences are often quite startling. It is not just a question of changing a few words here and there, but often involves expanding sentences and paragraphs.

A second defect in his approach to writing his book is that he had a pre-conceived idea of what a holy priest should be like, and he made his writing conform to that. This means that he omits anything which showed Vincent in an unfavourable light, and gave the impression that he was a saint from childhood onwards. It is interesting, though, that Abelly, for whom Vincent was such a hero and model, admits that Vincent's own contemporaries thought that his frequent use of words like "wretch" about himself was very peculiar! (Livre I, ch xix p. 75).

The work is divided into three books. Book I is an account of the facts of Vincent's life. Book II is a description of Vincent's works. Book III is an account of Vincent's virtues.

In 1985 André Dodin published a book about Abelly's life of Vincent. He called it La Légende et l'histoire: De Monsieur Depaul  á saint Vincent de Paul. The title is very interesting. It implies that in Abelly's work there is a transition from history to legend as the real Monsieur Depaul turns into the legendary St Vincent de Paul. Dodin's book is fascinating and those of you who read French should read it during your period here in Paris. There is a very good article in English about Dodin's book, written by an Irish confrere Andrew Spelman in the Irish Province's journal Colloque, No 28, Autumn 1993, which is here in your library. It is quite a long article, nineteen pages, and gives an excellent summary of Dodin's ideas. It would be a good preparation for reading Abelly's work itself.

I think that every confrere here who can read French, Italian, Spanish or English, should make a resolution to read Abelly right trough once. When you are reading it I would advise you to make notes, indicating the page each time, so that you can go back later to something which struck you. It is very frustrating to remember that you read something in a certain book but later on cannot find the passage again.

Pierre Collet

The second large biography of Vincent was published in 1748. For political reasons it was published in Nancy, which was outside France at that time. It bears no author's name on the title-page, but was written by Pierre Collet CM, (1693-1770). He  was a prolific author, with a very large number of published theological, spiritual, historical and other works. For his biography of Vincent he spent ten years doing research. He had access to material which Abelly did not have, especially manuscript biographies of Vincent's early companions. Vincent had been canonised in 1737 and Collet made use of material prepared for the beatification and canonization processes. In his introduction he says that there were about 6,000 of Vincent's letters extant at the time, though he has a footnote admitting that another authority estimated 10,000. At present we have about 3,000. Because of this we find Collet quoting from or referring to letters which no longer exist, which is an important feature of his work. An abbreviated edition was prepared by Collet and published sixteen years after the complete edition. This shortened version was re-printed many times, and was translated into other languages, including an English edition translated by a secular priest and published in Dublin in 1845.

I must confess that I have not read Collet in either the complete or abridged editions, nor in the English translation of the short edition. There are a number of reasons for this. First, the two large volumes of the original edition are not easy to find. We have them in Dublin, but I did not know that for many years; they were never in any house in which I lived. The short translation in English is an unatractive book in appearance, and in rather small print; it is also in an archaic style. 

The fact that I have not read the entire work does not mean, however, that I have never made use of it. I have often consulted it to see what he has to say about some section of Vincent's life. I have very frequently read sections of it which are referred to in Coste's footnotes. Letters or parts of letters quoted or referred to by Collet, but which are no longer extant, are incorporated in the eight volumes of Coste's edition of the letters.

I think that for people like yourselves reading Abelly would be much more important than reading Collet.

Pierre Coste

Pierre Coste (1873-1935) was born near Dax, joined the Congregation, did his internal seminary and his studies there, and was ordained there in 1896. The bursar of the house suggested that because of Coste's poor health it was hardly worth giving him a new set of breviaries, since he would not need them for very long! Health was always a problem with him, but it did not seem to affect his capacity for work. He was appointed to teach in Dax, science, scripture, theology and history. The latter subject especially interested him and he did a huge amount of research in local archives. During his holidays he went up to Paris and spent long hours in the National Library and National Archives. When the Archivist here in the Maison-mère, Léon Brétaudeau, died in 1908 Coste was called to Paris to succeed him, and he remained here till he died.

As soon as he was appointed archivist he formed a plan for publishing a critical edition of Vincent's letters and conferences, and this was announced in the first issue of the Annales in 1911. He began travels all over France seeking out original documents and transcribing them. He also photographed ones which were sent to him on loan.

Strange as it may seem to us today, not all confreres were in favour of a complete collection of Vincent's writings being published. There was a long established tradition that this material was for confreres only and not for the general public. The edition of the letters prepared by Jean-Baptiste Pémartin in the 1880s was never available to the general public. Emile Vilette, the Superior General, who died in 1916, said that even as Superior General he did not think he had the authority to allow such a publication as envisaged by Coste; it would have to be decided by General Assembly. François Verdier was elected Superior General in 1919 and immediately gave permission to Coste to go ahead. That is why the fourteen volumes, when they appeared, and the subsequent three volumes of the biography by Coste, are dedicated to Verdier.

The first three volumes appeared in 1920 and the thirteenth appeared in 1924, followed by the Index volume, XIV in 1925.

Coste kept careful note of any errors he became aware of, plus any additions he needed to make, as well as the comments from critics of the volumes. All these were taken into consideration as he prepared his next great work a three-volume biography of Vincent, with the encouragement of Verdier. He set himself the timetable of writing one chapter a month. The three volumes were published in 1932. They were immediately translated into English by Joseph Leonard of the Irish Province, and published in 1934-35; this translation was re-printed in the United States in 1987. Coste's biography has also been translated into Spanish and Italian, German and Slovenian.

What sort of a work is it? It has been described as the work of an archivist, not of an historian. That is, of course, true. Coste was not a professional historian. In fact he had no training in any discipline and no academic formation apart from his seminary studies before ordination. In everything else he was self-taught. But, as I have already said, his great preparation for writing Vincent's life was his editing of Vincent's letters, conferences and other documents. As well as that work he also published a number of articles in various periodicals on individual topics related to Vincent. For example, in 1908 one on Vincent's ordination and first mass, in 1910 on whether Vincent took on the chains of a galley-slave, in 1911 on the real date of Vincent's birth, in 1912 on who really wrote the life of Vincent attributed to Abelly, in 1914 on Vincent and Saint-Cyran. In 1911 he also compiled a catalogue of all members of the Congregation from 1625 to 1800, giving details of birth, ordination, death etc. All of these, plus others, helped to clarify his mind on many matters as he wrote his biography.

My personal opinion is that it is the most important book we have about Vincent, and I think every confrere should read it right through at least once in his adult life. If any of you read it while you were seminarists or students, but have never read it since, I think you should do so again. It is a work that requires a certain effort to read, but the effort is worth making. After reading it through again once, I think you will then use it only for looking up details about some period or person. As I said earlier about Abelly's work, it is a good idea to make notes as you read, with page references so that you can find material again. Perhaps its greatest fault is that it is so detailed on what Vincent did that it does not give us a very clear picture of what sort of a man he was. Perhaps Coste expected that the readers of his biography would already have read the earlier volumes of letters and conferences, from which Vincent the man so clearly emerges. I'll be talking about the letters and conferences later.

José-María Román

Since Coste's work the only major new biography which has appeared is that by José-María Román, a confrere of the Madrid Province who is a historian by training. It came out in 1981 and has been translated into Italian and Polish, and an English translation by a Daughter of Charity of the British Province was published in 1999. It is a substantial work of 700 pages, though shorter than either Abelly or Coste. Román was able to make use of the advances in Vincentian studies made in the half-century since Coste's work was published. I have read most of it in the Italian translation, and all of it in the English translation while it was being prepared for publication. I have referred to the Italian translation many times checking Román's views on various points. It is a book that should be read by any of you who have access to it in a language which you can read. It is well written and easy to read. Howevr, I do not think that there are any confreres who would say that it is the definitive biography of Vincent which leaves nothing more to be said about him.

Short biographies

I will finish off this section on biographies by referring to short works. There have been a very large number of short or medium-length biographies of Vincent in very many languages, some original and some translated. As these are short, and written for the ordinary reader and not for historians or experts, they are easy to read quickly. I think you should get acquainted with some of these in your own language, especially the more recnt ones. These usually give a better picture of Vincent the man than does a scholarly work like that of Coste. A good short biography is worth reading several times.

In my opinion, the best short work in English is The World of Monsieur Vincent by Mary Purcell. She was an Irishwoman, a teacher by profession, who wrote about six biographies of various saints and historical religious figures. Her book was published in England and the US in 1963, and republished in Dublin and Chicago in 1989. It has been translated into Indonesian, much to her amusement, but not, as far as I know, into any other language.

The biography by Mgr Jean Calvet, published in Paris in 1949, has been translated into many languages, including English in 1952.

Luigi Mezzadri, a confrere of the Roman Province and a historian by training, has written a lot on various matters of Vincentian interest, including two short biographies of Vincent in 1985 and 1989. The second one, less than a hundred pages, is probably the better. It has been translated into many languages.

That finishes what I want to say about biographies of Vincent. I will begin tomorrow with his own writings.

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