A word about spirituality

A spirituality is an energizing vision, a driving force. It is, on the one hand, the specific way in which a person is rooted in God. It is, on the other hand, the specific way in which he or she relates to the created world. It is insight as the source of action. It is a vision that generates energy and channels it in a particular direction, thereby enabling a person to transcend himself or herself. For the Christian, it is a way of seeing Christ and being in him that directs the individual's energies in the service of the kingdom.

Contemporary writers emphasize the transcendent thrust of all spirituality, both Christian and non-Christian. Sandra Schneiders describes it as "the experience of consciously striving to integrate one's life in terms not of isolation and self-absorption but of self-transcendence toward the ultimate value one perceives." The main characteristics of spirituality, largely agreed on by theologians today, are included within this definition: progressive, consciously pursued, personal integration through self-transcendence within and toward the horizon of ultimate concern, which in St. Vincent's case is Christ the Evangelizer of the Poor.

May I invite you to enter into Saint Vincent's world? I speak, of course, not of the world of the seventeenth century, but rather the world where the following of Christ as the Evangelizer of the Poor is everything. In that world, values that have great importance in other "worlds"--wealth, power, sexual fulfillment, popularity, self-determination--occupy a very different position. For Christ, the Evangelizer of the Poor, they are all relativized--they pale in light of the kingdom of God. Saint Vincent calls us not merely to study about this Christ, but to enter into his mind, his vision, his sentiments, his heart. For Saint Vincent this Christ, the Evangelizer of the Poor, is the center of the universe. He reveals to Vincent how to relate to God and his providence, how to serve the poor, how to live daily in communion with others, how to pray.