Speeches

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St Vincent de Paul Conference

Address by Most Rev Kevin Manning, Bishop of Parramatta
Thursday 5 September 2009

Mrs Barbara Ryan, President, NSW State Council, and Vincentians, Brothers and Sisters,

Barbara, I welcome you to Parramatta Diocese, and I thank the organizers for the invitation to address you today in the Springtime of a new beginning of the Society in the Diocese of Parramatta.

Love is the Topic
As a young man, Frederic Ozanam once wrote to some of his friends: " if you want a formula, I believe in love". This was the opening line in Cardinal Rodriguez's Ozanam Lecture in Melbourne in July last year. The Cardinal went on to say that he proposed to speak about love. Deeming myself to be in good company, I too propose to speak about love, about the love of God and neighbour which underpin the Society of St Vincent de Paul.

The liberating love of Christ is at the heart of the Gospel and it is at the heart of the Rule of the Society:

" the vocation of the Society's members, who are called Vincentians, is to follow Christ through service to those in need and so bear witness to His compassionate and liberating love. Members show their commitment through person-to-person contact. Vincentians serve in hope" (Rule, 1.2)

This morning's talk will be an elaboration of this text of the Rule.

Members who are called Vincentians
" the Society's members who are called Vincentians". There is no doubt that the Society's name and that of its members is held in high esteem in the Australian community. Vinnies are part of the Australian landscape and some works of the Society such as the Matthew Talbot Hostel have a recognition value or 'brand" some advertising agencies would die for. Every homeless person in the city of Sydney and every care worker in the city can point you in the direction of the Talbot as it is affectionately known.

Such high esteem has been built up over many years by the faithful, dedicated and self-effacing work of Vincentians throughout the country. The Australian community believes and admires that fact that Vincentians are not in it for themselves. They serve as Christ served.

This enviable reputation, built on years of Christlike service, springs from a Society in which the love of God reigns. The love of God motivates the members but it also characterizes the members' relationships with one another. Anything less that that is like a cancer which eventually appears and destroys everything around it.

So important is the spirit of unity in the Conferences that the expansion of the Society must come second to it. On no fewer than three occasions, Charles Murphy tells us, did Frederic Ozanam advise the Council General and the Conferences to inquire whether unity rather than membership was growing.

There is no doubt that the culture of unwarranted complaint and criticism is alive and well in our wider Australian society today, and it has infected the members of the St Vincent de Paul Society to the extent that malicious gossip, highhanded actions, and possible injustice to individuals are not unknown. This is a scandal and is about as far away from the spirit of Frederic Ozanam and St Vincent as it is possible to get.

"Charity and Truth", Pope Benedict XVI's latest encyclical poses an enormous challenge to us. He says that

"a new kind of thinking is needed… so that integration can signify solidarity rather than marginalization. Thinking of this kind requires a deeper critical evaluation of the category of relation "(53).

If this is imperative for the work of the civic society - to develop solidarity rather than marginalization - how much more critical is it for the members of the St Vincent de Paul Society. A deeper critical evaluation of the category of relation: that is the task

Christ's Liberating Love
"Following Christ in his compassionate and liberating love"

The prophet Micah spells out clearly and simply the dispositions required of us: "to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with our God."

Jesus, in the New Testament, echoes the same message. He came to a harsh society, culturally divided between rich and poor, healthy and sick, and offered a countercultural way of living. In His words and actions, He called people to a way of life that had radically different values from the society of his time.

"The Spirit of the Lord
…has sent me to bring good news to the poor,
to proclaim liberty to captives,
and to the blind new sight,
to set the downtrodden free…"

Jesus set aside the established order, calling people instead to "love one another as I have loved you;" to "love your neighbour as you love yourself;" "as long as you did it to one of these, you did it to me."

Jesus promoted a culture of peace and justice based on the dignity and worth of human beings made in God's image. He promoted a 'beatitude' culture in which the value system of society is inverted: the poor are blessed; the meek inherit the earth and so on.

The Gospels depict Jesus carrying out a healing ministry, It wasn't just the word of healing that made the difference. It was the power of the encounter. Jesus looked and loved, accepted the whole person. He restored their dignity and enabled them to move forward.

Let me remind you: you the members of the Society, are the face of Christ's liberating love; the face and presence of Christ for all whom you encounter, regardless of their condition. Jesus related to the blind and the lame, the possessed and prostitutes, the tax collectors and sinners, as individuals loved by God. Nowhere in His way of relating do we find even a hint of blame, of moralizing, of condemnation, or of judgement.

Your founder, Blessed Frederic Ozanam, had a refined understanding of God's liberating love. I quote now from the homily given by Pope John Paul II at the Beatification of Ozanam:

" Frederic Ozanam loved everybody who was deprived, From his youth, he became aware that it was not enough to speak about charity and the mission of the Church in the world: rather what was needed was an effective commitment of Christian to the service of the poor' ". He had the same intuition as St Vincent de Paul, ' let us love God, my bothers, let us love God, but let it be through the work of our hands, let it be by the sweat or our brow".

There is no doubt that society has made many advances: in whatever field you name - science, technology, medicine, new ways of thinking and knowing -- great advances have been made, but one fact eludes many people: we are saved by love (SS 26); not by the fastest Broadband or by the leanest, smallest laptop, but by the love of God, given to us in Jesus.

We can experience great and different loves on earth -- the love of parents for their children, the mutual love of spouses, the love of deep friendships. While these loves are limited because of the frailty of our human nature, and are affected by death, they reflect and give us a glimpse of a greater love. We humans need the certain love described by St Paul:

"neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord." (Rom 8: 38 - 39).

The only thing that is truly indestructible is love: everything is held together by the indestructible power of love (SS 35).

Service to those in Need
"service to those in need" . There is always some kind of debate on who is poor, or what constitutes poverty. This week, in the Prayer of the Church, the readings for the Office of Readings have been drawn from Pope St Leo the Great's Sermon on the Beatitudes, and he describes the same kind of debate. In his commentary on "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven, he writes, " it might well be uncertain to which poor Jesus was referring to … (Jesus) added nothing as to how one should understand the condition of the poor" (Sermon 95: 1,2).

Blessed Frederic Ozanam can help us out. He loved everyone who was deprived, particularly those in extreme need and with no one to care for them. Readiness to help prevent people from falling into this extreme state is important, and properly part of your work, but assistance to those in extreme need, the homeless, the hungry, those without hope is part of the core mission of the Society.

Frederic showed great sensitivity to these men and women in extreme need,

" we must fall at their feet and say to them, like the Apostle, 'Tu es Dominus meus". You are our masters and we are your servants; you are for us the sacred images of the God whom we do not see".

In our times, Vinnies has an acknowledged need to employ people with skills needed to operate certain services, and tensions can arise between bosses, volunteers,and employees, as they could arise in any workplace. It is necessary to have transparent policies and procedures to handle such situations in a manner which is professional, timely, and just for all parties. This includes bringing matters to a conclusion in a reasonable period of time. The old adage, " justice delayed is justice denied' is applicable here.

Person-to Person Contact
"Members show their commitment through person-to-person contact". In his recent encyclical, Charity in Truth, Pope Benedict XVI develops the connection between poverty and isolation. He says

"One of the deepest forms of poverty a person can experience is isolation. If we look closely at other kinds of poverty, including material forms, we see that they are born from isolation, from not being loved or from difficulties in being able to love". (Charity in Truth, 53)

Our English word "isolation" comes from the Latin for solitude which is "solatio"; and so the English 'con-solation' means 'being with the one who is in solitude' : the solitude of homelessness, of unemployment, of mental illness, of disability, of relationship breakdown, of substance addiction; of infirmity, of chronic illness, of old age.

The members of the Society are called to be with 'the person in solitude' as Christ is with us. Each element of the list I have just recited is a dimension of the solitude of desperation, and the most desperate solitude is the solitude of feeling oneself unloved.

Therefore underpinning all their other work, the primary task of Vincentians is to help those they serve recover, or become aware of, their sense of person, a person loved by God: a man or woman who matters so much that Jesus was willing to die for them; a woman who no longer feels that she is a lost cause; a man who becomes convinced that there is always a way back.

This is the mission, and was the ministry, and example of Christ. Person-to-person contact has always been a hallmark of the Society. It can be called a myriad of more modern names: encounter; accompaniment but its meaning does not change. It has been the great strength of the Society and I, for one, have no doubt that the Society's longevity may be attributed to fidelity to that practice, the practice of Jesus we learn in the Gospel.

This person-to-person contact reinforces the idea that, in its essence, the Society is not a business, and if it is thought of as such, different values will prevail and the end may be that charity is sacrificed for efficiency - something to keep in mind: efficiency kills charity

Serving in Hope
Vincentians serve in hope". In the language of modern communication, we say that the Good News is not only informative - telling us something we did not know before - but performative - producing a life-change in us: "It is a message which shapes our life in a new way." (SS 10). A central element of serving in hope is to believe in change: to believe that one can change oneself and to believe that others can change no matter how desperate their circumstances may be. Because of Jesus, "The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life" (SS: 2). The gift of a new life! Is that not our hope for all we serve through the Society and for all our brothers and sisters in the Society?

Let us today grasp this gift of new life, responding with all our might, grateful for the opportunities God gives us daily and determined in the words of Pope John XXIII to" consult not our fear but our hopes".

Conclusion
We pause to thank God for the gift to the Church and the world of St Vincent de Paul, Blessed Frederic Ozanam, Sr Rosalie Rendu, and the many members of the Vincentian family through the centuries and across the continents.
My hope for you is that you will be faithful to your heritage, taking for your own the words of Blessed Frederic Ozanam, "only through the charity of Christ can we transform the world".

Thank you for your attention.