Feast of St. Vincent de Paul

“But afterwards he changed his mind and went” (Mt. 21: 29 – NRSV).

Most translations render conversion or repentance as metanoia or change of mind (i.e., meta= change; noia = something to do with nous or mind). But the word used in the Greek text is μεταμεληθεὶς (pronounced metameletheis), coming from 'metamelomai'. The root word 'melo' has the sense of “to care for”. If we translate, it would mean the first son changed – not only his mind but his actions – on what he cares about, on what he considers important, on what his life priorities are.

Conversion is about a “change of heart”, not understood emotionally, but a change in what we truly care about in our lives. This is what theologians call our “fundamental option”. Understood this way, we all need conversion – a continuing change in our life direction. The Pharisees have hardened hearts. They feel they do not need it. But the prostitutes and tax collectors knew deep within them the need to change and believe.

September 27 is the feast of a man who inspired my life, Vincent de Paul (1581 – 1660). I would like to tell his story today.

We all know him to have helped the poor all his life. For this, he was proclaimed by the Church as the universal patron of charity. He fought poverty in all its forms and faces – beggars, prisoners, abandoned children, mentally challenged persons, captives in foreign lands, rural serfs – name them, one can be sure he served them.

But this is the end story. Many do not know the real Vincent from the start. He actually needed conversion, a change in his basic life options. His conversion was not as dramatic as that of St. Paul or St. Augustine, but it was an authentic conversion just the same – making him closer to many of us and our ordinary lives.

He was not an evil person. He did not kill anyone or stole huge amounts from others. He just wanted himself and his family to survive, to gain a little wealth to pull them out of poverty, “to have a decent retirement”, to use his own words. These are legitimate desires in many of us. And in order to achieve this, he "used" the priesthood. He became a priest to serve himself and his ambitions. He was not a bad man but he was not the St. Vincent that many of us know.

On the outside, like the second son, he publicly said ‘yes’ – “Yes, I am going to serve the Lord in his vineyard” – but he did not go. He was not serving God. He was serving himself.

In his mind, priesthood can be a good business. On the first year of his priesthood, he wrote his mother: “Do not worry. Soon, you can stay with me and I will have substantial retirement money.” To think of retirement benefits on the first year of one’s career is weird, to say the least. He was always on the lookout where the financial resources were – a richer parish or chaplaincy, an old lady who can donate to him a large amount, the bishopric (Yes, he wanted to be bishop of which he was ashamed to speak of later in life), etc. This was his basic orientation – the fulfillment of his own selfish ambitions.

But God changed his life. It looks like we never convert ourselves. We are forced into it by surprising life events and unplanned circumstances. It happened with Vincent, too. All those financial adventures failed. While pursuing a prospective donor, he was captured by pirates and was made to work as a slave in Tunis among the Muslims. He lived in dire poverty quite far from the luxurious retirement he had imagined. To save on his little money after his captivity, he lived in a boarding house with a "kababayan" only to be falsely accused by the latter of theft. Vincent was denounced in public as "persona non grata" for stealing his money. That must be a big embarrassment and humiliation.

Despite all these, he still wanted that “retirement”. No let up on his original plans. He grabbed every opportunity that came. He landed in the household of the ex-Queen who was living by herself after being divorced by the French King. At least here, he had some stable income. But with that security came internal instability. He could not sleep for weeks and months. He could hardly do his duties. He could not even pray or say the Mass for which he was paid for. He suffered what some authors call “temptation of the faith”. But to be frank about it, he suffered a mental breakdown – for being locked down physically in that small unknown palace, but also for being confined psychologically on himself and his own ambitions.

Who saved him? Who healed him from his declining mental health? Who converted him from the preoccupation with himself? The poor themselves!

In the midst of that breakdown, he visited the sick in an adjacent hospital. There, he saw the real suffering of the poor – a place so crowded that dozens of sick people scramble for a bed vacated by someone who just died. This was an everyday occurrence. The sick were so destitute that no one really cared. They were just there waiting for their death. Vincent’s complacency was confronted with a situation of humans who lived like animals in hell. Quite an eye-opener for one whose life ambition is to live in luxury! The poor revealed to him the truth of himself. It was a painful realization.

On that fateful day, he allowed himself to be confronted by their pain and suffering. He allowed his selfish life to be questioned by their destitute poverty. It was not automatic. He did not fell from the horse and got converted then and there like St. Paul. But he know something was going on inside him. In the months that followed, he slowly changed his heart as he encountered other situations that questioned his self-complacency.

He was no longer happy living in the palace. He promised that his life be dedicated fully to these suffering people. He slowly avoided the corridors of power and sought to be assigned among the neglected peasants in the countryside, among beggars on the streets, among the prisoners in the galleys, etc. His life took a real turnaround toward society’s victims, the excluded and suffering other.

Within this personal change was a deep realization: that the poor is the source of his liberation. Against all messianic complexes that plague many philanthropists, NGOs and community workers, Vincent realized that it is not him who was saving the poor. In fact, it is the poor who has saved him.

Many do not know this conversion story – from being the second son who initially said yes “for a show” but did not go, to the first son who initially did not want but went to the field anyway… and remained there steadfastly.

St. Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

Daniel Franklin E. Pilario, C.M.
St. Vincent School of Theology
Adamson University
danielfranklinpilario@yahoo.com
09.27.2020