For Saint Vincent de Paul, the poor were never just a “social issue” or a slogan to use in speeches. They are a face, an encounter, the concrete place where God allows himself to be found. From his earliest experiences – as we can already glimpse in his youthful letters – the poor become for him the criterion by which he measures money, time and even the meaning of his own life: even the gold produced in a questionable way by his alchemist master seems acceptable to him only because it can be sold “to give it to the poor”.
The poor person is not just any recipient: he or she is the Gospel measure of what is just or unjust.
Through the missions in the French countryside, Vincent discovers another form of poverty: that of the “poor people” who do not know the faith, do not go to confession and have no one to teach them. They are illiterate peasants, crushed by work, with no priests to accompany them.
From this, the Congregation of the Mission is born: a small group of priests ready to leave behind benefices and security in order to dedicate themselves to the salvation of the “poor people of the countryside”, combining catechesis, general confessions, reconciliation between enemies, care of the sick and the organisation of the Confraternities of Charity.
For Vincent, the poor person is never just a “stomach to be filled”: he or she is body, mind and spirit. A whole person.
At Vincent’s side, Louise de Marillac understands that her way of belonging to God passes through the poor. She visits the Charities, gathers women together, organises shifts, checks the accounts. But, above all, she enters people’s homes: she looks the sick in the eye, listens to children, encourages poor young women.
For her, charity is not simply giving a few coins or some food: it is becoming a neighbour, visiting, sharing time, skills and affection. It is what today we would call an “organised” charity, but one that is deeply human: with a burning heart and a clear head.
In the cities, Vincent also sees the limits of good intentions. In Beauvais, at the doors of the cathedral, the crowd of beggars becomes almost aggressive: there is a risk of turning almsgiving into an imposed right, a “I give so that you leave me in peace”, where no one truly meets anyone anymore.
For this reason, he helps the bishop move from disorganised begging to a structured form of Charity: lists, common funds, regular distributions. It is surprising how current this step is: even today, spontaneous solidarity – as valuable as it is – needs stable, transparent and competent forms, so that help really reaches the most vulnerable and does not create new injustices or dependencies.
One typical feature of Saint Vincent is gratuitousness. Missionaries must not receive anything from the “poor people”; they must live in poverty so as not to burden those who are already oppressed.
In a world like ours, where everything can become a product, an image or content to be shared, Vincent reminds us that the encounter with the poor must be protected from the logic of profit and success. The poor person is not an opportunity to feel better about ourselves, to look good, or to gain applause and followers: he or she is a brother or sister, a “member of Jesus Christ”. It is Christ himself who allows himself to be found in those who are wounded and discarded.
The history of the 17th-century plagues sheds light on another very contemporary aspect. During the epidemics, the “servants of the poor” put themselves at the service of the sick, but Vincent also calls them to prudence: it is not God’s will that they burn themselves out in impulsive gestures that then leave them unable to serve.
How much wisdom there is in this for our own time, which has lived through a pandemic. Serving the poor, the sick and the lonely requires courage, but also responsibility, respect for health measures and care for oneself. Not out of selfishness, but – as Saint Vincent would say – “for love of Our Lord and of his poor members”.
To make Vincent relevant today means widening our gaze to new forms of poverty. The “poor of the countryside” of yesterday may be today:
The face of poverty changes, but the criterion remains the same: the poor person is not a problem to be managed, but a call. He or she is someone who questions our way of believing, of organising society, of using our goods. The poor person asks you whose side you are on.
Saint Vincent does not look at the poor “from above”: he himself recognises that he is “poor” before God, in need of mercy. Only those who accept their own inner poverty can approach others without judging them and without feeling superior.
That is why the Vincentian tradition always unites prayer and service: adoration and the soup pots of Charity, the Eucharist and visits to the sick, discernment and social commitment. This too is an invitation for today: to let ourselves be evangelised by the poor, recognising in them not only those who await our help, but those who reveal to us the face of Christ and remind us that, before God, we are all beggars of mercy.
Today the Vincentian Family, in its many forms, continues this journey: missionaries, Daughters of Charity, lay members of the Conferences and parish Caritas groups, youth groups and various associations all seek to translate the “creativity of charity” into concrete gestures:
Often there is nothing spectacular. But it is precisely there, in simple and faithful gestures, that the thought of Saint Vincent remains alive: at the side of men and women marked by poverty, recognising that the Gospel still passes through the face of the little ones and the least.
And the question, for each of us, remains open:
Which poor person, today, is speaking to me about God? And what is he or she asking me to change in my life?
