These are not theoretical reflections, but lived experience. Of sleepless nights, of accounts that do not balance, of painful choices. Of a question that runs through it all: what to do when the poor are increasing, but resources are running out?
Louise de Marillac’s letters from those years paint a dramatic picture. Foundlings – little ones without families, without protection, completely dependent on charity – arrive constantly. But the conditions for taking them in are collapsing.
There are no wet nurses.
There is no money to pay them.
There was no milk.
There were no clothes.
There were not even nappies.
Some children could not even feed themselves. Others risked being weaned too soon, with fatal consequences. There were more children in the house than could be supported. And every new admission became a race against time.
This was not ‘abstract’ poverty. It is a poverty made up of flour to buy, fabrics to sew, debts to incur, bodies to feed. A poverty that presents concrete decisions: take in more or stop? Take a risk or protect what already exists?
It is precisely here that the spiritual greatness of Luisa and St Vincent emerges. The issue is not merely organisational. It becomes a matter of conscience.
Luisa puts it plainly: can one truly let a child die simply because there are no resources? Can one close the door knowing that behind it lies a life that depends on that decision?
This tension is profoundly evangelical. There is no easy solution. On the one hand, there is prudence, which urges us not to bite off more than we can chew. On the other, there is charity, which drives us to always open our doors, even when it seems impossible.
St Vincent and Luisa do not choose the easy path. They do not deny the difficulty, nor do they spiritualise the problem. They face it in its truth: serving the poor means entering situations where there are no perfect answers.
In this scenario, the figures of the wet nurses, often forgotten, also emerge. They are simple women who take children into their homes and breastfeed them. They, too, however, live in precarious circumstances.
They wait to be paid.
They depend on that money to live.
And without that payment, they cannot continue to care for the little ones.
Thus poverty multiplies: the children are poor because they are abandoned, but the wet nurses are poor because they do not receive the proper support. Charity must reach both.
St Vincent understood this well: it is not just a matter of saving the children, but of supporting the whole network of people that makes their survival possible.
Faced with this crisis, the answer is not resignation. It is organisation.
Luisa proposed meetings, collections, the involvement of parishes, and raising awareness among influential people. Loans were sought, networks were activated, and consciences were mobilised.
This is one of the most modern insights of the Vincentian charism:
charity cannot be improvised. It must be thought out, organised, and sustained.
It is not enough to have a good heart. A structure is also needed to ensure that charity endures over time.
These pages force us to change our perspective. We often think of poverty in general terms, but here it appears in its most concrete and disarming form.
It is the child who has no milk.
It is the body that is cold because it lacks a cloth.
It is the woman who does not know how to feed a child that is not her own.
It is a community that must choose how to distribute insufficient resources.
And yet, it is precisely in this harsh reality that the Gospel is revealed. Not in a spectacular way, but in the daily faithfulness of those who continue to serve, to seek solutions, and to keep their hearts open.
This story does not belong solely to the past. Even today, there are forms of child poverty that challenge our conscience: children without families, without adequate care, without a future.
And even today the temptation is the same: to think that the problem is too great, that resources are insufficient, that nothing can be done.
St Vincent and Luisa respond in a different way. They do not deny the limitations, but they do not let those limitations become an excuse to stop.
They carry on.
They seek.
They organise themselves.
They put themselves on the line.
Because they know that, when faced with a child at risk of dying, charity cannot wait.
And perhaps it is precisely here that the truth of the Gospel is measured: not in grand words, but in the ability not to look the other way when the most fragile life asks to be protected.
