Glancing through the small-advertisement page of a daily newspaper recently, my eye rested on the heading ‘Thanksgivings’ and reading down through it I found the usual half-dozen or so acknowledgements to various Devotions and Saints for favours received. And it crossed my mind — not for the first time — that in cursory perusals of such notices in pious periodicals, as well as in the newspapers, over a number of years. I never once came across the name of St Vincent de Paul. Does this mean that devotion to the saint in the popular sense of the word is not very common in Ireland? Why are some saints popular, like St Jude or St Therese, while others like St Gregory the Great or St Augustine, giants in achievement and sanctity, do not appear to catch the popular favour?
To take the second query first. Most people, I suppose, are devoted to a saint simply because they find his or her intercession useful in obtaining spiritual or temporal favours. No doubt this is not the highest form of devotion; still, it is not unmixed with better motives and must in most cases ultimately reach out to something higher. Besides, devotion is a form of charity and the benefits of charity are, necessarily, reciprocal.
But to get back to our main query. St Vincent, of course, is one of the great figures in ecclesiastical history, and in secular history too. Nor is the esteem in which he is undoubtedly held merely static. The Society of St Vincent de Paul, for instance, flourishes in every diocese in Ireland and its 503 Conferences, embracing 7790 members, can be no strangers to the spirit of St Vincent.
Within a radius of five miles from where I am writing I can count a dozen institutions under his patronage — two, at least, outstanding in the life of the nation.
But achievement, and even admiration for that achievement, does not make a saint popular in the sense we are discussing. If this were the case St Augustine and St Ignatius Loyola should be amongst the most popular saints. But I have a feeling that St Monica is more popular than her more distinguished son; and who will deny that St Francis Xavier has stolen a great deal of St Ingatius’ thunder? Not every saint has a No vena of Grace!
It is a truism to say that devotions arise in the Church to meet a particular need, sometimes the need of a particular time or place: “The Spirit breathes where He will”. I can recall nothing in the life of St Anthony of Padua that would, humanly speaking, make him the the Patron of things lost. Yet I think that there are few, if any, of us who are not indebted to him under this title. How did he achieve this niche in the scheme of our devotional life? Memory vainly grasps at the gosssamer thread of a pretty story circling round a lost ring and a pious lady’s dream. But more than that. . .? Anyhow does it matter? It is the Vox Populi, guided by the Holy Spirit and regulated by Ecclesiastical Authority that is the final word in these matters.
Up to 150 years ago who knew anything of St Philomena? Nor is anything (beyond the fact that she was martyred by the Emperor Diocletian) known of her to this day — from history. Yet at the present time she rivals in popular affection the greatest favourites among the saints, mainly because devotion to her has been everywhere accompanied by great favours ever since her translation after the discovery of her relics in the Priscillian Catacomb in the year 1802.
So much for the human element in devotion to the saints. Of course there is a sense in which the human element does play an important, if subsidiary, part in the rise of popular devotion. Some of the saints grip the popular mind by the astonishing miracles that they work during life or after death. Many of our Irish saints belong to the former category, as St Philomena and St Therese belong to the latter. But when all is said, I think that what most draws people to any particular saint and makes him a “friend in need” is that all-embracing charity and breadth of vision that can best be described by some word like “humanity” or “approachability”.
Now St Vincent possessed these characteristics in an eminent degree. During his life there was scarcely any species of human misery that he did not alleviate. St Lazare, that was much too grand for the little company, suddenly became attractive when it was discovered that it housed a few poor creatures who were mentally ill and whom nobody would care for. Nobody could say that a man who used a carriage, so reluctantly accepted, to give lifts to tired-looking beggars on the streets of Paris, was unapproachable. Does it not seem strange if one so approachable in life should not be approached in suppliant prayer when he is in glory? And remember, the Church raised him to her altars not only that we might honour him but that we might seek his intercession. Indeed there is a special liturgical blessing for water in honour of St Vincent to be given to the sick. In 1888 the then Holy Father, Leo XIII, declared him Patron of all Charitable Works.
Is there room for an increase in popular devotion to St Vincent in Ireland? And if there is (and mind you, I do not say there is) is it ancillary to some want in the devotion of his confrères? These are merely questions, springing from a random train of thought, the product of an idle hour, but perhaps they might provoke a not unfruitful heart-searching.
Reflections by the author after thirty years
When the Editor told me he was about to reprint in COLLOQUE a piece of writing by me on St Vincent de Paul and Popular Devotion that appeared in EVANGELIZARE many years ago I felt like a man who has just heard that his Recording Angel has decided to rush into print. A lot of water has flowed under O’Connell Bridge since that little article saw the light of day. After all, as the song says “I was a pale young curate then”. The Council with all its soul-searching has given a new look to so many things that I thought my little effusion of 1953 might well be theologically tatty if not downright heretical.
However, on glancing through the script I saw little that I would change. Indeed with Pilate I might almost say Quod scripsi, scripsi. I see a brief reference to St Philomena. That would have to be modified. She has gone by the board by order of one of the Congregations of the Holy See. I remember, when the order was made, asking Abbot Cashman of Mount Melleray what he did about her shrine in the chapel there. He simply replied “Of course we dismantled it”. I would have done the same, though the thought might have crossed my mind “However would the Curé of Ars explain all the miracles now?”
But to return to St Vincent. Devotion comes at different levels. In the article I was writing about popular devotion; popular devotion generally consists of prayer for favours. There is another level of devotion that looks to a saint as guide and model and takes on his or her spirit; I was not writing about devotion to St Vincent at that level. Indeed such an important subject would need a deeper and wider treatment than could be given in a short and skimpy article.
At the time I was inclined to regret the failure of the people as a whole to look to St Vincent for help; I see no reason to think that the situation has changed. And the lack of devotion is not due to what might be called contemporary “enlightenment”. Indeed, as I write I notice in a daily newspaper as many as seven acknowledgements or thanksgivings to St. Jude. And this, mind you not in The Irish Press or Independent, not even in The Irish Catholic, but in the blameless Low Church pages of the Daily Telegraph. Perhaps we his confrères could benefit by a more intimate and simple approach in prayer to St Vincent. Perhaps a new interest on the part of the people might in turn spring from that.
I must make a resolution to ask more through his intercession. But I shall take care to serve notice on him that I want results!