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Live within our lives.
And
strengthen us by your love.
Send
forth your spirit and
New life will be created.
And the whole face of the earth will be renewed.
Prayer of the Vincentian Family
Lord Jesus, you who willed to become poor,
give us eyes and a heart directed toward the poor;
help us recognize you in them --
in their thirst, their hunger, their loneliness, and their misfortune.
Enkindle within our Vincentian Family
unity, simplicity, humility,
and the fire of love
that burned in St. Vincent de Paul
Strengthen us, so that faithful to the practice of these virtues,
we may contemplate you and serve you in the person of the poor,
and may one day be united with you and them in your Kingdom.
Amen.
The science of charity reform is not transmitted through books and at assemblies' tribunes as much as by climbing stairs in the home of the poor, kneeling at his bed, suffering from the same cold as he does, and discovering the secret of a grief-stricken heart in the course of a friendly conversation. When we have accomplished this ministry, not for months, but over long years; when we have thus studied the poor at home, at school, at the hospital, not only in one city but in several, and also in the country, in whatever condition God placed him, then we can start to know the formidable problem of misery, then we are entitled to propose serious measures....
Blessed Frederic Ozanam, 1848