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Blessed Frederic Ozanam, experience, faith, listen, prove, question, response, saint of the day, saints, St. Vincent de Paul, St. Vincent de Paul Society, The Sophia Center for Spirituality
Every once in awhile I am pleasantly surprised by what I find as I begin my routine of blogging. My first stop is always the US Catholic Bishops’ website (www.usccb.org) which provides me with the lectionary readings for the day. Next I check Fr. Don Miller’s information about the holy person whose designated feast the Roman Catholic Church celebrates on that particular day (www.franciscanmedia.org). I do check into the thoughts floating in my own mind as well but always like to have some backup in case of “brain freeze.” And as most of you know, my “backup” stretches to many other sources as well.
This morning I was interested to find a “saint of the day” – the second in a week – whose story I had never heard. This man on the way to canonization, Blessed Frederic Ozanam, is credited with the founding of the St. Vincent de Paul Society in 1833. Although he was a stranger to me, his organization is not. My sister has a very active “chapter” of this society in her parish and she herself has become very involved in the Thrift Store that is integral to the work of the society for the benefit of the poor. This work can be found in many countries in the world and is extraordinary in its reach.
God speaks in many ways at different times and it is always important to be attentive to when a word might be meant specifically for you – or me. It happened for Frederic Ozanam during a session of his book club one day. The club was a very diverse group of people including agnostics and atheists in addition to Christians. As he was speaking about Christianity’s role in civilization, someone said to Ozanam, “Let us be frank, Mr. Ozanam; let us also be very particular. What do you do besides talk to prove the faith you claim is in you?” In this question lay the seed of response that became the Society dedicated to justice and aid to the underprivileged under the patronage of St. Vincent de Paul, great champion of the poor.
What Ozanam’s life would have become if that question had not been asked or if he had not taken its meaning to heart will never be known. Was it the directness of the question? the readiness of Ozanam’s spirit? his experience of life up to that point? Who knows? What is important is that he responded in a way that has changed lives over the past two centuries. A good example for all of us.
There are moments – days – when I sit not knowing what to say here. The words nine and eleven, when taken together, can conjure up only one thing for most, if not all, people in the United States. We were shaken to our core in 2001 with images of planes crashing into buildings and those buildings crumbling like structures in a bad movie. Messages of love on cell phones and lines of people waiting to give blood to the wounded showed us the other side of the tragedy. Remembrance of the outpouring of care for those most affected has helped assuage the grief of those days following the 9/11 attacks but it is like other days in our history that have left indelible scars in our hearts.
Today’s readings got me thinking about reaction vs. response and about the difficult job of those messengers in the Bible who spoke for God. First there is Isaiah, human prophet, whose job was to warn people about coming destruction and then in the gospel “an angel of the Lord’ whose message was quite a bit more unbelievable – at least from my vantage point.
Some time ago, I came somehow to a deep conviction that worry is a waste of time. I say “somehow” because the realization came without effort from me. It was as if I had awakened from dreaming about someone and the person was standing in front of me. I hadn’t called or texted the person with an invitation. I hadn’t sent a plane ticket or a check for travel. The person had just appeared in the flesh, totally touchable and present. I have often tried not to worry about things: getting good grades, arriving to events on time, being well enough prepared for presentations, and the self-talk usually assuaged the nervousness somewhat at least. In the big issues: personal relationships and world poverty – not so much.
It’s clear to everyone in the United States of America – and beyond – that things will be changing for us very soon. It’s difficult to be sure of what form those changes will take but change there will undoubtedly be. I’ve spoken before about possible reactions and responses to change. This morning I was again thrust into that reflection by the final verses of Psalm 98, presented in a lyrical way by the following translation.
This morning I woke with a line from Christopher Fry’s poem, A Sleep of Prisoners, in my head. It comes to me in moments of significance – often as the whole poem but sometimes just the part. I always look it up to make sure I’m not misquoting and in the version I clicked on today, the line was set off in bold. It says: Affairs are now soul size. The enterprise is exploration into God.
