One hundred and fifty years of the Society of St Vincent de Paul's service to the needy - Bishop Colm O'Reilly

Summary:
* St Vincent de Paul Society has created an awareness in our community of our responsibilities arising from Catholic social teaching
* Love must do what justice alone would not have the capacity to achieve
* Some Catholic Secondary Schools have established Conferences of the Society of St Vincent de Paul.  I now appeal to others to follow that lead

Homily

The Longford Conference of the Society of St Vincent de Paul was founded on the 4 June 1859 - 150 years ago.  The fact that we will honour its 150th Anniversary on Sunday 6 June, Feast of the Holy Trinity, is fortuitous. 

It could have been argued that the celebration might be deferred until a day like the Feast of St Vincent de Paul, Patron of the Society.   However, in the first Encyclical Letter of the Holy Father Pope Benedict, Deus Caritas Est [God is Love], which was published in 2006 and addressed the subject of Christian love, I find an argument in favour of celebrating today, Trinity Sunday.

Pope Benedict uses the following quotation from St Augustine to introduce the part of that letter which deals with the work of charity, within which love is an integral part: "if you see charity, you see the Trinity".  He goes from there to direct our minds to Christ on the cross, his side pierced by the spear of the soldier.   Moved by love the Father sent His Son into the world to redeem us and when dying on the cross Jesus "gave up His Spirit", as St John's Gospel puts it.  The Spirit we have received unites our hearts to the heart of Christ who washed the feet of his apostles as a sign of the love we are called to show to one another. Pope Benedict says: "love is the service that the Church carries out in order to attend to human suffering and human needs, including material needs".

Here in Longford, in St Mel's Cathedral, on the front of the altar there is engraved an image that few ever see.   It shows Christ washing the feet of one of the apostles.  It is there in front of that image that on Holy Thursday at the Mass of the Lord's Supper that I have washed the feet of parishioners now for many years.  At that Mass we have traditionally involved people from various voluntary organisations in the feet washing ceremony.  I seem to remember that eighteen organisations were counted at one time for possible inclusion.  The longest serving and the best known and supported of those eighteen has to be the Society of St Vincent de Paul. There is none which is more evidently committed to fulfilling the command of Christ: "I have given you an example that you do for one another as I have done for you".

Our Diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnois has a long association with the Society.  In fact it was a man who later in his life became the Bishop of this Diocese who was central to the coming of the Society to Ireland.  Father Bartholomew Woodlock, then a priest of Archdiocese of Dublin, played a leading part in opening the way for the Society to come to Dublin.  The Bishop who brought the Society to this Diocese was Bishop John Kilduff.  He became Bishop in 1853 and in that same year the first Conference of the Society was set up in his native parish, St Mary's in Athlone.  The Society of St Vincent de Paul, founded in Paris, was then a mere twenty years old.

The story of the coming of the Society to Longford town is interesting, particularly because of the way in which the priorities for its work of charity were chosen.  After the Longford Conference was set up it very quickly changed from a wider agenda to a focus on provision of education.  A newspaper of the time, The Nation, had the following to say: "the members of the Longford Conference of the Society of St Vincent de Paul are about to establish, with as little delay as possible, schools for the more destitute of the poor children of this populous town" (The Nation 23 July 1859).