If there ever was a song that summed up St. Vincent de Paul's spirituality and the charism of the Daughters of Charity, it would be this one ("The Face of Christ" by Chris Rice):

Sr. Denise used this song after a reflection at our young adult meeting, in which we visited a house of the Daughters of Charity. The whole reflection, led by another Sister, was on Matthew 25: 31-36, which was essentially the basis for St. Vincent de Paul and consequently St. Louise de Marillac, the founders of the Daughters of Charity, the first successful religious community to live outside the cloister. This is the whole Vincentian charism - to see and serve Christ in the poor.

The Constitutions, almost 400 years later, continue to echo this sentiment - the poor are our masters because their face is the face of Christ's - not just as an afterthought, but rather as the theme and foundation of the whole community and the reason for their unique fourth vow: complete service to the poor.

"The King will reply: 'Truly, I tell you, whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'" - Matthew 25:40

Let the Nerdiness Shine Through...

The new (and last) Harry Potter movie debuts tonight. I won't be going to the midnight premiere but I do plan on seeing it before I move to Georgia later this month. As lame as it might sound, my favorite Harry Potter movie will always be the first, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - perhaps because of Harry's amazement at discovering the magic of everything. But I also can't wait to see this one because I've only read great reviews, even by Catholic sources like this Vatican newspaper!

Anyway, if you were a student at Hogwarts, do you know which house you would be in?

(And yes, according to various online quizzes, that's the house I would belong to...how did they know I can't digest lactose?

And yeah, I know Cedric Diggory was a Hufflepuff. But still.)

By the way, on a more serious note, Sister Susan over at Musings of a Discerning Woman, wrote a wonderful blog post on Harry Potter and Discernment. I highly recommend checking it out! 

Vincentian Quote of the Week: St Louise & Hope for People

If you grieve at seeing God offended by those who should be singing His praises and edifying the people, let it be your hope that, when the hour of the fullness of their vocation arises, God will be able to make them great saints. (St Louise de Marillac, letter 207 to Sr. Barbe)

Be Still and Know...

I just came back from an amazing week-long visit in Macon, GA, which will be my new community for the next year. I couldn't have picked a more perfect place for me to start formation with the Daughters of Charity. It was if the Sisters on the Council looked into my soul and knew exactly what I was looking for - a chance to live completely among with the poor, a mix of different ministries, and a house with a rich history (St. Katherine Drexel stayed in my house!)

At one point during the week, my Sister Servant (that is, the superior of the house) and I were talking. I'll be a very busy pre-postulant, working four days in the school and one day in Hispanic ministry and probably doing odd things on the weekends. But my Sister Servant emphasized having time at the house to relax outside of my jobs. I agreed, saying that "yeah, I would need time to do lesson plans and grade".

And she said "and you need that time to reflect and discern"

Oh yeah.

Personally, I'm a person that loves being busy. I love it when my calendar is full. And between thinking about teaching Spanish and religion and working in Hispanic ministry, I had forgotten that I needed time to just sit still. Just time to sit with God and put my whole life before Him. Just time to listen to what He has to say.

(Drawing from
St. Vincent de Paul Image Archive)

The Daughters of Charity are obviously all about the apostolic works - hence the name and all. But St. Vincent emphasized that just as much as we are daughters of Charity, we must be daughters of prayer. While the Daughters were the first successful religious community to live and work outside the cloister (others tried but either eventually grew cloistered or disbanded), they were founded with a very strict prayer schedule set by our two founders, St Vincent de Paul and St. Louise de Marillac. Today, the Daughters have morning meditation, Lauds, Vespers, evening meditation as well as the Rosary privately. And of course, while other religious communities have a specific devotion, the Daughters of Charity have the (daily) Mass - the most important part of their day.

St. Vincent de Paul gave a numerous amount of Conferences to the first Sisters, which amazingly has been preserved to this day. In those Conferences, he says "always do what you can so that, prayer being your first occupation, your mind may be filled with God for the rest of the day." (v.1, p28-29) And Mother Suzanne Guillemin, Superioress General during Vatican II, wrote "work and prayer, that is our unique spirituality, the spirituality of full life."

All I can hope, as I start prepostulancy, is to follow in the steps of the founders and Sisters - learning how to be a daughter of Charity, but foremost being a daughter of prayer...a daughter that knows how to be still every one in awhile.

Reason #19 I Love the Daughters: Untranslated Videos

I love the Daughters for being international, as I've talked about before when I mentioned their missions in the former USSR and a comment left by a British Daughter of Charity. I love it even more for the fact that I can find videos about them in Spanish that aren't simple translations. Sometimes translations can be iffy (especially with the use of online translators), sometimes they can be absolutely fine grammatically and orthographically...but either way, something gets lost in the translation. The sentiment, the enthusiasm of the original language is just not there. And usually, unless the translation is really really good, you can always tell that it's a translation. This isn't to discourage anyone from translating an important document into another language, especially if it serves the people (after all, how else could I read writings from St. Louise and St. Vincent de Paul...I know very little French!), but somehow the original language is always better and more beautiful.

Recently, I went searching for YouTube videos to show the Sisters I worked with in Bolivia. I wanted them to know even deeper the congregation I was joining. Writing about it is one thing, showing it in photos and videos is another. I didn't have to look far - I just typed in "Hijas de la Caridad" and found a multitude of videos about them that WEREN'T translations - rather original videos, mainly from the province in Peru.

Here is a promotion video that they have for vocations:

And yet another about the Sisters in Trujillo....

UPDATE: The Daughters of Charity have a YouTube channel - FILLESDELACHARITE. They are the same videos posted in various languages. They take turns making the videos, so it's never obvious what the first language is!

Vincentian Quote of the Week: Frederic Ozanam & Being Christian

Gentlemen, I have not the honor to be a theologian, but I have the happiness to be a Christian; the happiness to believe and the ambition to devote my mind, my heart, and all my strength to the service of truth. (Bl. Frederic Ozanam)

Frederic Ozanam? But he's not a Daughter of Charity or a Vincentian priest! You would be correct, but Frederic Ozanam is just as much as a Vincentian as the rest of them. He was the founder of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, an organization that is probably active even in your own parish. He was a  friend of Daughter of Charity Blessed Rosalie Rendu and considered her to be his mentor. He faithfully served the poor of Paris, inspired by question of a college classmate "Christianity is dead. So, you boast about being Catholic, what are you doing? Where are the works which demonstrate your Faith?" and founded the Society as a way to ask others to do the same.

He is a great example to all Vincentians, lay or not. He was beatified in 1997 and continues on the road to be formally recognized as a saint.

Millennial Generation and bin Laden’s Death

Technically, I am a member of the "millennial generation", which is anyone born between 1982 to 2000ish, supposedly. I am in huge disagreement with the dates since, as a middle school teacher, if we go by those dates, I would be teaching people of my own generation. Which is just weird.

One of the many reasons I don't think "millennial" should extend to the birth year 2000 is the events of September 11, 2001. I came across this article from The Evangelist a few days after bin Laden's death, which was two months ago today.

Millennial Generation and Bin Laden's Death

The writer of the article was a 7th grader when the September attacks happened. I was a high school junior. Unlike the author, I did indeed know what the World Trade Center was - I had been there before. I did understand what was going on (well, as much as one could in a situation like that), though I was still shocked about it.
Yet, despite the age difference, the author makes a great point:

For adult Americans, this was a heartbreaking attack, perhaps the worst of the many historical events they had seen in their lifetime. But for my generation, this was a defining moment. 

Just as our parents would tell us exactly where they were when President John F. Kennedy had been shot, this would be the day we would tell our children about. 

This was the Millennial Generation's turning point, this was where our childhood ended, where we learned the effects of war, fear, and even hate. People claim my generation lost a decade of childhood/teenage innocence when the US was attacked and perhaps we did.

Many of us were conflicted when bin Laden was killed - I saw it firsthand in many of my friends. Interestingly enough, I've found that, while my young adult friends felt that they should be relieved, they really weren't. And that a vast majority of them held unto the Christian belief that we should not rejoice in the death of another, even our enemy. To my surprise, my Facebook feed was instead full of links and quotes from the official Vatican statement, Martin Luther King Jr quotes (though falsely attributed), and verses from the Psalms and New Testament.

I think my friends holding strong to that belief, amid the "celebrations", says a lot about my generation - we know what's been taken away from us but that doesn't shake our belief in what we know to be true, in what we know to be right.

My favorite sentence of this whole article and what greatly sums it up for us, the Millennials:

We lost something on September 11, 2001, but that doesn’t mean we got it back on May 1, 2011. 

(P.S. Another great link is Seeing Christ in bin Laden by Busted Halo!)