Friday, May 29 : Saint Vincent de Paul

Our Lord said: “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Mt 5,3), by which eternal Wisdom shows us how the workers of the gospel should avoid all flamboyance in deed and word and adopt a humble, easy, straightforward manner of acting and speaking. It’s the devil who delivers us over to the tyranny of wanting to be a success and who, when he sees us drawn to comport ourselves simply and plainly, says: “What a base fellow he is! He’s so dull and thoroughly unworthy of christian dignity.” What a trick of the devil! Watch out, Messieurs, turn away from these vanities… Keep our Lord’s behavior before your eyes, so humble and unassuming. He might well have given brilliance to his works and a lordly authority to his words, but he did not. “You will do the same things as I do,” he said to his disciples, “and even greater things than these.” Now, Lord, why do you want them to do even more than you when they do what you have done? Because our Lord wants to be surpassed in what is done publicly so that he might excel in what is humble and hidden. He desires the fruits of the Gospel, not the acclaim of the world. And so he has done more through his servants than by himself. He wished Peter to convert, on one occasion three thousand, and on another occasion five thousand people (Ac 2,41; 4,4), and for all the earth to be illumined by the apostles. Whereas, although he was the light of the world (Jn 8,12), he preached only in Jerusalem and the countryside round about, and he preached there knowing he would be less successful than elsewhere… He achieved little enough, then, while his poor disciples, ignorant and common fellows, filled with his power, achieved more than he. Why? Because he wanted to be humble in this respect.

maronite readings – rosary,team