vinFormation

Before St. Vincent and St. Louise

The monastic ideal prevailed in the Church

Focus on individual

sanctification, personal perfection

Image: Temptation of Saint Anthony, by Bosch

men and women were called to abandon the solely inward-looking

vision of faith and life…

…called to a mission broader than themselves

in imitation of Jesus, the Missionary of the Father, the

Evangelizer of the poor

After St. Vincent and St. Louise

Vincent chose to send his priests and the Daughters of Charity to the peripheries,

to those who were abandoned.

They lived in community to draw strength from each other, for the sake of the mission

It took another three centuries for this to be framed in the theology

of the Church:

Mission or evangelization is really at the heart of

the Second Vatican Council.