St. Vincent lived 400 years ago, but amazingly, the values he wanted us to live are the same values necessary for our times. If his intuitions were for a Church of communion and compassion, he also suggested accompanying values that we need to treasure.
Synodality is not just new theological jargon. It needs to be lived in our everyday lives. How? Vincent de Paul suggested some practical ways.
In the Common Rules of the Congregation of the Mission, he wrote: “Charitable behavior towards the neighbor should be characteristic of us. We should try then (1) to behave towards others in the way we might reasonably expect to be treated by them; (2) to agree with others, and to accept everything in the Lord; (3) to put up with another without grumbling; (4) to weep with those who weep; (5) to rejoice with those who rejoice; (6) to yield precedence to another; (7) to be kind and helpful to another in all sincerity; (8) finally, to be all things to all people so that we may win everyone for Christ.” (Common Rules, II.12)
On May 30, 1659, a little more than a year before he died, he explained this rule in a conference to the missionaries. Vincent’s language is quite dated, but we can interpret these through a contemporary lens in language relevant to our times.
Vincent mentioned seven or eight practical virtues. Let me explain three in this article: (1) other-orientedness; (2) conflict resolution; and (3) a sense of vulnerability.
1. OTHER-ORIENTEDNESS
If love is doing good to others, we need to do good to them as we want them to do good to us. This is the spirit of the humanistic and biblical principle of the Golden Rule. This is not mere transactional engagement: “You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.”
St. Vincent speaks of “loving within”—the heart, the core, the depth—from which all our actions come. “Out of the abundance of the heart,” he says, “the mouth speaks. And, as a rule, external acts manifest what is WITHIN. Those who have true internal charity radiate it. Fire enlightens and warms. Love illuminates and brings to birth feelings of respect and kindness for the person to be loved.”
2. CONFLICT RESOLUTION
“To [merely] agree with others and accept everything” looks like a non-assertive and passive attitude to life. In the midst of conflict, this is an unsustainable stance. There could be three possible responses to conflict: flight, fight, or face.
The ideal is the third. But even contemporary psychologists admit that some situations practically require a temporary “flight” response when the other is a very strong partner and is not yet disposed to engage in open dialogue and confrontation. This is a sign of respect for the freedom and growth process of the other. This is not escapism or cowardice. It is real strength.
Conflict management, after all, does not simply mean putting my position forward to be understood. It mainly refers to our ability to engage in dialogue so that we can work together despite the conflict. St. Vincent says: “I do not win my brother by contradicting him…”
In the midst of a conflict situation, there is a need to find connectedness through attentive listening, for “he may perhaps be right and I may be wrong; he wishes to take part in a friendly conversation and I turn it into a dispute; and yet what he says might be taken in such a way that I should accept it if only rightly understood.”
In the end, Vincent gave two possible responses to conflict: If we hold an opposite view to what has been put forward, either (1) let us say nothing, or (2) let us simply say how the matter appears to us without finding fault with the interpretation given by others.
Assertiveness for the sake of assertiveness alone is aggression—a violent “fight” response to a conflict situation. It is a “contradiction, a plague that desolates, a demon that lays waste the holiest companies,” which does not find a place in the meek heart of Vincent de Paul and should not find one in ours either.
3. SENSE OF VULNERABILITY
“The third act of charity consists in bearing with another’s weakness.” This is founded on the fact that people who compose the community share the same weakness and brokenness. The more we accept this common vulnerability within ourselves, the more understanding we become of others.
Beyond woundedness, philosophers like Levinas and Butler consider vulnerability a human condition that allows me to hear, encounter, receive, or recognize the other, even if it could lead to me being wounded or injured. Vulnerability, then, is an openness to love the other to the point of woundedness. This is the stance that the Good Samaritan took when he met the man stranded on the road. By helping the wounded man, he took the risk of being wounded himself. Vulnerability is our basic human and ethical stance vis-à-vis a wounded world.
Vincent expressed the same message three centuries ago: “If any man will but closely study himself, he will discover plenty of weakness and failings, and he will even recognize that he cannot avoid having them and consequently, he needs forbearance from others.”
I am beginning to realize that we are not a bunch of strong persons out to conquer the world for Christ with the power we have in our hands. In truth, we are “weak beings” who meet wounded others and turn to one another for healing so that others may also find healing in our own woundedness. It is the “weakness” in us that binds us together in strength.
It is the vulnerability in us that leads us to become sensitive enough to reach out to others. Vulnerability means breaking the fortresses we have built around ourselves. It means letting others touch our brokenness and reaching out in understanding to the weakness within them.
Vincent said: “Whoever arrives at a real knowledge of his own wretchedness has reached the stage… where he is able to recognize the obligation he is under of bearing with others… hence in the midst of his weakness, he will charitably bear with his neighbors.”
As the Vademecum states, the Synod is intended “to inspire people to dream about the Church we are called to be, to make people’s hopes flourish, to stimulate trust, to bind up wounds, to weave new and deeper relationships, to learn from one another, to build bridges, to enlighten minds, warm hearts, and restore strength to our hands for our common mission.”
Pope Francis once said: “Once we strip ourselves of our robes, our prerogatives, positions, and titles, all of us are lepers, all of us are in need of healing.” Only from a vulnerable stance toward a wounded humanity can synodality, belonging, and mission emerge.
Father Daniel Franklin Pilario, C.M., is the President of Adamson University in Manila. He is a theologian, professor, and pastor of an urban poor community on the outskirts of the Philippine capital. He is also the Vincentian Chair for Social Justice at St. John’s University in New York.
