Death of a Farmer

1 John 3:11-18

Phrases that spoke to me today:
• unlike Cain who belonged to the evil one and slaughtered his brother
• The way we came to know love was that he laid down his life for us
• let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth

Applying the Word to My Life:
Vincent de Paul was born to a poor farming family, became a priest, and for a while seems to have wanted what a lot of people want: a stable life, respectable work, and enough comfort not to worry too much.

Then he heard a dying man's confession.

The man was a servant on a wealthy estate, and what Vincent heard shook him. Here was an ordinary person who had spent years carrying serious sins and spiritual wounds with almost no one paying attention. Vincent began looking around and realized the problem was much bigger than one man. Entire villages were filled with people who had been largely forgotten, materially and spiritually.

Once he really saw them, it became harder to go back to the comfortable life he had imagined.

Vincent began preaching in rural communities, serving the poor, ministering to prisoners and galley slaves, and organizing others to do the same. Later, with Louise de Marillac, he helped build a community of women who cared for the sick and poor directly in their homes and streets.

Yesterday we talked about the danger of turning life into an accounting exercise, where every good thing gets measured against what comes back to us. John shows us where that mentality can lead when it hardens enough. Cain looked at his brother and saw someone standing in his way.

Then John points to Christ, who does the opposite. Jesus doesn't take His brother's life. He lays down His own.

Vincent had to learn which direction he was going to live. He could have looked at the suffering around him and decided it was unfortunate but not really his responsibility. Instead, he let other people's need interrupt the life he had planned for himself.

That's where love begins to crowd out the ledger.

John says that if we have what someone needs, see the need, and close ourselves off anyway, something is wrong. Love eventually has to become visible in what we do.

Love begins when another person's need stops being somebody else's problem.

Most of us will never organize care for an entire country. But we will see someone who needs help, encouragement, time, money, patience, or simply someone willing to notice. Yesterday's reflection asked us to stop keeping score. Today's asks what we're going to do with the space that creates.

My Response for Today:
Today I'll notice one need I would normally walk past and do something about it.

ABOUT ST. VINCENT DE PAUL
Name: St. Vincent de Paul
Lived: April 24, 1581 – September 27, 1660, Pouy and Paris, France
Feast Day: September 27
Patron of: charitable societies, hospitals, prisoners
Title: Priest, Founder of the Congregation of the Mission (Vincentians) and co-founder of the Daughters of Charity
Read more: Franciscan Media