As usual at this time of the year, Father Tomaž Mavrič, CM, Superior General of the Congregation of the Mission addresses the Vincentian Family on the occasion of the feast of St. Vincent de Paul, celebrated on September 27. This year he invites us to deepen our knowledge of the saints, blesseds and servants of God [...]]]>

As usual at this time of the year, Father Tomaž Mavrič, CM, Superior General of the Congregation of the Mission addresses the Vincentian Family on the occasion of the feast of St. Vincent de Paul, celebrated on September 27. This year he invites us to deepen our knowledge of the saints, blesseds and servants of God of the Vincentian Family, renewing our relationship with them, who are living models of the Vincentian charism.

Rome, September 3, 2018

To all the members of the Vincentian Family

My dear brothers and sisters in Saint Vincent,

May the grace and peace of Jesus be always with us!,

In this year 2018, we celebrate the Feast of Saint Vincent for the first time at the beginning of the fifth century of the Vincentian Charism. Once again, I would like to suggest as first steps on this path the following two initiatives:

1. To renew and deepen our relationship with the Saints, Blessed, and Servants of God of the Vincentian Family around the world as models of the Vincentian
2. To renew and deepen the “Culture of Vocations.”

The Vincentian Family is presently active in 156 countries throughout the world. To celebrate the Feast of Saint Vincent de Paul in the communities, parishes, schools, universities, and other services and projects in which the different branches of the Vincentian Family are involved, at the beginning of the fifth century of the Vincentian Charism, I encourage you to focus this year on the first point:

Deepening our relationship with the Saints, Blessed, and Servants of God of the Vincentian Family.

To do so, I suggest that each of the above-mentioned entities of the various branches choose one of the Saints, Blessed, or Servants of God within the Vincentian Family and make a presentation on him or her within the given group. In addition, develop a specific plan to present the Saint, Blessed, or Servant of God you have chosen to those in your surroundings, village, neighborhood, or any other place you choose outside your community or group. Presenting a member of the Vincentian Family, whose life is a model of the incarnation of the charism in the place and time of history God put him or her to fulfill the mission, will be a wonderful way to share the legacy, spirituality, and charism of Saint Vincent de Paul.

Here are some further suggestions for developing this project:

• Reflect on the list of all the Saints, Blessed, and Servants of God of the Vincentian Family.
• Choose, according to your judgment, the one who, in your environment or place of service, best speaks to the persons to whom you will present him or her.
• Form a small committee to be responsible for preparing the project by

1. considering the best way to communicate to the people the life, spirituality, and charism of the one chosen;
2. developing means to present the information with PowerPoint, brochures, internet, social media, YouTube, Instagram, etc.

• Encourage, in a particular way, young people to follow in his/her footsteps, such as considering a vocation to the Consecrated Life as a Sister, Brother, or Priest (thus deepening the Culture of Vocations).
• If you are not able to prepare or launch the initiative for the Feast of Saint Vincent de Paul, form the committee responsible for coordinating it and announce it on the Feast, with the plan as to how, where, and when you will develop the project and make the different presentations.
• Encourage others to pray through the intercession of that Saint, Blessed, or Servant of God for various needs and to trust in his/her intervention before God, being open to graces, miracles, healing of soul and body, and conversions. To this end, compose a prayer through the intercession of the chosen Saint, Blessed, or Servant of God, indicating an address or e-mail where persons can communicate the graces received. This also will help to bring the processes of our Blessed and Servants of God to a conclusion. Many still need a miracle to be presented to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in order to be recognized officially by the Church as Saints.
• Send us information, short articles with pictures, to famvin.org or cmglobal.org, in order to share your initiative with the entire Vincentian Family.

Saint Vincent himself expressed his thoughts on praying to the Saints when speaking to the confreres:

He told the Company that it should raise its mind and heart to God on this holy day of All Saints to ask for His grace and to pray for the needs of each one in particular and of the Company in general. “You see,” he said, “on this day Our Lord is accustomed to pour His graces in greater abundance on the faithful who ask Him for them in the way they should. He does so through the intercession of all the saints; for, since we have more intercessors before God, we must have no doubt that the graces He pours forth on the faithful on this day are more abundant than on the other special feast days of the saints. 

“So that, my dear confreres, is what we have to do, that is, to thank His Divine Majesty for all the gifts and graces He’s been pleased to grant all the saints in general who are now in heaven, and to each of them in particular, for the good use they’ve made of those same graces and for their perseverance in the practice of good works until the end. We should thank God for all that because they practiced so well the first lesson Our Lord taught them and us: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven’ (Matthew 5:3).”[1]

Your brother in Saint Vincent,

Tomaž Mavrič, C.M.
Superior General

[1] CCD XI, 382; Conference 175, Repetition of Prayer, 1 November 1657. CCD refers to the series, Vincent de Paul, Correspondence, Conferences, Documents, translated and edited by Jacqueline Kilar, DC; and Marie Poole, DC; et al; annotated by John W. Carven, CM; New City Press, Brooklyn and Hyde Park, 1985-2014.

The document is also available for download (PDF) or to view online (in Scribd) in several languages:

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“Why and how can I describe Saint Vincent as a Mystic of Charity?” – Superior General, Fr. Tomaž Mavrič, C.M.  asks members of the Congregation of the Mission in his first message for the feast of St. Vincent de Paul 

Rome, 19 September 2016

“Why and how can I describe Saint Vincent as a Mystic of Charity?” – Superior General, Fr. Tomaž Mavrič, C.M.  asks members of the Congregation of the Mission in his first message for the feast of St. Vincent de Paul 

Rome, 19 September 2016

FEAST OF SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL

Dear Confreres,

May the grace and peace of Jesus be always with us!

It is with great joy and thankfulness to each of you, my dear confreres, who are serving “our lords and masters” all around the world, that I address this letter to you for the first time as Superior General. I would like to express my deep gratitude and admiration to all of you living and serving even in the farthest corners of the globe as witnesses to Jesus’ love! We are all servants and it is wonderful to know that in this service we are never alone. It is Jesus, our Mother Mary, Saint Vincent de Paul, Saint Louise de Marillac, and all the other blessed and saints of the Vincentian Family who accompany us on the journey.

Let me take this moment to thank profoundly Father Gregory Gay, CM, our Superior General for the last twelve years, as well as Fathers Stanislav Zonták, CM, and Eli Chaves dos Santos, CM, and all the rest of the confreres, Daughters of Charity, and laity who had so tirelessly and with so much enthusiasm and dedication served in our general administration in Rome for the last six years to make possible the affective and effective proclamation of the Good News to the Poor.

I also would like to use this opportunity to thank so very much all of you who had written to me after my election as Superior General and expressed so wholeheartedly your good wishes and, in a special way, your promise of regular prayer. As it will not be possible for me to respond and thank each one of you individually, be assured that you are included personally in these words of thankfulness, as I extend to each of you my promise of daily remembrance in prayer.

We recently celebrated our 42nd General Assembly that left us with concrete goals for the next six years, which we will be addressing together in the years to come. It is a moment of “special grace” that Providence is offering us in the upcoming 400th Anniversary (1617- 2017) of our Vincentian Spirituality and Charism. Many of you already have begun intensive planning to share and encourage others to follow our Vincentian spirituality and charism on the local, national, and international levels as community, province, vice-province, or international mission together with the other branches of the Vincentian Family who are present in your specific area or territory. I encourage all of us to keep reflecting, planning, and acting together as how best to share with others this “special moment of grace.”

The motto of the whole Vincentian Family for 2017 that is going to shed light on it all is: “… I was a stranger and you welcomed me…” (Matthew 25:35). As our sight is directed toward our brothers and sisters, especially the most abandoned and those for whom no one cares, in order to be sure that our reflecting, planning, and acting go in the right direction, the path always needs to begin with us. The Feast of Saint Vincent de Paul gives us a renewed opportunity to reflect on the reasons and ways of Vincent’s reflecting, planning, and acting.

The theologian Karl Rahner, at the end of the 20th century, had pronounced these prophetic words: “The Christians of the 21st century are going to be mystics, or they will not be.” Why can we call Saint Vincent de Paul a “Mystic of Charity”?

I would like to invite and encourage each confrere to reflect, plan, and act on the following two points:

I.  Individually respond to why and how I can describe Vincent as a Mystic of Charity. 

I asked three of our confreres, who had reflected and written on this subject in the past, to share a short personal reflection. May these thoughts help us to renew and deepen our own reflections.

1. Father Hugh O’Donnell, C.M.

We all know Vincent was a man of action, so we may be surprised to hear him also referred to as a mystic. But in fact it was his mystical experience of the Trinity and in particular the Incarnation that was the font of all his actions in favor of poor people. Henri Brémond, the distinguished historian of French spirituality, was the first to bring it to our attention. He said, “…it is (Vincent’s) mysticism which gave us the greatest of the men of action.” André Dodin and José María Ibañez later called Vincent a “mystic of action” and Giuseppe Toscani, CM, united mysticism and action and came to the heart of the matter in calling him “a mystic of Charity.” Vincent lived in a century of mystics, but he stood out as the Mystic of Charity.

Being a mystic implies experience, the experience of Mystery. For Vincent it meant a deep experience of the Mystery of God’s Love. We know that the Mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation were at the heart of his life. The experience of the Trinity’s inclusive love of the world and the Incarnate Word’s unconditional embrace of every human person shaped, conditioned, and fired his love of the world and everyone in it, in particular, sisters and brothers in need. He looked upon the world with the eyes of Abba and Jesus and embraced everyone with the unconditional love, warmth and energy of the Holy Spirit.

Vincent’s mysticism was the source of his apostolic action. The Mystery of God’s love and the Mystery of the Poor were the two poles of Vincent’s dynamic love. But Vincent’s Way had a third dimension, which was how he regarded time. Time was the medium through which the Providence of God made itself known to him. He acted according to God’s time, not his own. “Do the good that presents itself to be done,” he advised. “Do not tread on the heels of Providence.”

Another aspect of time for Vincent was the presence of God here and now – “God is here!” (influence of Ruysbroek). God is here in time. God is here in persons, in events, in circumstances, in poor people. God speaks to us now in and through them. Vincent was a man of unfolding history in the deepest sense. He followed the lead of Providence step by step. He had neither an ego-agenda nor an ideology. It took him decades to arrive at such interior freedom, which is why Vincent’s journey to holiness and freedom (1600-1625) is the key to understanding the daily dynamic of the Apostle of Charity.

2. Father Robert Maloney, C.M. 

When we speak of mystics, we usually think of people who have extraordinary religious experiences. Their quest for God moves from active search to passive presence. They pray, as Saint Paul says to the church in Rome (8:26), “with sighs and groans too deep for human words.” Mystics have ecstatic moments when they are completely lost in God, “whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know,” as Saint Paul recounts his experience in 2 Corinthians 12:3. At times, they have visions and receive private revelations. They attempt, with difficulty, to describe for others their moments of intense light and painful darkness. Saint Vincent knew the writings of mystics like Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross. Though generally cautious about unusual spiritual phenomena, he admired Madame Acarie, one of the renowned mystics of his day, who lived in Paris during his early years there.

Vincent’s brand of mysticism was strikingly different. He found God in the people and events around him. His “visions” were deeply Christological. He saw Christ in the face of the poor. To use a phrase from the Jesuit tradition that has become popular in Vincentian documents, he was a “contemplative in action.” Christ led him to the poor and the poor led him to Christ. When he spoke of the poor and when he spoke of Christ, his words were often ecstatic. He told his priests and brothers: “If we ask Our Lord, ‘What did you come to do on earth?’ he answers, ‘To assist the poor.’ ‘Anything else?’ ‘To assist the poor.’ … So, are we not very fortunate to belong to the Mission for the same purpose that caused God to become man? And if someone were to question a Missioner, wouldn’t it be a great honor for him to be able to say with Our Lord, ‘He sent me to preach the good news to the poor’” (CCD:XI:98). When he spoke about Christ, he could be rapturous. In 1655, he cried out, “Let us ask God to give the Company this spirit, this heart, this heart that causes us to go everywhere, this heart of the Son of God, the heart of Our Lord, the heart of Our Lord, the heart of Our Lord, that disposes us to go as He went … He sends us, like the apostles, to bring fire everywhere, … to bring this divine fire, this fire of love …” (CCD:XI:264).

For Vincent, the horizontal and the vertical dimensions of spirituality were both indispensable. He saw love of Christ and love of the poor as inseparable. Again and again, he urged his followers not just to act but also to pray, and not just to pray but also to act. He heard an objection from his followers: “But there are so many things to do, so many house duties, so many ministries in town and country; there’s work everywhere; must we, then, leave all that to think only of God?” And he responded forcefully: “No, but we have to sanctify those activities by seeking God in them, and do them in order to find Him in them rather than to see that they get done. Our Lord wills that we seek above all His glory, His kingdom, and His justice, and, to do this, we make our primary concern the interior life, faith, trust, love, our spiritual exercises, meditation, shame, humiliations, our work and troubles, in the sight of God our Sovereign Lord … Once we’re grounded in seeking God’s glory in this way, we can be assured that the rest will follow” (CCD:XII:111-112).

In a ground-breaking 11-volume work written almost a century ago, Henri Brémond described Saint Vincent’s era as the time of “The Mystical Conquest.” At the conclusion of an eloquent chapter about Vincent, he stated: “It was mysticism that gave us the greatest of our men of works” (Histoire littéraire du sentiment religieux en France, III « La Conquête Mystique » (Paris, 1921), p. 257).

3.  Father Thomas McKenna, C.M. 

For this title to serve well, the word “mystic” has to be understood in its most general sense. The more popular connotation is that of a person who has more or less “direct” experience of God (visions, voices, leanings, sounds), more unmediated than not. The literature of mysticism describes experiences like ecstasies, being taken up into “a third heaven,” taken out of oneself and “sinking into” the Mystery (e.g., into the Abyss, Ocean, Ground) who is God. Its vocabulary is distinctive; e.g., progressively deeper inner mansions, active and passive contemplation, purgative/illuminative/unitive stages, passing beyond oneself, dark nights and dazzling darkness. By contrast, Vincent’s language for religious experience was quite simple and direct, and neither did he testify to these kinds of occurrences in his own life.

But the word mystic can be applied in a wider sense. That is to say, it might refer to someone who has a lived and felt contact with the sacred in life, and who responds to that encounter in service to the neighbor. Under this broader meaning, Vincent can be thought of as a mystic.

The more inclusive sense might be something like this. A mystic is one who listens to and gets caught up into God’s love for creation, and who then commits himself both to recognizing that love in the world and also bringing it there. For Vincent, this love (better, “loving”) of God revealed itself especially in people who were poor and marginalized. He came to recognize them both as privileged bearers of God’s love and as particularly deserving recipients of it. And he followed up on this by actively bringing the Good News of that love to those poor ones.

Much like the way the right lyrics can draw out the deeper beauty of a melody, the words from Isaiah that Jesus spoke in Luke chapter 4 gave a particularly resonant expression to Vincent’s experience of God. Here was Jesus announcing not only His own mission from His Father, but also His own experience of His Abba as Love for the world, especially for the downcast: “I have been sent to bring the Good News to the poor.” To paraphrase, “The fire of my Father’s love (“loving”) is burning within me, and it drives me to bring just that love to the world, most especially to the poor ones in it.” To follow the analogy, Vincent recognized these words as the lyrics to a melody that had been playing deeper and deeper within him. It was as if on hearing this text at a particular juncture in his life, Vincent said something like “Aha! That’s it! Those words catch just how I’m experiencing God’s love – and just how I want to spend my life in responding and spreading it.”

Another angle. You might describe Vincent as a “bi-spectacled” mystic. That is to say, he was (seeing) experiencing the same God through two different lenses, both at much the same time. One lens was his own prayer; the other was the person who was poor as well as the world he or she lived in. Each angle of view influenced the other, the one deepening and sharpening the perception of its opposite. Vincent “saw” (and felt) God’s love through both these perspectives at the same time and acted vigorously to respond to what he was seeing.

To keep our reflecting, planning, and acting in the right direction as members of the Congregation of the Mission, as missionaries who follow Jesus Christ the Evangelizer of the Poor in the steps of Saint Vincent, to help us reflect on Vincent as a Mystic of Charity, we have our Constitutions and our Common Rules, which are the compendium and synthesis of all our spirituality and the base for our life as members of the Congregation of the Mission.

II. Each confrere should carry, together with the breviary and Holy Bible, in the chapel, on the road, on vacation, the Constitutions and the Common Rules. If for any reason a confrere does not have a copy of the Constitutions and our Common Rules, he should ask his provincial or superior to help him get one. 

I suggest, and wish with my whole heart, that each one of us, from the youngest to the oldest confrere, follow and respond to Saint Vincent’s call in our first Constitutions, the Common Rules, as written by him in the last paragraph, “Each one is to have his own copy … and should read them through, or hear them read, every three months” (CR 12, 14).

In this regard I suggest you take into consideration both: our present Constitutions and the Common Rules and read and pray them alternatively: the first three months, the Common Rules, followed the next three months by the Constitutions and so on and that this become a lifelong commitment. As we pray the breviary and read and pray the Bible on a daily basis, we will make sure to do the same with our Common Rules and Constitutions.

To assist us in the reflection of what it means to me to see Vincent as a Mystic of Charity, his other writings and conferences certainly will accompany us, as well as the writings and conferences of other blessed and saints of the Vincentian Family.

As we approach the Feast of Saint Vincent de Paul that we will celebrate with the whole Vincentian Family, as well as with many other people, groups, and organizations whom we touch and serve, may we be deeply encouraged by this “moment of special grace” that Providence is putting in front of us.

I wish each of us a wonderful celebration, as we continue our prayers for one another!

Your brother in Saint Vincent,

Tomaž Mavrič, C.M.
Superior General

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Fr. Gregory Gay CM, Superior General of  the Congregation of the Mission and  spiritual leader of worldwide Vincentian Family  addresses its member with his invitation to reflect on Faith as the motive for feast of St. Vincent de Paul celebrations this year.  He says, “each year at the time of [...]]]>

Fr. Gregory Gay CM, Superior General of  the Congregation of the Mission and  spiritual leader of worldwide Vincentian Family  addresses its member with his invitation to reflect on Faith as the motive for feast of St. Vincent de Paul celebrations this year.  He says, “each year at the time of the feast of Saint Vincent de Paul we reflect on a theme that enables us to deepen our spirituality and to strengthen our commitment to the poor.  This year we want to reflect on the theme of faith, the central theme of our Christian identity and a theme that has been proposed by the Church.” Read the letter below. You can download it. You can scan the link and open it on your mobile device. Feel free to share it!

Let us persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith (Hebrews 12:2)

Rome, June 10, 2013

To all the members of the Vincentian Family:

May the grace and peace of Our Lord Jesus Christ fill our heart, now and always!

Brothers and sisters, each year at the time of the feast of Saint Vincent de Paul we reflect on a theme that enables us to deepen our spirituality and to strengthen our commitment to the poor.  This year we want to reflect on the theme of faith, the central theme of our Christian identity and a theme that has been proposed by the Church.

In the context of celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the beginning of the Second Vatican Council, the great ‘aggiornamento” of the Church in the twentieth century, Pope Benedict XVI has called us together to celebrate a Year of Faith (a year that was initiated on October 11, 2012 and will conclude on the feast of Christ the King, November 24, 2013).  Pope Benedict, in his Apostolic Letter, Porta Fidei, tells us that this is a time to set out to lead people out of the desert, towards the place of life, towards friendship with the Son of God, towards the One who gives us life, and life in abundance (#2).

Throughout the history of the Church Christians have been called together to deepen their understanding of some specific theme … all of which are important and necessary for faith.  This time, however, our coming together is most important because we are being called to reflect upon that which is the central theme of our relationship with God, namely, faith.

It is impossible to believe in God without faith and it is impossible to follow Jesus Christ without faith and it is also impossible to be a member of the Church without faith … all of this is obvious.  What is so obvious, however, on the one hand, is not always that obvious as we live out our life.  Therefore, to celebrate a year of faith implies that, as Christians, we celebrate Jesus Christ as the center and the culmination of our faith.

The starting point and the objective of faith is Jesus Christ.  The letter to the Hebrews tells us: Let us persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith (Hebrews 12:2).  Jesus is the basis for our faith and is also the content of our faith … Jesus, the Son of God who reveals the Father to us.  As a man Jesus is also the model believer.  He is the leader because he has initiated a new manner of believing in God.  He is the perfecter because he lived the fullness of faith.  Jesus is truly man because he is a true believer and, as the letter to the Romans tells us, through his faith we are saved (cf., Romans 3:21-26).

Throughout the history of the Church there are many people who have walked the way with Jesus and as a result these people have become models for us.  One of these important models is Mary, our Mother.  The gospels highlight Mary’s faith when it is stated: Blessed are you who believed (Luke 1:45).

Vincentian spirituality is centered on Jesus.  Vincentians are those men and women who ask: what would Jesus do in this situation?  Therefore, with regard to this theme of faith, Vincentians should ask: how did Jesus live his faith?  We see that Jesus unconditionally handed over his life to God, to the one whom he called, “Father”.  Jesus’ life was one of absolute trust and abandonment to the Father’s hands.  Even during times of great suffering Jesus remained confident and overcame every temptation to renounce that trust and thus rely on his own effort.

For us this means that Jesus is not only a person in whom we believe but he is also “the way”, a model of how to believe.  In this, then, Jesus is a leader who goes before us, who points the way … indeed Jesus himself is the way, the leader, a man of faith.  Therefore our situation as believers involves an act of profound confidence.  Like Jesus, we are invited to abandon ourselves to the hands of God, even when we experience loneliness and suffering.

Throughout the history of the Vincentian Family many individuals have given this witness of faith and today some of these persons are honored as saints, blessed and/or servants of God.  These same individuals have become reference points for our life.  Therefore with Jesus Christ as our starting point we are invited to live our life from the perspective of God; we are invited to live in the same way as Jesus did.  Vincent reminds us that faith means seeing in the way that God sees and that faith allows us to discover Christ in the poor.  The poor are the beneficiaries of our spirituality and Jesus is the means to reach them … but only through faith in Jesus and through the faith of Jesus can we open the path that allows Jesus to enter.  Therefore, as we seek to find Jesus we discover the poor because we cannot understand Jesus without establishing a close relationship with those who are poor.  Jesus said the same thing when he told the people that he had come to be good news for the poor.  Saint Louise also reminds us of this fact when she writes: The neighbor has been given to me in the place of Our Lord, by means of a love which his goodness knows and which he has revealed to my heart, although I am unable to put it into words (SWLM:821 [A.26]).

Jesus Christ teaches us the way of fidelity that enables us to live our life from the perspective of God … faithfulness to God in Jesus Christ and faithfulness to Jesus Christ in the poor.  Elisabeth de Robiano (the founder of the Servants of the Poor of Ghyseghem) tells us: God will not fail you if you have truly handed yourself over to God … and done this forever.  Our commitment to God is not time limited but is done forever … this is the most difficult dimension of faith because ever before us we see things that are disposable and temporary.  We would like our commitment to have some specific time limitation but true faith is forever.  Thus fidelity involves self-sacrifice, self-renunciation, the handing over of self, etc…  Fidelity, also, involves courage to endure all things for the love of God who is revealed in the poor.  Ignatia Jorth (the founder of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul of Zagreb) refers to this idea when she tells us: We are at the service of the poor. The poor are children of God and we are called to serve them, which is a most noble task.  If our ministry results in a lack of gratitude and insults, it is because this allows us to follow more closely in the footsteps of our Divine Teacher.  It is not always easy to be faithful to God.  Being focused on God results in a certain satisfaction but also involves the cross and not everyone is willing to confront the cross.  Therefore the way of faith is a path that requires daily conversion.

Today, Vincentians, revitalized by faith, must make a contribution to the world.  In some places people believe in no one and nothing and in other places people believe in too much … but material things do not give life but only result in death.  Our creative fidelity ought to be a living witness of faith in the midst of a world that needs to be strengthened and healed in so many different ways.  We are invited to live a faith that is capable of transforming the world.  Blessed Frederic Ozanam stated: Our faith, always young, is able to satisfy the needs of every era and heal the wounds of all people.

Let us allow Jesus Christ to be our teacher and let us allow Jesus Christ to be the path that leads us to the Father.  May we not only believe in Jesus Christ, but rather may we believe Jesus Christ,  May we also follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ that enable us to be faithful to the God of life, to the God who wants to give life to those who are impoverished.

Your brother in St. Vincent,

G. Gregory Gay, C.M.

Superior General