Feast Day of St. Vincent de Paul

This weekend, we reflect on St. Vincent de Paul, whose feast day is September 27. We are reminded to follow the example of St. Vincent de Paul to welcome opportunities to help those in need. We pray for those without food, clothes, or shelter, and especially the homeless. We ask the Holy Spirit to help us recognize Christ in the face of the poor. For this we pray to the Lord.

Mortification

Vincentian Reflections

TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME
August 31, 2008

Gospel: (Matthew 16:21-27)

Jesus said to his disciples: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life? For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay all according to his conduct.”

Vincentian Meditation:

“Service to God’s people demands a price. Christians must put aside their own prejudices, comfortable circumstances, and favorite ideas in order to do the will of God. This sort of discipline calls Christians to die to themselves in order to follow Christ. St. Vincent called this discipline mortification. Mortification, or dying to self, has sometimes become confused with self-hate, repression…or co-dependency. However, dying to self is a core value in the Christian Testament. St. Vincent believed that mortification had to be a conscious choice. With the grace of God, people could be willing to make the hard sacrifices that love demands. With God’s help, they could detach themselves from—or die—to all that was not Christ so that they could put on Jesus Christ. (McKenna, Praying with Vincent, p.83, 85)