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St. Vincent on Prayer

St. Vincent urged St. Louise to form the young sisters very well in prayer. He himself gave many practical conferences to them on the subject. It is evident from these conferences that many had difficulties in engaging in mental prayer. He assures them that it is really quite easy! It is like having a conversation for half an hour. He states, with some irony, that people are usually glad to talk with a king or world leader. We should be all the more glad to have a chance to talk with God. He gives numerous examples of those who have learned to pray, in all classes of society: peasant girls, servants, soldiers, actors and actresses, lawyers, statesmen, fashionable women and noblemen of the court, judges. In the various conferences that he gave upon the occasion of the death of Daughters of Charity, he often alluded to their prayerfulness. 

He defines prayer as “an elevation of the mind to God by which the soul detaches itself, as it were, from itself so as to seek God in himself. It is a conversation with God, an intercourse of the spirit, in which God interiorly teaches it what it should know and do, and in which the soul says to God what he himself teaches it to ask for.”

- Robert P. Maloney, CM

St. Vincent and Mental Prayer

Few things were as important as prayer in St. Vincent’s mind. Speaking to the missionaries, he declares:

Give me a man of prayer and he will be capable of everything. He may say with the apostle, “I can do all things in him who strengthens me.” The Congregation will last as long as it faithfully carries out the practice of prayer, which is like an impregnable rampart shielding the missionaries from all manner of attack.

St. Vincent states quite forcefully on a number of occasions that the failure to rise early in the morning to join the community in prayer will be the reason why missionaries fail to persevere in their vocation.

- Robert P. Maloney, CM

The Prayer of a Missioner

The prayer of a missioner should be characterized by a filial spirit, humility, confidence in providence, and love of the goodness of God; thus we learn to pray as people who are poor in spirit, knowing for certain that our weakness is made strong by the power of the Holy Spirit. The same Spirit enlightens our minds to know more thoroughly the needs of the world, and strengthens our wills to respond to them more effectively.

We should find a unique experience of prayer in the ministry of the word, of the sacraments, and of charity, and in the events of life. Likewise, in evangelizing the poor, we should find Christ and contemplate him in them. Finally, in exercising pastoral care for the people to whom we are sent, we ought to pray not only for them but also with them, sharing spontaneously, as it were, in their faith and devotion.

Prayer in the Vincentian Tradition

“Give me a man of prayer and he will be ready for anything.” (SV, XI, 83) According to the mind of St. Vincent, prayer is the living source of the spiritual life of a missioner; through it he puts on Christ, becomes steeped in the teachings of the gospel, discerns things and events as before God, and remains always in God’s love and mercy. In this way the Spirit of Christ will always make our words and actions effective.