Working, Praying, and Living in the Spirit of Vincent DePaul

March 2005

Changing the World

by Audrey Krumbach

Last Saturday morning while standing at the coffee bar at our local coffee shop, I glanced at the carafe to read the description of my brew. Expecting phrases such as “rich roast,” “excellent beans,” or “unusual nutty flavor,” I laughingly read how my coffee has helped to develop a technical school in the Chanchamayo region of Peru, rural healthcare programs, crop diversification training, and microcredit programs. This is no ordinary coffee!

This year, we began with the hope of living simply by spending only what is necessary, recycling, and seeking out new community activities to replace television and video games. We have stumbled across amazing success at the Hartford Coffee Company—where else can I spend $1.35 each week to support crop diversification training in a secluded region of Peru? More importantly, my small contribution supports the growing network of fair-trade coffee in our country. Simple living means supporting this growth of sustainable development and just consumption.

Working at Marian Middle School, I often see another relatively new organization succeeding at empowering the marginalized in our society. When I began this year, I met a sixth-grade student who had never quite grasped the concept of multiplication. Shelly (name changed for privacy) had grown up in the public schools but had for the last three years fallen behind in mathematics. No teacher had the time to sit down with Shelly, and no testing recognized or highlighted her deficit. In October,
Shelly and I began exploring multiplication: if one box holds four apples, how many apples will three boxes hold? Four hundred silly drawings and boxes of fruit later, Shelly zooms through her flash cards, confident in her multiplication tables, at least through the elevens.

We laugh and giggle a little together when she corrects my division problems now, but not every day is easy. Shelly and I spent two very frustrating weeks learning how to add fractions, and occasionally she forgets, or willingly refuses to do her homework, which reminds me that teaching is never an easy job.

Working at Marian has been an amazing joy for me this year. When I began at Marian I envisioned daily tutoring with individual students, but I did not know what else a school might need from a volunteer. The first assignment I received was not academic: I supervise recess everyday. I spent the first three weeks wondering how twenty minutes outside could be the best use of time for these girls. I pondered the worth of my time and the use of school hours for double-dutch, kickball, and volleyball, but after several months of standing in the schoolyard watching for trouble, I realized that I was never alone supervising the group. Girls would often come by and just say hello or tell me about a book that was so good they brought it out to recess to read, or ask my advice on how to be friends with a girl who said something mean. Not only did they trust me, but the time I spent and continue to spend at recess assures them of twenty minutes with an adult who doesn’t have to rush off to a meeting, finish grading papers, or otherwise do more important things.

When I began this year, I intended to spend my life changing our American government and economic systems for justice and sustainability. This year, I have helped Shelly learn to divide, I comforted the tears of hurt feelings, and I assured girls that pimples do not last forever and boys are a topic best left until high school or later!

St. Vincent encourages us to seek the face of Christ in the poor, and we can only do that when standing right there, relating to one person. Supporting sustainable development must walk hand in hand with our personal relationships with the marginalized. Marian Middle School has taught me that urban school children are sometimes loud, disrespectful, and often three or four years behind grade level. But I have also learned that Shelly is sweet, Nikia can multiply three-digit numbers in her head, and Paola rules the playground with her powerful volleyball serve. Jessica is so excited about animals that she convinced her mother to buy us a fish, which Jessica cares for faithfully.

So, Lord, let my life serve the poor not with great congressional legislation or budgetary amendments, but with mentoring, relationships, and encouragement to the funny, bright, and kind girl who is right here sitting beside me at the table.

THANK YOU!

The Gateway Vincentian Volunteers program is grateful to our donors, who help us in so many ways—by making financial contributions as well as donations of time and talent. In this issue, we recognize those who have made monetary contributions since our last newsletter in December 2004. Your generosity helps make this program possible. We are so grateful to each and every one of you!

  • Lawrence and Amelia Berra

  • Wally and Nina Bryans

  • Tony and Donna Buehrle

  • Daughters of Charity Ministry Grant Committee

  • Charles and Nancy Demarest

  • John and Carolyn Fogarty

  • Fr. Pat Harrity, C.M.

  • Paul Heidemann

  • William and Angela Holland

  • John and Elaine Jansen

  • Audrey and Edwin Kadlec

  • Knights of Columbus—Council 12323 St. Catherine Laboure

  • Martha Lane

  • Sr. Carol Lemkuhl, O.P.

  • Ken and Marian Lemp

  • John and Margaret Lottes

  • Ruth McDaniels

  • Fr. John Minogue, C. M.

  • Martha Monastero

  • Akiko Nemoto

  • Miwako Nemoto

  • Craig and Sharon Neumeister

  • Thomas and Suzan Ochocinski

  • Judy Rippee

  • Sr. Mary Rochlage, R.S.M., and the Sisters of Mercy Health System

  • Steve and Becky Roarick

  • Bill and Mary Lou Schicker

  • Michael and Carolyn Sorensen

  • Tricia and John Thiel

  • Tony and Sue Tumminia

  • John and Joan Vatterott

  • Fran Werner

  • Grace Whalen

The Second Annual GVV “No Frills” Golf Tournament.

Sunday, June 5, 2005, at Grand Marais Golf Course. $75.00 per person, includes golf, light lunch, barbecue dinner, and prizes galore! Registration and lunch at noon, tee off at 1:00 P.M. TO register, fill out the form below and send your check to GVV, 2912 Arsenal Street, St. Louis, MO 63118.

Name __________________________ Address ______________________________

City ___________________________ State __________ Zip _____________

Phone _______________________ E-mail ____________________________

Foursome members:

1. _______________________ 3. ___________________

2. _______________________ 4. ___________________

Amount paid ______________

My Vincentian Experience

by Nicholas Koenig

When I arrived in St. Louis in August, I knew why I was here. I am seeking admission to New Melleray Abbey, a Trappist Monastery near Dubuque, Iowa, and they want me to have a year of work experience before I enter their community. I believed that this year would provide me with that year of experience. In addition, the Trappist lifestyle involves very little direct service to the poor, and I wanted to know what that was like. I wanted to live in community, and I wanted to be able to attend the Liturgy of Hours with a religious community. I get great spiritual benefits from doing so. I saw this program as the place where I would spend a year doing all these things before I returned to New Melleray.

I have been very satisfied with the program in all of these areas. However, there is one aspect of the program that I did not expect and initially had no interest in. I don’t know why I didn’t expect it. The literature that Jim and Geri sent out talked a lot about Vincentian spirituality. Despite this information, I was not expecting the emphasis that the GVVs placed on living, praying, and working in the spirit of St. Vincent DePaul. I thought that I knew basically what my spirituality was, and I did not expect that the GVV program would work at changing it. Yet that is exactly what this program is doing.

Shortly after we arrived we learned that one goal of this program is to create lay Vincentians. During orientation week we had speakers who talked about what it meant to be a Vincentian, the spirituality of St. Vincent DePaul, and seeing the face of Christ in the poor. Since then we have continued to explore Vincentian spirituality through organized presentations, praying with the Vincentians, and praying as a community. In addition, we have learned a lot about the history of the Congregation of the Mission and the Daughters of Charity. This effort at spiritual formation has had a major effect on me.

At first I resisted this formation as a Vincentian. I recognized that St. Vincent had some good points and illuminated some aspects of God that I had not seriously considered. I did not think, however, that I was called to practice the spirituality of St. Vincent DePaul. My spiritual fathers were St. Benedict and St. Bernard of Claiveaux. They taught me about the love of the Transcendent God enthroned in Heaven and seeking prayer in silence and solitude, while feeding my preference for serving God in formal and solemn liturgies. I did not think that St. Vincent with his emphasis on seeing and serving God in the poor would be a helpful influence for me. Gradually, however, my perspective changed.

The first step in my opening myself to Vincentian spirituality occurred shortly after I arrived. Our community prayer would be within the Vincentian tradition, and if I wanted to truly pray with the community and participate in the community prayer life, then I had to be a little open to Vincentian spirituality. To do this I listened carefully and critically to those who spoke about Vincentian spirituality. I wanted to understand what they were trying to teach us about being Vincentians. More importantly, however, I wanted to learn how I could pray as a monk within our Vincentian community. Gradually I did find places I could comfortably pray within the tradition of St. Vincent DePaul. One example of this was by concentrating on seeking God’s presence within me when the Vincentians prayed about seeking God in people. This attitude shows how I saw Vincentian spirituality shortly after I arrived, as an obstacle to be worked around, not a tool to bring me closer to God.

This didn’t change until several months into the program. My spiritual director is a monk of St. Louis Abbey in St. Louis. I go to visit him about once a month. In October I spoke with him about my struggles with Vincentian spirituality, especially my difficulties praying with an image of God in the poor. He told me that this was not something unique to the Vincentians, but rather something common to Christian spirituality. Thus it was not the Vincentians that were the problem, but it was my problem, which I needed to work on.

He correctly pointed out to me that the image of God as incarnate in people did not originate with St. Vincent but was clearly in both St. Benedict and the Gospels. All I had to do was look at the Rule, “All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ,” and “Christ is to be adored because he is indeed welcomed in them [the guests]” (Rule of Benedict: 53:1 and 53:7). Or look at the Gospels where Jesus says, “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matt. 26:40). This fact, which I had been ignoring, opened my eyes to the fact that I was looking at Vincentian spirituality all wrong. It is not something external to me, which I needed to work around, but rather a tool to help me pray that God had given me the opportunity to learn to use during this year.

Since this change in attitude I have come to appreciate Vincentian spirituality much more and have learned a lot from it. Even though I continue to struggle with integrating the idea of God in the poor into my prayer life, I continue to believe that I have a vocation to be a monk of New Melleray Abbey. I have found that being open to Vincentian prayer has greatly improved my prayer life.

In addition, the Incarnational emphasis of Vincentian Spirituality has made my work with the poor more meaningful and helped me to better appreciate the other members of my community. I will close with the prayer of a great Vincentian, St. John Gabriel Perboyre, which has been really meaningful to me during my journey over these past six months.

Divine Savior, transform me into Yourself. May my hands be Your hands. May my tongue be Your tongue. Grant that every faculty of my body may serve only to glorify You. Above all, transform my soul and all its powers, that my memory, my will, and my affections may be the memory, the will, and the affections of You. I pray you to destroy in me all that is not of You. Grant that I may live but in You and by You and for You and that I may truly say with St. Paul ‘I live now, not I, but Christ lives in me.’”

Nicholas works at Community Alternatives, an agency that serves people with mental health problems, especially those who suffer from severe mental illness, poverty, homelessness, chemical dependency, alcoholism, and HIV/AIDS.

Our Vincentian Heritage: St. John Gabriel Perboyre

John Gabriel (1802-140) was a priest of the Congregation of the Mission (Vincentians), founded by St. Vincent DePaul to evangelize the poor and educate church leaders. In 1835, despite political unrest and Christian persecutions, Fr. Gabriel went to China at 33 years of age to preach the Good News of Jesus and serve the poor. So powerful was his work and testimony that two years later he was captured by Chinese authorities, brutally tortured, and sentenced to death by crucifixion. Pope John Paul II canonized him a saint in 1996 as a witness of courage and faith in the radical call of discipleship.

from a VocationTeamWorks publication

A Year of Service

by Michael Herold

I heard about the Gateway Vincentian Volunteers program during my senior year of college. I had been debating what to do after I graduated, and I was finding few options because I was not ready to go straight into graduate school. At the time, my high school youth minister was working at Covenant House Missouri, my current placement in the GVV program. She had met some of the former volunteers and told me about their program. I became interested because I liked the idea of living in community, and I wanted to work at Covenant House.

I was initially a bit leery about the program because I didn’t know exactly what was involved, and I wasn’t sure what kinds of people I would encounter. My first visit to the community, however, cured all my fears. I came to one of their Friday night dinners where the volunteers, the directors, and all the priests and brothers come to spend time together. That night everyone was so warm and so welcoming that I was quickly convinced that this was where I needed to be.

I had come from a college where Christian community was very strong and played a role in every day of my life. This year, the emphasis on living as a community has been a huge help to my spiritual life. At my college, my faith community was comprised of Catholics who believed, expressed, and lived their faith in much the same way I did. Once I joined the GVV community, I experienced a new challenge in living as a faith community. We have seven volunteers living together, and I quickly found out that we have seven very different yet completely valid ways of living our faith. This has proved to be an extremely valuable opportunity for me to open my eyes to different aspects of Catholicism and Christianity, and I feel that I have grown immensely as a result.

The other part of the program that has led me to immeasurable personal growth has been my interaction and experience with the youth at Covenant House Missouri. Since the beginning of my college career when I began studying Mental Health, I decided that I wanted to work with youth in some aspect of counseling or social service.

I knew that I had a lot to learn because unfortunately I grew up in a neighborhood that had little in the way of diversity. At Covenant House, I’ve had the opportunity to come to a better understanding of the youth who live in the city and who have had much harder lives than I have. Although they have experienced much pain and difficulty and often come off with a harsh exterior, so many of them have given me a chance and opened their lives to me, allowing me to develop relationships with them. It’s a blessing to work there because the youth give me the opportunity to encourage them, help them, and love them.

All beginnings are somewhat strange, but we must have patience, and little by little we shall find things clear that first appear obscure.

St. Vincent DePaul

The Gateway Vincentian Volunteers Program Board of Directors

  • Fr. Ed Murphy, C.M., President
  • Mr. Rich LaPlume, Vice-President
  • Fr. Tom Esselman, C.M., Secretary
  • Ms. Tricia Thiel, Treasurer
  • Honorable Mike Burton
  • Mr. John Capellupo
  • Fr. David Nations, C.M.
  • Mr. Ted Fiedler
  • Sr. Kieran Kneaves, D.C.
  • Ms. Martha Lane
  • Mr. Bill McRoberts
  • Sr. Kathy Overman, D.C.
  • Dr. Fred Rottnek
  • Ms. Sue Shine
  • Jim and Geri Ryan, Directors, ex-officio members of Board

News from the GVV Associates

The GVVA has been off to a strong start in its pioneer year. We have been gathering regularly the first Friday of the month, joining the current volunteers and the Vincentians for dinner and then meeting for fellowship and shared reflection.

In February, we had the chance to attend a talk by Sr. Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking. After Sr. Helen’s presentation, we met for coffee and a discussion with current and former GVVs. In January we rang in the New Year with a rousing game of bunko with the Vincentian Family, complete with prizes like St. Vincent scarves and a coupon for Fr. Dave’s undying love with an expiration date of June 24, 2005! Our Friday nights are filled with laughter and conversation, as we get to know the current GVVs and enjoy the company of people we know well.

One of our main goals for our first year is to organize a reunion retreat for all twenty-one former GVVs. Planning is in full swing. We’re looking forward to gathering in St. Louis the first weekend in June for a time of reconnecting with old friends and sharing ways that the Vincentian charism continues to move in our lives.

Christy Leming, GVV 2003-2004

Are you interested in supporting one Gateway Vincentian Volunteer during his or her year of service? Would your parish or organization like to help?

Please let us know.

Thank you!

314-771-1474  888-771-7220  gatevol@aol.com

 

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Gateway Vincentian Volunteers
2912 Arsenal Street
St. Louis, MO 63118
(314) - 771-1474
Toll free: (888)-771-7220
Fax: (314) - 771-2410
email: gatevol@aol.com