Parish Ministries
Parish Ministry
Vincent would recall the early days with evident nostalgia:
"The three of us would go from village to village giving missions. When we left we would leave the key with one of our neighbours and ask him to go and sleep in the house. However, at that time I had just one sermon which I preached with a thousand variations, its subject was the fear of God." [10]
St. Vincent was always fond of the rural , more forgotten parishes (representing by one estimate 80% of the population) where the poverty of the people - both physically and spiritually - was pressing. Today that reality is largely reversed. It is the inner city communities that oftentimes suffer such hardship.
So that's where we go.
From big to small, urban to country, traditional to intentional, Vincentians serve as pastoral ministers to an equally diverse population around the world. While some parishes are located in very impoverished areas serving the direct needs of the physically poor, others respond to those same needs by calling others to participate in the mission of service and evangelization.
Bibliogrpahy
Slawson, Douglas, “‘To Bring Glad Tidings to the Poor’: Vincentian Parish Missions in the United States” in The American Vincentians: A Popular History of the Congregation of the Mission in the United States 1815-1987 (Brooklyn, NY: New City Press, 1988) 184.
Smith, James C.M., “The Vincentian Mission, 1625-1660” in Vincentian Heritage IV:2, (1983), 40
External Links General History of Parish Missions
