1 January 1981 -- Paris, France

Mother Rogé and my dear Sisters,

When I came here to Paris on 15 August last for Mother Rogé's feast day and when I spoke to you here in this hall, I put myself back into an August day of 1645, when St. Vincent came across from St. Lazare to speak to the little group of Sisters who were the first Daughters of Charity. When a few nights ago I began to think of what I could offer you this morning, I took down again the volume of St. Vincent's conferences to the Daughters of Charity. On this occasion, I looked for the date, a New Year's Day, and I found that St. Vincent addressed the Daughters of Charity on New Year's Day 1644. (Conf. Eng. ed. 1 Jan. 1644, pp. 129-43).

The subject of the conference was: On Cordial Respect. I do not know if there was any particular reason why he should have chosen this subject. It was almost the same topic as that which two years later, on 19 August 1646, St. Vincent chose for reflecting on and sharing with St. Louise's Community, and which we in turn thought about on 15 August last. And while we know from St. Vincent's correspondence that there was a particular reason for choosing the subject in August 1646, we do not know why he chose On Cordial Respect as the topic for the conference on New Year's Day 1644. I began to think that it might have been the fruit of St. Vincent's own meditation on the mystery of the Incarnation, for what is the mystery of the Incarnation but the mystery of God's cordial respect for the humanity of man. The mystery of the Incarnation is God's vote of confidence in the goodness of mankind. One of the most beautiful prayers which you will find in the treasury of Christian Prayer is that which we pray at the third Mass of Christmas Day, a prayer which is prayed at every Mass, when the priest places a little drop of water into the chalice of wine: "God, Our Father, our human nature is the wonderful work of Your Hands, made still more wonderful by Your work of Redemption. Your Son took to Himself our manhood; grant us a share in the Godhead of Jesus Christ Who lives and reigns forever and ever."

The prayer is a summary of the history of salvation. It is a prayer which is an exquisite miniature of the drama of human existence and its interplay with the grace of God:

Act 1: The creation of man by God: "The wonderful work of Your Hands;"

Act 2: The still more wonderful work of Redemption: the remaking of mankind;

Act 3: The sharing of our human life by God made Man;

Act 4: A sharing of God's life by man made divine.

I said that the Incarnation is a vote of confidence passed by God in the essential goodness of humankind. God did not decide to start all over again after man spoiled His design through sin, through that mysterious aboriginal calamity which we call original sin. God took the broken pieces and remade humanity from within. He chose, as we so often remind ourselves, to be born lovingly of the Virgin Mary, taking life as He found it on this earth, being like to us in all things except sin. As a seventeenth century English poet, Crashaw, expressed the truth:

"`Twas once look up--'Tis now look down--To Heaven."

Yes, the Incarnation is God's gesture of cordial respect for broken, sinful but still living and lovable humanity.

When I think of the cordial respect which God has shown, and is showing, every human being by becoming one of ourselves, I think of what is perhaps most beautiful of all the parables that fell from the lips of Jesus Christ, the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:29-37). This parable could be described as the parable of God's cordial respect for man: the Good Samaritan finds the poor man on the road "wounded and half-dead." (Ibid.). The Fathers of the Church liked to see that poor man as a representative of humanity after original sin, lying weak and helpless on the road of existence. Then Jesus Christ, God made Man, comes along. He does not pass by. He shows interest and love. He pours oil and wine on the wounds of the poor man. The Fathers of the Church liked to think of the oil and the wine as the Sacraments of Christ. Then the Good Samaritan lifts the poor man off the road, places him on his own beast, and brings him to an inn, which the Fathers of the Church saw as an image of Christ's Church.

The parable, too, has been described as a self-portrait of Jesus Christ because it speaks of the love of the Good Samaritan for one poor man. The Good Samaritan helps the poor man on the road silently. Have you ever noticed when reading the parable that the Good Samaritan does not speak at all, except at the end to the innkeeper when he is making arrangements for the poor man's accommodation? It is a parable that could and should be the portrait of a Daughter of Charity: who has cordial respect for the poor, who is always looking out for the poor who are lying on life's road "wounded and half-dead." (Ibid.). A Daughter of Charity is one who tries not to pass by the poor, as she journeys along life's road. A Daughter of Charity is one who does her work for the poor silently in imitation of Jesus Christ, the Good Samaritan.

Before we are able to show profound cordial respect to the poor, we need to be convinced of the profound cordial respect which Jesus Christ has for each one of us. The people who today have most difficulty in loving others are those who through some mishap, some accident, some misunderstanding, have not had the experience in infancy and youth of being loved, of being appreciated. So many of you can testify to the truth of that from your experience of working with and among the poor. If we are to love others with the love of Christ, and it is the love of Christ which we bring to the poor, it is necessary that we should be always trying, with the grace of God, to deepen within ourselves this conviction: I am deeply loved, cordially respected by Jesus Christ for what I am. In my prayer and reflection I must try to think of Jesus Christ as re-making me all the time. He is all the time bending over me, tending my wounds, pouring in oil and wine, lifting me up off life's road, giving me new heart. He is all the time addressing to me those words which I hear addressed to me by His representative at Mass every day: "Let us lift up our hearts."

Perhaps I should refer here to the two Sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance. So often nowadays we hear people say of these two Sacraments: "I do not get much out of Holy Communion. I do not get much out of the Sacrament of Penance." What we should be wondering and thinking more about is what Jesus Christ, the Good Samaritan, wants to give us through these Sacraments. What we need is the grace to see things more from His point of view, and less from our own. Jesus Christ has such cordial respect for us that He will not force Himself upon us. To use a phrase from the Book of Revelation: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him and he with Me." (Rv 3:20). We must first open the door to Him. When we invite our friends to a meal in our houses, we do not calculate first what they are going to bring us. We invite them because they are our friends, because we have cordial, loving respect for them. "If a man loves Me...My Father will love him and We will come to him and make Our home with him." (Jn 14:23).

Every time we approach Jesus Christ in one of His Sacraments, we are at once showing Him cordial respect and growing in the experience of being loved personally by Jesus Christ. And it is from that experience of being loved personally by Jesus Christ that we are able in turn to show authentic love to one another in Community, and to the poor who are lying helpless on life's road, and who cry to us for help. It is from the experience of being loved personally by Jesus Christ that we are able to lift them up and bring them to the inn of God's Church, and prepare them in faith and hope to meet the Good Samaritan in person when He returns: "And I on my return will repay thee." (Lk 10:35).

It is New Year's Day, a day when the Church asks us to pray for peace and reconciliation among mankind. I once heard a confrere say at a General Assembly that St. Vincent was a magnificent example of the meaning of reconciliation. The confrere did not elaborate on his reasons for his statement.

If you think about it, however, you will find it is true. After his deep conversion during the fourth decade of his life, he devoted himself to bringing people, especially the poor, to experience the "unsearchable riches of Christ" (Eph 3:8), to share in "the love of God which was in Christ Jesus." (Rom 8:39). He tried also to bring the rich and wealthy closer to the needy and the poor. You yourselves as a Community are a living monument to the genius of St. Vincent, for the Daughters of Charity were the great mediators, the great reconcilers between the rich and the poor, the poor and the rich. St. Vincent brought the resources of the rich to the poor, and he did that in a loving way. Perhaps I should stress the word "loving." In no line of St. Vincent's writings will you find a bitter, recriminating word against those who were wealthy. He could persuade a dying king to take some food when others had failed, and then return to St. Lazare to think and plan how he could provide more for the poor of the world. St. Vincent could reflect in his thought and action the Fatherhood of God in Whom is to be found no distinction between Jew and Greek, slave or free, male and female. I mention this facet of St. Vincent's spiritual portrait at a time when we could let ourselves be led, almost unconsciously, to identify ourselves with the poor only in order that we might despise the rich. Certainly your vocation is the poor, but let it be with the mind of Jesus Christ Who did not despise anyone, not even the Pharisees; let it be with the mind of St. Vincent who pitied and worked for the poor without dismissing and despising the rich and wealthy of this world.

I have almost come to an end without mentioning her Whom the Church is honoring today, She who showed such cordial respect to her Son, even when she did not understand, she who in the chapel of this house showed such cordial respect to Catherine Laboure in entrusting her with a mission to the Church and to the world. I have come to an end, too, without allowing St. Vincent himself to speak to you. The conference which he gave on 1 January 1644 to the Sisters, taken down in writing by St. Louise herself, has a balance in it that is equalled only by the balance that is to be found in that Christmas prayer which I have quoted already. Let St. Vincent himself speak:

My daughters, you must know that one can show two sorts of respect to others. One is grave and serious, the other cordial and kind. Serious respect is often forced; it is the respect of inferiors to superiors; it is sometimes shown rather from fear than good-will, and hence is neither cordial nor genuine. My Daughters, the respect which you should show each other should always be accompanied by a sincere cordiality, that is to say, by a genuine sense of reverence....But, my daughters, just as respect without cordiality would not be genuine respect, so cordiality without respect would not be strong and firm, but would occasionally give  rise to familiarities not in good taste, and would render such cordiality valueless and liable to change. Now, this will never happen if cordiality is combined with respect and respect with cordiality. God, by His grace, has endowed several of you with those two virtues which are the marks of true Daughters of Charity, that is to say, Daughters of God. I give thanks to Him for it." (Conf. Eng. ed., 1 Jan. 1644, p. 129).

My prayer for you on this New Year's Day is that you will show cordial respect to one another; both words are important, as St. Vincent reminds us; that you will first be a good reconciler within the Community. "Blessed are the peacemakers." (Mt 5:9). Be peacemakers, not troublemakers, within the Community. Only then can you with security go forth to be Good Samaritans to the poor, showing them cordial respect, reconciling the rich with the poor and the poor with the rich, until we all meet in the Kingdom of the God Who will be all in all. May Mary, the Mother of us all, make us worthy of the promises of Christ on this New Year's Day. May she show unto us the Blessed Fruit of her womb, Jesus.