Dominican Vocations

	DOMINICAN VOCATIONS PROVINCE OF THE ASSUMPTION

Site map	Dominican Saints, Blesseds and Servants of God	St Vincent Ferrer
Home News -------------------------- Welcome Benedict XVI Master -------------------------- History Introduction St Dominic's gift Australia --------------------------- Order Discernment Formation Dominican habit Novitiate Studentate --------------------------- Life Introduction Four pillars Apostolate --------------------------- People Dominican saints Our brethren --------------------------- Resources Lectio Divina Links Prayer Reading --------------------------- Site dedication	St Vincent Ferrer was born at Valentia, in Spain, on the 23rd of January 1357. His parents were persons distinguished for their virtue and alms-deeds. They made it their rule to distribute in alms whatever they could save out of the necessary expenses of their family at the end of every year. Two of their sons became eminent in the church: Boniface, who died general of the Carthusians, and St Vincent, who brought with him into the world a happy disposition for learning and piety, which were improved from his cradle by study and a good education. The passion of Christ was always the object of his most tender devotion. The blessed Virgin he ever honoured as his spiritual mother. Looking on the poor as the members of Christ, he treated them with the greatest affection and charity, which being observed by his parents, they made him the dispenser of their bountiful alms. They gave him for his portion the third part of their possessions, all which he in four days' time distributed amongst the poor. He began his course of philosophy at twelve years of age, and his theology at the end of his fourteenth year. His progress was such that he seemed a master in both studies at the age of seventeen; and by his affectionate piety he had obtained an eminent gift of tears in that tender age. His father having proposed to him the choice of a religious, an ecclesiastical, or a secular state, Vincent without hesitation said it was his earnest desire to consecrate himself to the service of God in the Order of St Dominic. His good parents with joy conducted him to a convent of that Order in Valentia, and he put on the habit in 1374, in the beginning of his eighteenth year. He made a surprisingly rapid progress in the paths of perfection, taking St Dominic for his model. To the exercises of prayer and penance he joined the study and meditation of the holy scriptures and the reading of the fathers. Soon after his solemn profession he was deputed to read lectures of philosophy, and at the end of his course published a treatise on Dialectic Suppositions, being not quite twenty-four years old. St Vincent was sent to Valentia and had lived there six years, assiduously pursuing his apostolical labours under great persecutions from the devils and carnal men, but in high esteem among the virtuous, when Cardinal Peter de Luna, legate of Clement VII in Spain, was appointed to go from thence in the same capacity to Charles VI, king of France. Arriving at Valentia in 1390, he obliged the saint to accompany him into France. While the cardinal, who had too much of the spirit of the world, was occupied in politics, Vincent had no other employ or concern than that of the conversion of souls and the interests of Jesus Christ; and the fruits of his labours in Paris were not less than they had been in Spain. In the beginning of the year 1394 the legate returned to Avignon, and St. Vincent, refusing his' invitations to the court of Clement VII, went to Valentia. Clement VII dying at Avignon in 1394, during the great schism, Peter de Luna was chosen pope by the French and Spaniards, and took the name of Benedict XIII. He commanded Vincent to repair to Avignon and made him master of the Sacred Palace. The saint laboured to persuade Benedict to put an end to the schism, but obtained only promises, which the ambitious man often renewed, but always artfully eluded. Vincent in the meantime applied himself to his usual functions, and by his preaching reformed the city of Avignon; but, to breathe a free air of solitude, he retired from court to a convent of his Order. Benedict offered him bishoprics and a cardinal's hat, but he steadfastly refused all dignities; and, after eighteen months, earnestly entreated to be appointed apostolical missionary; and so much did the opinion of his sanctity prevail that the opposing his desire was deemed an opposition to the will of heaven. Benedict therefore granted his request, gave him his benediction, and invested him with the power of apostolical missionary, constituting him also his legate and vicar. Before the end of the year 1398, St. Vincent being forty-two years old, set out from Avignon towards Valentia. He preached in every town with wonderful efficacy; and the people having heard him in one place followed him in crowds to others. Public usurers, blasphemers, debauched women, and other hardened sinners everywhere were induced by his discourses to embrace a life of penance. He converted a prodigious number of Jews and Mahometans, heretics and schismatics. He spent a great part of the day in the confessional, with incredible patience, and there finished what he had begun in the pulpit. He had with him five friars of his Order, and some other priests to assist him. Though by his sermons thousands were moved to give their possessions to the poor, he never accepted anything himself; and was no less scrupulous in cultivating in his heart the virtue and spirit of obedience than that of poverty; for which reason he declined accepting any dignity in the church or superiority in his Order. Falling at last into a perfect decay, his companions persuaded him to return to his own country. Accordingly he set out with that view, riding on a donkey, as was his ordinary manner of travelling in long journeys. But after they were gone, as they imagined, a considerable distance, they found themselves again near the city of Vannes. Wherefore the saint perceiving his illness increase, determined to return into the town, saying to his companions that God had chosen that city for the place of his burial. The joy of the city was incredible when he appeared again, but it was allayed when he told them he was come, not to continue his ministry among them, but to look for his grave. These words, joined with a short exhortation which he made to impress on the people's minds their duty to God, made many to shed tears, and threw all into an excess of grief. His fever increasing, he prepared himself for death by exercises of piety and devoutly receiving the sacraments. On the third day the bishop, clergy, magistrates, and part of the nobility made him a visit. He conjured them to maintain zealously what he had laboured to establish amongst them, exhorted them to perseverance in virtue, and promised to pray for them when he should be before the throne of God, saying he should go to the Lord after ten days. During that interval, under the pains of his distemper, he never opened his mouth about his sufferings only to thank almighty God for making him, by a share in the cross, to resemble his crucified Son: for he suffered the sharpest agonies not only with resignation and patience, but with exultation and joy. His prayer and union with God he never interrupted. On the tenth day of his illness he caused the passion of our Saviour to be read to him, and after that recited the penitential psalms, often stopping totally absorpt in God. It was on Wednesday in Passion Week, the 5th of April, that he slept in the Lord, in the year 1419, having lived, according to the most exact computation, sixty-two years, two months, and thirteen days. Joan of France, daughter of King Charles VI, Duchess of Brittany, washed his corpse with her own hands. God showered innumerable miracles by that water and by the saint's habit, girdle, instruments of penance, and other relics, of which the details may be read in the Bollandists. The duke and bishop appointed the cathedral for the place of his burial. He was canonized by Pope Calixtus III in 1455, but the bull was only published in 1458, by Pope Pius II. His relics were exhumed in 1456. The Spaniards solicited to have them translated to Valentia, and at last resolved to steal them, thinking them their own property, to prevent which the canons hid the shrine in 1590. It was found again in 1637, and a second translation was made on the 6th of September, when the shrine was placed on the altar of a new chapel in the same cathedral, where it is still exposed to veneration. He reduced the rules of perfection to the avoiding three things: First, the exterior distraction of superfluous employs. Secondly, all interior secret elation of heart. Thirdly, all immoderate attachment to created things. Also to the practicing of three things: First, the sincere desire of contempt and abjection. Secondly, the most affective devotion to Christ crucified. Thirdly, patience in bearing all things for the love of Christ. From his life, written by Ranzano, Bishop of Lucera, in order to his canonisation, in Henschenius with the notes of Papebroke. See Touron, Hommes Illustres de l'Ordre de St Dominique t.iii.; Fleury, b. cx.