Sermon IV. The Death of St. Vincent

Within the same Octave.

When he had ended the commandments wherewith he instructed his sons, he drew up his feet upon the bed, and died: and he was gathered to his people. GENESIS xlix. 32.

THE Holy Ghost in these words describes the death of the patriarch Israel; calm, collected, and majestic — a death in peace, after a long life of faith. It was he who had said, ' With my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I return with two companies;'1 that is: There was a time when I was an outcast, a stranger, and in poverty; I had nothing but the staff on which I leaned; but Thou hast multiplied to me the gifts and the possessions of life, and hast made me two companies — a numerous house. Such he became in life; and when he came to die, he was greater still. His small beginnings had great endings. He was the father of twelve patriarchs, and they were twelve princes in Israel; the heads and the fathers of twelve tribes. And the twelve tribes 1 Genesis xxxii. 10.

became a mighty nation, a great monarchy, of some sixteen centuries in duration. Of him, too, came the line of the faithful; so that he became the patriarch of many nations, for from that lineage came the incarnate Son of God and the kingdom of God, in all ages and in all times, until the end of the world.

Now this seems to set before us, in its proportion, the death of St. Vincent of Paul. I have said that he was like the servant who received the ' one pound,' the ' very little,' which his fidelity had multiplied until it became a great gain. The one pound gained ten pounds, and for his reward he received authority over ten cities. So, at the end of life, Vincent, sitting, as it were, in calm expectation upon the threshold of the eternal kingdom, looked -back over the work of his life. He remembered the time when, from the foot of the Pyrenees, as a shepherd-boy, he looked out in hope and wonder into some dim future. A great desire to serve God, with a sense of the love of God, was rising in him, without light or knowledge to know what he should be called to do. But now, as life was closing, he looked back to the time when he was a solitary captive in Barbary; when, under the lash of his master, he was sent to labour in the fields. Life then seemed to him all but ended. What was there before him?

A death without martyrdom; a death without so much as a name to leave behind. And then again the loving providence of God changed the course of his life. He found himself once more in France, a priest, going out to labour in the vineyard of the Lord. Yet how little were his expectations, even then! In his own eyes he was doing nothing, and he did not venture to plan or to conceive any great enterprise of faith. Little by little, his works grew on him: they came unsought; his companions increased in number; his spiritual children multiplied beyond all hope or thought. And now, as life was ending, he found himself to be the father of a multitude, a patriarch surrounded by many spiritual sons, the fathers of many tribes in the Israel of God. In his retrospect he might say, indeed, that with his staff he had passed over Jordan. He had gone up from his home and his herd at the foot of the Pyrenees, bearing with him nothing but the word and the love of God, and God had multiplied him to a great family. Doubtless these were some of the thoughts, sweet and consoling, in Vincent's heart, when that long life of eighty-five years was closing in. But that of which I have to speak is not so much his consolations in looking upon the past, as the last great consummation, whereby he entered into the reward of his labours. Therefore, what I propose to do, is to touch very briefly on what we find recorded in the history of the last years and days of his life.

And the first remark I would make is, how great were his sorrows towards the end of life; how great in this was the conformity of St. Vincent to his Lord, the Man of sorrows; and how peculiar some of his sorrows were. They were sorrows which could only attach to a life and a heart like his. He had lived for eighty -five years, a life extending beyond the ordinary life of man; and from the time he had begun to labour, almost two generations of men had passed away. Therefore he had seen fall beside him, under the heat and burden of the day, first one and then another of his companions and his sons. They had been taken from him, sometimes by pestilence, sometimes by lingering sickness; by various forms of death; sometimes by labour, spent and worn out in the toils of missionary life. One by one, they had been gathered from him; he was left tarrying alone; lingering as St. John lingered, when the Apostles, one by one, went up to receive their crown, and he was left the last alone on earth. St. Yincent was wont to say, 'Alas for me, that my pilgrimage on earth is so long drawn out!' '0 Lord, Thou drawest into Thy kingdom, one by one, Thy servants that are well-pleasing to Thee; but me Thou leavest, who am the most unworthy of all. Why do I cumber the ground? Thou leavest me in displeasure, and Thou gatherest unto Thy reward and Thy crown those who have laboured better than I.' And then, as life drew on, he lost those who, to' him, were dearest, because they were the foremost and the first in his labours of charity. One of his first companions — he to whom he had committed the direction and care of his spiritual family, the Sisters of Charity, who had toiled in that work for some thirty or forty years — was taken from his side just as his own end was approaching. The founder also of the Sisters of Charity — she who had so long laboured under his guidance — was likewise taken before him. He was left alone, solitary in the world; God had detached him from all things, not only from kindred and from the common things of life, but now from those hearts most like his own, with whom he was united, not by the bonds of consanguinity, but by the much more intimate and constraining bonds of the love of Jesus Christ. Even these, one by one, were taken away, and he was left, as it were, alone upon his Calvary, stripped of all — solitary, and waiting the hour of his departure.

And then observe how his long life brought with it a multitude of trials. Life is like a long voyage, in which we must meet with storm and with sunshine, and then with storm again; and as we know in the regions of the sea there are zones where storms prevail, so, towards the end of his long life, he entered into the period of affliction. God tried him by those last great sorrows, greater than the crosses which he had borne before. All those who were united to him in the bonds of tender love, in the love of God and of His Son Jesus Christ, were taken from his side.

Another point to be observed in his death is this: how great were his sufferings, — I mean his bodily sufferings. We have seen that for forty-five years, almost from the very first year when he entered upon his active life, he had suffered perpetually by swellings of the feet and legs, which rendered him lame, and sometimes almost motionless. Five-and-forty long years of an irresistible zeal and irresistible activity were, as it were, clogged and cumbered by the weakness of the body. He was unable to move, and was obliged to be carried to and fro on his works of love. For the last two years of his life he was literally fixed to the spot where he dwelt. His feet were ulcerated, and his knees stiff with swelling, so that he was unable even to ascend the altar to say Mass. This increased to such an extent that he was obliged to have his poor swollen limbs suspended by a cord to the ceiling, so that by artificial help he might move them. T hardly know anything more like the meditation upon our divine Lord lying upon His cross, with a crowd round about Him, and those soft breathings of inaudible words by which our divine Master made known to His Blessed Mother the agony of the crucifixion, than what we read of St. Vincent, who, when his poor suffering limbs were moved, was heard, in a mere respiration, to say, ' 0, my Saviour! 0, my Saviour!' the only words of complaint that ever escaped him in his anguish.

During all this suffering, he allowed himself no dispensations. There was an endurance in the bearing of these pains, which seems altogether supernatural. First of all, he would never lie upon a soft bed; he used to require. that they should move him and lay him upon a hard pallet on the ground. When his friends and his spiritual children brought him food which they thought would suit his appetite, he used to reject it; yet he would taste it first, lest they should be pained at the rejection, and then ask that it might be taken from him. When the reigning Pope, hearing of his infirmities, sent him a dispensation from the recitation of Office, he declined it. In all his suffering, and in all the distraction which conies from hodily pain, he persevered in the recital of the Office even to the last. When he was unable to say the holy Mass in the church, he with great difficulty consented to he carried to say his Mass in the chapel of the Infirmary. He refused to accept the privilege granted to him, to have an altar erected in the chamber next his own, saying, that these were privileges so great as only to be used in extremities, and he thought himself not arrived at such an extremity as would justify his accepting them. St. Vincent was profuse in his tenderness to others, to himself alone he was severe; he who would relieve the least pain of any fellow-creature endured his own, and rejected the alleviations and indulgences which were offered for his relief.

Through all these sufferings, great as they were, he had an entire peace. It would appear as if his one thought was for others, and as if he had no sorrow for himself. Even as we read of our divine Lord, who said, ' Because I have spoken these things to you, sorrow hath filled your heart;'2 and again, ' Let not your heart be troubled; in My Father's house there are many mansions.'3 So it seemed with St. Vincent. For himself he had no thought, save

2 St. John xvi. 6. 3 Ib. xiv. 1, 2.

only a longing desire to depart and to be with Christ, tempered by a profound humility in the thought of his unfitness to appear before Him. We find the most beautiful traits of this spirit of tenderness to others, and of this continual watchfulness in preparing himself for death, which he looked for with a great desire. Every day, after holy Mass, as soon as he had made his thanksgiving, he said the Office for those who were in the agony of death. It had been his practice for eighteen years. He had been habitually united in sympathy with the dying; through his long life he had died with them day by day; he had been continually rehearsing the preludes of his own last hour, so as to make himself familiar with it. Every night, when he lay down to rest, he prepared his soul as though he should never wake again. Thus it was his continual exercise to prepare himself morning and night for his last passage. One of the priests of his Congregation, perhaps not able to understand the greatness of his interior life, and supposing that one who had been for so many years given without reserve to external works of charity for others, might in some degree have forgotten the preparation of his own soul to appeal-before the judgment-seat of God, wrote a letter to one of the community, knowing that it must pass through the hands of Vincent, in which he expressed his hope that their reverend father was preparing himself for his last hour. When Vincent saw the letter, instead of "being offended, he sent for the priest and thanked him, begging him to say if he saw anything in him which implied that he was not prepared to give up his account. When the priest, in confusion, said that he could not presume to say such a thing, he added, * Speak with all freedom; if there is anything you see in me, let me know what it is, for it is easy to deceive ourselves.' He then said, ' For eighteen years I have been preparing myself for death.' To another who spoke with him of his end, he said, * There is but one thing which troubles me now; it is, that we have not finished our rules,' that is, the rules of his Congregation. Such was his state of preparation; and therefore it was, that to one who was afraid of death, and who spoke to him of the fear of dying, he answered, ' Think of death once or twice in the day, and then put the thought from you; do not dwell upon it; or, if you find thinking of death once or twice in the day inspires you with fear, do not think of it at all;' that is to say, ' Prepare yourself to meet God, but prepare yourself in another manner; for,' he said, ' the best preparation for death is a life of good works — a life of humility and charity, for the salvation of souls and for the consolation of those that suffer. This is the way not to fear death; and if, after a life like this, you are assailed with fear, place absolute confidence in God, and ask Him to take it from you as a temptation.'

And then, lastly, his death drew near. How can I describe it? All that I can venture to do is to narrate that which we read. First, what should we expect of one whose life was so like the life of our Lord, and whose mind was so much the mind of a little child, but that when he came to die, his death should be childlike too? And certainly, among all the deaths of the Saints of God, I hardly know one which is marked with greater tranquillity and calmness, peace and sweetness, like the sleep of a little child. All his long eighty-five years, from the time when he kept his father's sheep, and among the herds of the field lived in the spirit of prayer, was the life of a child of God. He had a right to die as a child, for he had lived as a child; and they who live as children of God have a right from their heavenly Father to die in His bosom, to die as the patriarch died of old, by c the mouth of the Lord,' that is, as it were, by the kiss of the lips of their heavenly Father. But he had also another title and another right to die with this singular childlike peace; for his whole life of active charity, in himself and in his spiritual children, had heen devoted to consoling those who were in the agony of death. He had laboured for forty years to gain a good and happy death for others, and therefore the promise of the Holy Ghost was his; ' Blessed is he that understandeth concerning the needy and the poor: the Lord will deliver him in the evil day; the Lord help him on his bed of sorrow. Thou hast turned all his couch in his sickness.'4 That is, like as the kind and tender nurse turns the pallet, smoothes the pillow, and makes again the bed tumbled with the pain and agony of death, so the hand of God comes at that hour to those who have been merciful in consoling the sick and tending the dying, and makes all their bed in their agony. This is their special privilege. Who, then, I ask, had a better right than Vincent to this great and last gift of God's love? And God was faithful to His word.. It was on the 25th of September (the day before yesterday, as it were), when he was in the house of St. Lazarus in the midst of his spiritual children, where he had lain motionless for two long years, that his hour came. He was found in a kind of sleep, like the slumber of a child. His attendant woke him,

4 Psalm xl. 2, 4.

and his answer was, ' It is only the brother come to call the sister/ that is, it is sleep, the prelude of death. He knew his time was come. On the 26th of September, that is, yesterday as it were, his soul began to shroud itself from this world, as it opened itself to the fulness and glory of the Eternal. As he lay sleeping in his chair, one of the older fathers of the Congregation came to him, and said, ' Father, give your blessing to all that are present, and all that are absent.' Vincent began the ordinary form of benediction with a loud and articulate voice; but before he had uttered half the words his voice grew faint, and he ended his benediction as the patriarch, who, after he had given all the commandments wherewith he instructed his sons, gathered himself up to depart. Then his voice failed him. During the day, from time to time, they suggested to him words of consolation. But the only words which drew from him an articulate response were, ' 0 God, come to my assistance;' to which he always answered, ' 0 Lord, make haste to help me.' These were the only words that fell from him. At last, there came a friend from a distance to tell him that the conference of priests, whom he had gathered together to meet periodically for spiritual exercises, needed to be supported, and he asked his blessing upon them, that they might continue in the good spirit in which he had founded them. To this he answered, in the words of the Holy Ghost, putting thereby a seal upon his own life: ' He who hath hegun a good work in you, will perfect it unto the day of Christ Jesus.'5 These were the last articulate words from the lips of St. Vincent of Paul. After this he fell into a sleep, and at four o'clock in the morning, as the day was breaking, at the hour when his spiritual children in all their churches were in prayer, at the very hour in which, for forty long years, he had solemnly invoked the blessing of God upon the works of his life, without a sign, or a motion, or a sound, he passed into the presence of his Lord. Such was the transit of St. Vincent of Paul; a calm sleep bare him into eternal life — for death it can hardly be called; and so he ascended to receive the power and joy of his Lord. In that moment his eyes were opened to see the presence of Jesus, the Sacred Humanity in the glory of the Father, the throne of the Immaculate Mother, the Apostles, the Evangelists, the bishops and pastors of the flock of God — the Saints who had illuminated the Church by their light, or kindled it by their charity — all the company of the elect, gathered together in burning circles of glory round about the 5 Phil. i. 6. ' throne of the Incarnate Word. And mingled with them he saw his own spiritual children, the Fathers of the Missions and the Sisters of Charity, taken before him to their joy in the two generations through which he had lived and toiled. There too he saw those who, through their preaching and instruction, had heen gathered into eternal life; the harvesting of those five-and-forty years — thousands and tens of thousands of poor and of little ones, of foundlings and of orphans, who had received the word of life and the grace of salvation from his spiritual sons and spiritual daughters. They too were round about the throne, and their voices were like the voice of many waters going up in thanksgiving and in praise before the throne of God; for he was come at last to his glory and his crown, who had been the messenger of salvation to them all. And then came to pass in him the words of the prophet Daniel, with a fulness and an amplitude, with an intensity and a splendour, which has seldom been surpassed: ' They who are learned shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that instruct many to justice, as stars for all eternity.'6 The brightness of the firmament, and the light of the eternal stars, were the raiment and the crown of Vincent. Seated on his

6 Dan. xii.

throne lie has reigned from that hour, and he reigns there still, as a king bearing rule over the Israel of God. He reigns too there as a priest, who has offered the precious Blood for the redemption of the world; he reigns there as a mediator whose prayers prevail with God; he reigns there as a minister whose hands distribute grace; he is reigning and will reign until Jesus comes to judgment. And his accidental glory has increased, and shall increase until time shall be no more.

We are met, then, to keep a great festival to-day. Let us not depart without raising a lasting memorial of it. If you love the Saint whom we commemorate — if you love him, who certainly among the Saints of God is one of the loveliest, for his life breathed love, his steps imprinted love upon the earth; from his hands he distilled the works of love, and diffused the sweet influences of charity wherever he went; if you love his life, if you love his works, if you desire to see them established and multiplied, I ask you to join with us at this time in erecting, in memory of this jubilee, of this bi-centenary of his passage to glory, an altar in this church, where his spiritual children, labouring for souls in this parish, may venerate his name and patronage. Send your contributions, either to the fathers of this church, or to the Sisters of

Charity in this parish. A duty of gratitude rests upon you towards one who was a herald of the love of God to the world. If we desire to be his children, there is but one way to be so; that is, by living as he lived, and dying as he died. If you desire, at the end of a long life, full, as it may be, of toil, sorrow, and anxiety, to fall asleep in the childlike death of St. Vincent, though not indeed in the overpassing measure and multitude of peace which was his, then live a life of charity, of kindness, tenderness, patience, and meekness. Be able to say what he said: ' As for mine enemies, let them pluck out my eyes, so' they will leave me a heart to love them.' Ask for this spirit; love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you. Such was the love of Jesus, and such the love of Vincent. Ask for it through his prayers; pray that the charity of God may be poured forth in your hearts by the Holy Ghost. And then, when your life draws to its end, and you look back over its toils and sorrows, there will come to you, from the same source, peace and an assurance of eternal life: the memory of an active life spent for His sake, and the peace of God from the fountain of all hope, the pierced side of Jesus, and the precious Blood which alone gives merit to all good works.