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Vincentian Family Office Superior General

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LENTEN L E TT E R
Rome, 22 February 2017
Vincentian Family Office Superior General

To all the members of the Vincentian Family

Dear members of the Vincentian Family,

May the grace and peace of Jesus be always with us!

Let me take the opportunity, at the beginning of this letter, to thank each one of you
wholeheartedly for your many Christmas and New Years greetings, which I received
by regular mail, e-mail, or through different social media! I admire the heroic witness
and service of your ministering in difficult times and in remote areas of the globe. My
heart is with each one of you as I accompany you daily with my thoughts and prayers.

The season of Lent is near at hand!

In my Advent letter, I reflected on the Incarnation as one of the central mysteries of


Saint Vincent de Pauls spirituality. In this years Lenten letter, I would like to reflect on
the mystery of the Holy Trinity as another of the central mysteries of Saint Vincents
spirituality.

Saint Vincent writes in the Common Rules of the Congregation of the Mission:

According to the Bull which established our Congregation, we are bound to


honor in a special way the Most Holy Trinity and the Incarnation, mysteries
beyond words. We should therefore try to carry this out most faithfully and, if
possible, in every way, but especially in these three ways: (1) frequently
honoring these mysteries by a prayer of faith and adoration, coming from our
inmost heart; (2) dedicating certain prayers and good works each day to their
honor and, above all, celebrating their feast days with special dignity, and the
greatest possible personal devotion; (3) trying constantly, by our teaching and
example, to get other people to know these mysteries and to honor and
worship them (Common Rules X, 2; CCD XIIIA, 454-455).

In the Constitutions of the Congregation of the Mission, we find the following words:

As witnesses and heralds of the love of God, we ought to show special honor
and devotion to the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation (Constitutions,
IV, 48).

What is the message of the Holy Trinity for me personally, for the community where I
live, the congregation or group to which I belong, for my family, for the people Jesus
is sending meto serve?

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Jesus helps us understand the Holy Trinity: the identity, mission, and purpose of the
Vincentian Family Office Superior General

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus helps us to understand the relationship among the
three Persons, the inner connectivity among them, and the influence of the Trinity on
each individual person as well as on society as a whole.

As we discover and develop, with Gods grace, an unbreakable bond between the
Trinity and the individual person, between the Trinity and the community, between
the Trinity and humanity, we will get ever closer to the ideal model of relationships,
basic components of our lives. We were created not as islands, separated from one
another, but as social beings and as a family, where, in the depth of our being, we are
one with God, which means, with the Trinity and with each other.

The Trinity remains a mystery for us. Jesus communicated to us what we know about
the Father, Son, and Spirit. Jesus presented the Trinity to us as the ideal model of
relationships.

Our reflection on the Trinity needs to be accompanied by the wish and goal of
incarnating that ideal model of relationships in the concrete life situation in which I
find myself, in the community where I live and the congregation or group to which I
belong, in my family, with the people to whom Jesus is sending me to serve.

The Holy Trinity is the ideal model of relationships! Jesus shows us the ideal.

The mutual relationship between the Father and the Son.


The mutual relationship between the Father and the Spirit.
The mutual relationship between the Son and the Spirit.
The relationship among the Father, Son, and Spirit.

What can we see in these relationships?


1) We can see that the attention is always directed to the other person and not to
oneself.
2) We can see that the priority is always given to the other person and not to
oneself.
3) We can see that praise, thankfulness, admiration are always given to the other
person and not to oneself.
4) We can see that each one of the three Persons of the Trinity always expresses
the need for collaboration with the other Person to fulfill the mission.
5) We can see that each of the three Persons of the Trinity always clearly
expresses that it would be insufficient and ineffective for each of them to act
alone.

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Vincentian Family Office Superior General
What does the model of relationships in the Trinity say to me about my own life in:

a) my relationship with God,


b) my relationship to the community,
c) my relationship with my family,
d) my relationship with those to whom Jesus is sending me to serve?

Because we are not islands, but beings belonging to the human family,
relationshipsare an inseparable part of our mission. The ideal model of the Trinity,
that Jesus left us, is the model to follow.

Saint Vincent de Paul made the ideal model of the Holy Trinity one of the foundations
of his spirituality. In this years Lenten Season, we are invited to take new steps toward
the ideal model of relationships given to us through Jesus.

If each of us would put the other person first, put him or her before oneself, before
ones own desires, before ones own interests, before ones own personal wishes; if
each one would give attention to the other person, share time, thoughts, experiences,
hardships, doubts, sufferings, joys, etc. by following the ideal model of the Trinitys
relationships, then someone would do the same for each of us. In this way, a
wonderful and miraculous set of relationships will take shape, where we together, in
the best and most effective way possible, will accomplish the mission entrusted to us
by Jesus.

To help us reflect on this ideal model of relationships,let us use two more passages
from Saint Vincent on the Trinity, as well as a short reflection by Father Getlio Mota
Grossi, CM:

If we want to have within us the image of the adorable Trinity and a holy
relationship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, lets establish ourselves in this
spirit. What creates unity and single-mindedness in God, if not equality and the
distinction of the Three Persons? And what creates Their love if not Their
resemblance? And if there were no love among Them, what would be loveable
in Them, said the Blessed Bishop of Geneva? So then, theres uniformity in the
Blessed Trinity: what the Father wants, the Son wants; what the Holy Spirit does,
the Father and the Son do and act the same way; They have only one power and
one way of acting. Thats the source of holiness and our model. Lets make
ourselves uniform; well be many as if we were only one, and well have holy
union in plurality. If we already have a little, but not enough, lets ask God for
what we lack, and see in what we differ from one another in order to try to
resemble one another and be equal; for resemblance and equality engender
love, and love tends toward unity. So then, lets all strive to have the same likings
and to be in agreement regarding the things that are done or are allowed to be
done among us (Conference 206 of 23 May 1659 on Uniformity; CCD XII,
210-211).

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Vincentian Family Office Superior General
Live together as having but one heart and one soul (cf. Acts 4:32) so that by this
union of spirit you may be a true image of the unity of God, since your number
represents the three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity.

I pray for this to the Holy Spirit, who is the union of the Father and the Son, that
He may be yours likewise and give you profound peace in the midst of
contradictions and difficulties, which can only be frequent among the poor. But
remember also that this is your cross, by which Our Lord calls you to Himself
and to His peace. Everyone has a high opinion of your work, and good people
acknowledge that there is no other work on earth more honorable or holy, when
it is performed faithfully (Letter of 30 July 1651 to Sister Anne Hardemont, in
Hennebont; CCD IV, 238-239).

Saint Vincents devotion to the Trinity was not an intellectual exercise but a search
from his heart. It led him and leads us, as a Congregation still living the charism of the
Founder, to a two-fold experience:

a) To imitate the mutual relations of the three Persons. The Church finds the ultimate
source of its life and action in the Trinity. The Congregation, within the Church, does
the same (Constitutions II, 20). We are called to be an image of the Trinity, the merciful
and compassionate God of Love (cf. Conference 152 of 6 August [1656] on The
Spirit of Mercy and Compassion; CCD XI, 308-309.), the God of the Poor, the least,
the weakest, to whom we are destined by our charism. This is true for us, the
Daughters of Charity, and the whole Vincentian Family.

Called to union in love; uniformity in plurality; communion of life; unity in the diversity
of gifts; animated by the Holy Spirit; sent, like Jesus, for the missionary charity of
evangelizing the poor, a charism inspired by the Spirit in Saint Vincent, given to the
Company and inherited by us, we are challenged to creative fidelity to the charism of
following Jesus, evangelizer of the poor.

b) Therefore, our devotion to the Trinity, like that of Saint Vincent, must be connected
to the Mission (cf. Conference 118 of 23 May 1655, Repetition of Prayer; CCD XI,
172-174), to the proclamation of the mystery of Gods love for the poor, for their
salvation (cf. ibid, 173). The Word was incarnated, sent out of love by the Father (cf.
John 3:16), conceived by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit (cf. Luke 1:35) in the
womb of Mary, and anointed by the same Spirit to bring the good news to the poor.
In the Incarnate Word, present in the poor, Saint Vincent saw the most perfect
manifestation of the love of God (cf. John 3:16, 14:9), the preferential love of the
Triune God for the least of this world (Getlio Mota Grossi, CM).

We are celebrating the 400th Anniversary of Saint Vincent de Pauls charism. May this
Jubilee Year bring us abundant fruit. With total trust in Providence, through the
intersession of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, Saint Vincent de Paul, and all the
Saints and Blessed of the Vincentian Family, we continue the path inward toward our

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Vincentian Family Office Superior General
own self, and outward to our communities, family, and to the people Jesus is sending
us to serve, to those who may not know the charism yet or to those places where the
charism has still to take root.

I hope and pray that this years Holy Week, Easter, and Easter Season celebrations will
bring additional joy and meaning to us and our lifes mission as we reflect on the
Trinity and take new steps toward the ideal model of relationships.

May we continue praying for one another!

Your brother in Saint Vincent,

Toma Mavri, C.M.


Superior General

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