Saints tend to go in and out of vogue, only to be remembered when their intercession and example are needed once again. The same is true of our brother, Saint Vincent Ferrer—although he has not had many petitioners in recent history, he seems especially suited as a luminous guide for our times.
As a fifteenth-century son of Saint Dominic, Vincent was famous for his eloquent preaching and numerous miracles. He was followed from city to city by hundreds of penitents and disciples. Vast crowds waited for him in city squares and open fields to hear his preaching. Stories abounded of the miracles he wrought, from raising the dead to casting out demons to possessing a voice that could be heard for miles. He was known as a peacemaker who healed divisions between princes, kings, and popes. Even more wondrous, sinners found the peace and mercy of Jesus through the preaching of this simple friar, as his thunderous voice proclaimed the judgment and mercy of God in a time of societal disintegration. All the while, Vincent lived the observant life of a Dominican friar, traveling from priory to priory and possessing nothing but his habit and a few books. As Henri Gheon writes, “every step he took was a miracle; every word he spoke was a conquest over sin.”
In today’s gospel, Jesus gives us the proper context of Vincent’s life. Just as Peter proclaimed his love for Jesus, received the command to feed his sheep, and became docile to the promptings of the Spirit, Vincent loved Jesus, thirsted for souls, and followed the Spirit’s lead. His flame of charity enlivened his preaching as he spent long hours in his cell studying and praying for the salvation of souls. The brethren reported ethereal light coming from under his door during the night—he was even seen to be levitating in prayer. His voice trumpeted the coming day of the Lord as he traveled from city to city with an unquenchable thirst for souls. “It seems that he touched each heart at the point he chose,” writes Gheon, “the point that charity suggested to him, and invariably the precise moment.” His wings of docility carried him wherever Jesus needed to be proclaimed, where sinners needed mercy, and where divine peace and love needed to reign. Vincent’s flame burned brightly with the love of Jesus, his trumpet called the world to divine love and mercy, and his wings carried his message to the ends of the earth.
Modern scholarship is baffled by the image of Vincent Ferrer. Some paint him as a madman preaching about a final judgement that never came, while others call him a fraud who was only canonized for monetary and political reasons. Every suspicion of medieval Catholicism comes to bear on his person: his “miracles” were shams and his “prophecies” were hallucinations. In their modern prejudice, these scholars extinguish his flame of charity, silence his trumpet of salvation, and clip his wings of joyful proclamation.
However, devotion to Vincent Ferrer should be renewed in our times. Just as in Vincent’s medieval day, modern society needs the perennial mercy and love that only comes from Jesus Christ, who heals divisions among men and brings peace to every soul. Vincent’s trumpeting cry of warning awakens a world full of uncertainty, despair, and indifference and points it to the coming of Jesus and the triumph of life over death. As society seems to be disintegrating and God is increasingly forgotten, the Spirit sends us as witnesses of Jesus. Like Vincent, we are lights of grace in the world as we live in hope of the coming day of judgement, when holiness will reign and sin will be destroyed.
Vincent is an excellent patron for us who look forward to the coming of Jesus. The faithful find solace in his intercession as they seek to lead lives of holiness and prepare to meet Jesus face to face. The Dominican friar finds in Vincent an older brother to imitate as he brings souls to Jesus, for Vincent “spared neither head, nor heart, nor body. As much as was in him to think, he thought; as much as was in him to love, he loved; as much as was in him to preach, he preached.” The same love fills us, the same thirst affects us, and the same Spirit moves us.
The world needs Vincent.
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Photo by Lawrence Lew, O.P. (used with permission)
