Aubuchon, Marie T.

English

epublications@Marquette

The Linacre QuarterlyVolume 26 | Number 4 Article 4November 1959M. Vincent, Father of the Poor, Apostle of CharityMarie T. AubuchonFollow this and additional works at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnqRecommended CitationAubuchon, Marie T. (1959) "M. Vincent, Father of the Poor, Apostle of Charity," The Linacre Quarterly: Vol. 26 : No. 4 , Article 4.Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnq/vol26/iss4/4operation with a view to perserva­tion of ovarian and generative function is emphasized in an in­structive article by Beecham.2 In a series of 61 cases of endometri­osis in patients under the age of forty;five and with symptoms re­quiring operation, he was able to preserve the childbearing function in 32 . ( 52 percent) and ovarian function in an additional 14 ( 23 percent). In· subsequent observa­tions of one to six years, only two patients had troublesome symp­toms - a clear refutation of the theory. that endometriosis neces­sarily requires ovarian ablation to stop symptoms. The use of radiation alone · as the initial method of treatment should be avoided in most in­stances. Surgery is preferable to rad1ation because of the opportun­ity it affords for conservatism with · removal of large endometriomas, the correction of associated pelvic pathology and often preservation of ovarian function.In summary, this brief analysis of the complexities and inter-rela- · tionships of ovarian physiology and pathology re-emphasizes the g, ·'.lter need for conservatism in ti treatment of ovarian lesions. Or ce it has been established that a le!>ion is benign, every attempt should be made to spare the nor­mal structures. In the young fe­male, the needless sacrifice of functioning ovarian tissue may re­sult in irreparable damage. Con­versely, the sparing of only a small wedge of functioning tissue may preserve not only the endocrine activity but, in some instances, be rewarded by subsequent pregnan­cies. A long-range view of a patient's total welfare is better medicine than is the myopic approach which may correct a relatively minor pathology today, but at tbe cost of more serious trouble tomorrow. FOOTNOTES 1 Morris, J. M. and Scully, R. E.: Endo­crir.e Pathology of the Ovary, ed. 1, St. Louis, 1958, C. V. Mosby Co., p. 10. 2 Beecham, C. T.: .. Conservative Surgery in Endometriosis, .. Am. f. Obst. and Gynec. 52: 707-15. 1916. Munich will be host to the 9th International Congress of Catholic Physicians to be held July 25 - August I, 1960. The theme of the Congress will be: The Physician and the Technical World. American Catholic physi­cians ore urged to attend. The Oberommergau Passion Ploy will be staged in the summer of 1960. The World Eucharistic Congress will also be held in Munich at .th e time of th e Physicians' Congress. Those interested are urged to contact: 132 Dr. Pius Muller Rupertus-Klinik, Herzog, Maxstr. 13 Bamberg ( I Jo) Germany LINACRE QUARTERLY My sisters, we are l. into a statue. . . .  you were watching pieces. Then, when smaller hammer, ano features. When tha, bring it to the pcrh see, my daughters. (. .. QOD WAS the sc•.l1'l, · carved, with viol•c'.nt L;;, the exquisite perfectio� ·: • . 1 become two great sainr '. de Paul and Louise de i\' Who was this Vincent u. ! ' ll: He was born of peasant sto6: �u he understood the hardship� of the poor. A few years after his ordi­nation as a priest, he was captured at sea by the Corsairs and sold as a slave in Africa. Because ot this period of sl;;ivery, Vincent under­stood the suffering of the slave. He lived in France at a time when the galley slaves manned the huge ships, and op.ce he freed a young man from the chains, exchanged clothing ·with him and set hi_m free, putting the chains on his own legs and taking the boy's place on the · galleys. · The wounds from those chains were to trouble him for 40 years. Vincent· de Paul learned human suffering by sharing in it. Mrs. Aubuchon is Director  of Public Information for The Catholic Hospital Association. NOVEMBER, 1959AUBUCHON - of stone that is to be transformed '0:kes the stone so violently that if IJ say he intended to break it in 1 of the rougher parts, he takes a , 1,isel to begin the face with all its u.. he uses other and finer tools to, · has intended for his statue. You.ike that. St. Vincent de Paul Therefore, when he opened a hos­pital for galley slaves, he under­.stood their pain because once it 1, ,d been his own suffering. When I led the poor he understood the •·ier of the poor. ,uise had known the sorr�w of, whood, the helpless anguish 'ot "'ing mother to a wayward son, and felt great repugnance toward the life of the court of France in the 17th century, with its pomp and its foulness. She was refined by the fire of zeal for the spiritual life while forced to accept the material world. Both of these people had a love for the poor and the sick that. was destined to bring them together to work for suffering mankind. Louise was a born nurse. As a rich woman who did not find court life absorbing, she began to visit the poor and the sick regularly. The Hotel Dieu, the only hospital in Paris, was always so full that numbers were turned away from 133 it each day. For the rejected there was no help of any nature. It was to them that Louise would go and no service w,·, too menial for her to perform for their care. In the dark, unventilc1tcd hovels of the sick she washed foul bodies. combed the hair of diseased and evil-smelling people, watched with them until they were well or death claimed them. After the death of her husband, .Louise sought the advice of Vin­cent de Paul who had become her spiritual adviser. Her thought was to enter religious life; he discour­aged the notion, recommending in­stead that she maintain her home in Paris and continue doing good among the sick and poor. By this time, Vincent had begun his mission work. He and the priests of the mission congregation went about preaching and teaching in those parts of France where conditions were especially badJ Wherever they went, Vincent es­tablished 'Congregations of Char­ity, societies composed of women who banded together to tend the sick and the poor of the neighbor-. hood. They called themselves the Servants of the Poor. But Vincent . found that it was hard to keep en­thusiasm high. once the mission had left the area. He therefore de­. cided to ask Louise de Marillac to help. He sent her to all the places where his priests had labored in the rural districts. to establish con­ferences of charity. Louise traveled as his · representative, counseled with the members, suppli.ed them with money, and did all she could to promote the work of Christian 134 love of neighbor. For three years src journeyed through France a: id all the misery of the times a 1 the perils of war. Then Louise J-- gan her School of Charity in P,1ris. She took in peasant girls, trained them in the service of the sick and the instruction of. poor children. She taught them to read, cook, sew, and how to care for the sick. In 1630 the cholera broke out in Paris, one of the worst sieges the city had known. Louise and her little group remained in the' city visiting the severe cases and most infected districts. Vincent's little group of mis­sionaries grew. To all who came to him, Vincent offered nothing but the hardest of lives. His fol­lowers must never think of them­selves. They must suffer great physical hardship, but more and more men .came to join. Louise watched the rapid growth of this work with great interest and then. at long !�st, Vincent agreed to unite Louise and her peasant girls into a community under the guid-­ance of a superior. Louise founded the community on November 29, 1633. In March, 1634, Vincent gave her the threefold vow. Louise's girls did not wear a re­ligious habit, but all dressed alike in dark blue dresses with white collars, a w hite handkerchief around their heads. They arose at four every morning, went to bed at nine, and spent their days in prayer and work. The hospital of Paris, Hotel Dieu, was a building that admitted more than 20,000 patients each LINACRE QUARTERLY year. Its management -.·. ns in the hands of a few nuns, ,- ·. -·�. and · visiting doctors - all of ,: h. d no more than an ilit:' knowledge of hygiene l!l'• the hospital beds held pants. The bedclothin�. the food inadequate. '\ •. ceived spiritual care l ,; , thought that death w t. Louise's friend, M. ·-· sault, went to the l1• ,· Paris, demanding th,. instituted in the h ' i� Archbishop spoke V·,· Paul and he in turn ,1 i,• to send her dauqh·,·r, Soon the D_aught. ·, "· ' 1 iar. figures in the Vincent alerted Lot lem of the foundJ:1 Another great ventur, Several hundred child t t •. ing abandoned each yc�1 ing placed in a dismal ·'- , 11 .l called "La Couche.'· l' ·, · -� "' habitat of horror rather than a foundling home, for the owner sold children to beggars who would mutilate them to make them obiects of compassion, for the rich to �iv� more alms. Other children <lieu or hunger and neglect. A gradual removal of the chii dren was begun and Louise and her. Da·ughters took charge of the little ones. Foster homes were found for some; they cared for others · who were left in their charge, and took in the steady stream of deserted babies, poured onto the Paris streets. Vincent's next project was help for galley slaves. He and his priests had done much for these NOVEMBER, 1959 convicts; tending prisoners was to be a new work for women. How­ever, when Vincent told Louise of the problem, she <lid not hesitate. She and her Daughters went bravely into priso:1s and the ships to tend the sick. to bring food and messages from the outside world. And so it was, that the lives of these two saints merged. Today, in the French national hall of fame, the Pantheon, there is a statue of "M. Vi�cent" giving mute testi­mony to the love even a secular world gives St. Vincent de Paul. Sociologists, social workers, nurs­mg corps, organizers of philan­thropy, all have acclaimec! him. There is scarcely a modern work , charity he did not organize or orm. rnise de ·Marillac's Daughters harity still carry on the great of this man who has· aptly ,,,_ called the "Father of the p Un Septembe\- 27 of this year, the Vincentian Fathers and the Daughters of Charity began the celebration of the 300th anniver­sary of the death of St. Vincent de Paul which occurred on that day in 1660. The commemoration will extend through September, 1960. For Louise de Marillac's Daugh­ters of Charity, serving in hospitals all over the world, the chief part of the celebration will be in contin­uing to carry out the wishes of St. Vincent as their beloved foundress would have commanded them. They recall his words to those first Daughters of Charity, "When you serve those little children, 135 r when you nurse. the sick poor ... you are honoring the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who so often did the same things you do. And when you serve the convicts. you are honoring . the sufferings and calumnies endured by our Lord on the Cross . ... It can truly be said of you, as of the Apo�tles. that you go_ from one plate to another,and that just as they were sent by our Lord, so you are also in His name by order of your superiors." Remember someone with scription to THE LINACRE Since St. Vincent de Paul be­lonqs not alone, to his religious cc munities, but to the entite '' d, it is the wish of the Ter­c s:nary Observance Committee t! · all the faithful join with them in honoring the anniversary of his death. There is still a great need for the charity of "M. Vincent" in the world. Perhaps in remem­bering his love for his fellowmen all men will find a new charity in their own hearts. a sub­QuA,R-TERLY as a Christmas gift. A re­membrance of lasting value. A gift note will be sent in your name. 136 LINACRE QUARTERLY A LAV FOR Ll· H REVIEWS PLAN IJ �D ABORTIONS For the past twent11 on the part-time facu/1 !I ·, University of Colorado. with medical-legal litigat he addressed the fol/owin a Model Penal Code th,. legalized abortions. Mr. encourage our readers fr know to uphold high med MODERN medicirh' deci·sions are p1<,1 unborn and vindicatin�, It is hoped that the Am, Institute does not wanl age· lower. medical al! standards. Ethical dot, scribe to the Hippocratic The original version prov1d,•,,. will not give to any wonw11 ,iny­thing to produce abortion." The Geneva version of the Hippocratic Oath as adopted by thi.' World . Medical· Association, comprising thirty-nine national mcdtl ii soci eties including our m., n A, , • ,can Medical Association, in part tt:d,I "I will maintain the utmost respe( · for human life from the time of conception." The International Code of Medical Ethics,' in denn­ing the doctor's duty to all per­sons, ·provides: "A doctor must always bear ·in mind the impor­tance of preserving human life from the time of conception until death." Modern medicine has encour­aged protection for the unborn. NOVEMBER, 1959 TAYLOR ·AT-LAW ,r, practicing Colorado la!' !lt'r, has been /.::ctures on medical-legal problems at the ,ic. He represents clients in connection I and individual capacity as an attorney, law Institute' s Director of the work on ,oproval of more and easier grounds for ,-t contributor to our journal and would to any members of the bar they might '.rds. ,, the law courts in tort actions ere is a modern movement giving cognition to an unborn child as, fact, a living human person. The ient Massachusetts opinion of 'ce Holmes held that a child I not maintain a civil action prenatal rniuries sustained to his birth. The primitive •ning was that the unbornch,, i is a part of its mother. Al­though New York at flrst followed Massachusetts, Justice· Cardozo dissented without giving his rea­sons. The recent decisions of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ( 1946) and of the highest courts of the states of Minnesota and Ohio ( 1949), of California ( 1939), of Kentucky and Oregon ( 1955), and of New Hampshire ( 1958), recog­nize the rights of the unborn and permit a civil suit for negligence or malpractice based on prenatal injuries. Ohio, Missouri, Illinois and New York in former times fol­lowed the unscientific rule flrst adopted in Massachusetts. Now 137 

M. Vincent, Father of the Poor, Apostle of Charity

https://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3885&amp;context=lnq

M. Vincent, Father of the Poor, Apostle of Charity

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

epublications@Marquette