S. Vincent returned only once to his native place after he began his apostolic career. This was at the close of a mission among the convicts of Bordeaux. During his visit he solemnly renewed his baptismal vows in the village church where he had been baptized and made his First Communion, and on the day of his departure he went with bare feet on a pilgrimage to Notre Dame de Buglose, among whose ruins he had so often prayed in his childhood, but which was now rebuilt. He was accompanied, not only by his relatives, but by all the villagers, who were justly proud of their countryman. He sang a solemn Mass at the altar of Our Lady, and afterwards assembled the whole family around the table for a modest repast, at the end of which he rose to take leave of them. They all fell at his feet and implored his blessing. “Yes, I give you my blessing,” replied he, much affected, “but I bless you poor and humble, and beg our Lord to continue among you the grace of holy poverty. Never abandon the condition in which you were born. This is my earnest recommendation, which I beg you to transmit as a heritage to your children. Farewell for ever!”
His advice was religiously kept. By mutual assistance his family might have risen above its original obscurity. Some of his mother’s family were advocates at the parliament of Bordeaux, and it would have been easy to obtain offices that would have given them, at least, prominence in their own village; but they clung to their rural pursuits. The advice of their sainted relative was too precious a legacy to be renounced.
Not that S. Vincent was insensible to their condition or unambitious by nature, but he knew the value of the hidden life and the perils of worldly ambition. We have on this occasion another glimpse of his struggles with nature. Hardly had he left his relatives before he gave vent to his emotion in a flood of tears, and he almost reproached himself for leaving them in their poverty. But let us quote his own words: “The day I left home I was so filled with sorrow at separating from my poor relatives that I wept as I went along—wept almost incessantly. Then came the thought of aiding them and bettering their condition; of giving so much to this one, and so much to that. While my heart thus melted within me, I divided all I had with them. Yes, even what I had not; and I say this to my confusion, for God perhaps permitted it to make me comprehend the value of the evangelical counsel. For three months I felt this importunate longing to promote the interests of my brothers and sisters. It constantly weighed on my poor heart. During this time, when I felt a little relieved, I prayed God to deliver me from this temptation, and persevered so long in my prayer that at length he had pity on me and took away this excessive tenderness for my relations; and though they have been needy, and still are, the good God has given me the grace to commit them to his Providence, and to regard them as better off than if they were in an easier condition.”
S. Vincent was equally rigid as to his own personal necessities, as may be seen by the following words from his own lips: “When I put a morsel of bread to my mouth, I say to myself: Wretched man, hast thou earned the bread thou art going to eat—the bread that comes from the labor of the poor?”
Such is the spirit of the saints. In these days, when most people are struggling to rise in the world, many by undue means, and to an unlawful height, it is well to recall this holy example; it is good to get a glimpse into the heart of a saint, and to remember there are still many in the world and in the cloister who strive to counterbalance all this ambition and love of display by their humility and self-denial.
Immediately after S. Vincent’s canonization, in 1737, the inhabitants of Pouy, desirous of testifying their veneration for his memory, removed the house where he was born a short distance from its original place, without changing its primitive form in the least, and erected a small chapel on the site, till means could be obtained for building a church. The great Revolution put a stop to the plan. In 1821 a new effort was made, a committee appointed, and a subscription begun which soon amounted to thirty thousand francs; but at the revolution of 1830 material interests prevailed, and the funds were appropriated to the construction of roads.
The ecclesiastical authorities at length took the matter in hand, and formed the plan, not only of building a church, but surrounding it with the various charitable institutions founded by S. Vincent—a hospital for the aged, asylums for orphans and foundlings, and perhaps a ferme modèle in the Landes.
In 1850 the Bishop of Aire appealed to the Catholic world for aid. Pius IX. blessed the undertaking. On the Festival of the Transfiguration, 1851, the corner-stone was laid by the bishop, assisted by Père Etienne, the superior-general of the Lazarists. Napoleon III. and the Empress Eugénie largely contributed to the work, and in a few years the church and hospice were completed. The consecration took place April 24, 1864, in the presence of an immense multitude from all parts of the country. From three o’clock in the morning there were Masses at a dozen altars, and the hands of the priests were fatigued in administering the holy Eucharist. Among the communicants were eight hundred members of the Society of S. Vincent de Paul, from Bordeaux, who manifested their joy by enthusiastic hymns. At eight in the forenoon Père Etienne, surrounded by Lazarists and Sisters of Charity, celebrated the Holy Sacrifice at the newly-consecrated high altar, and several novices made their vows, among whom was a young African, a cousin of Abdel Kader. A châsse containing relics of S. Vincent was brought in solemn procession from the parish church of Pouy, where he had been held at the font and received the divine Guest in his heart for the first time. The road was strewn with flowers and green leaves. The weather was delightful and the heavens radiant. At the head of the procession was borne a banner, on which S. Vincent was represented as a shepherd, followed by all the orphans of the new asylum and the old men of the hospice. Then came a long line of Enfants de Marie dressed in white, carrying oriflammes, followed by the students of the colleges of Aire and Dax. Behind were fifteen hundred members of the Society of S. Vincent de Paul, and a file of sisters of various orders, including eight hundred Sisters of Charity, with a great number of Lazarists in the rear. Then came thirty relatives of S. Vincent, wearing the peasant’s costume of the district, heirs of his virtues and simplicity—Noblesse oblige. Then the Polish Lazarists with the flag of their nation, beloved by S. Vincent, and after them the clergy of the diocese and a great number from foreign parts, among whom was M. Eugène Boré, of Constantinople, now superior-general of the two orders founded by the saint. The shrine came next, surrounded by Lazarists and Sisters of Charity. Behind the canons and other dignitaries came eight bishops, four archbishops, and Cardinal Donnet of Bordeaux, followed by the civil authorities and an immense multitude of people nearly two miles in extent, with banners bearing touching devices.