St. Vincent de Paul kneels to resign; priests re-elect him for life

PARIS, October 13, 1642 AD — Saint Vincent de Paul knelt today before the superiors of the Congregation of the Mission, the community of priests he founded, and asked their pardon. Then he resigned as Superior-General and walked out of the room before anyone could answer. He was sixty-one. The superiors would not accept the resignation. They re-elected him to the office for life, and after refusing more than once St. Vincent gave way.

The Congregation of the Mission was the community St. Vincent founded to care for the souls of poor people in the countryside, and it was based at Saint-Lazare, in Paris. By this autumn it had ten houses, and this year St. Vincent grouped them into provinces, each under a superior called a visitor. He had been Superior-General, the superior over the whole congregation, from the start.

St. Vincent thought the work could now go on without him. The congregation had the Pope’s approval and a seminary of its own to train new members, and St. Vincent often said that, because of his sins, he was nothing but an obstacle to it.

Almost all the superiors came to Saint-Lazare for the general assembly St. Vincent had called for today. The ordinary business was finished and the sitting was close to its end when he stood up and then knelt in front of them, in tears. St. Vincent asked the superiors to pardon all the scandal he said he had given them. He resigned his office and begged them to elect his successor. He gave no one time to reply. On his way to the door St. Vincent said only that he accepted the superiors’ choice in advance and would obey the new Superior-General as the least among them. He left so that they could vote freely without him in the room.

The superiors were astonished. Once they had taken in what St. Vincent had done, they agreed unanimously not to accept his resignation. They sent several superiors to bring him back to the assembly as its head. The searchers looked for some time. They found St. Vincent in a small side chapel of the church of Saint-Lazare, lying face down before the Blessed Sacrament and praying that God would guide the assembly’s choice of a new Superior.

When the searchers told him the assembly’s decision, St. Vincent lay still for a moment. Then, without getting up from the floor, he said: “I am no longer Superior, let them nominate another.”

The searchers went back to the assembly with St. Vincent’s answer, and all the superiors got up and went to him in the chapel. The superiors pleaded with St. Vincent and he kept refusing, until they asked him plainly: “Do you absolutely wish us then to proceed to elect a Superior?” St. Vincent answered: “That is your duty, and I conjure you to do it.” “Very well then, we will do so,” the superiors answered, and they went out to vote. A short time later the superiors came back with the result: St. Vincent was re-elected for life. They would go on electing him for as long as God kept him alive, the superiors said.

St. Vincent tried once more to get free of the office, but nothing he said moved the superiors, and he gave way. “At least, gentlemen and my brothers,” St. Vincent said to them, “pray for this miserable wretch! This is the greatest act of obedience I can perform.” The superiors then renewed their vow of obedience to him.