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Saints Priest and founder of the Congregation of the Mission · 1581–1660 AD

Saint Vincent de Paul

Feast 27 September · Born 1581 AD, Pouy (now Saint-Vincent-de-Paul), near Dax, Landes, France · Died 1660 AD, Saint-Lazare, Paris, France

From a Gascon sheepfold to the slave market at Tunis, the galleys of France and the famine roads of Lorraine.

Begin the life
A priest in black cassock kneels among chained galley slaves in a ship's hold, embracing one convict as other prisoners and onlookers watch in the dim light below deck.
Saint Vincent de Paul ramene des galeriens a la foi, Jean-Jules-Antoine Lecomte du Nouy (1842-1923), 1876

In brief

The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints records that Saint Vincent de Paul, commonly known as Monsieur Vincent, was born to a family of peasants in a small village of Gascony on April 24, 1581 AD. He kept his father's flock in the Landes before the schoolroom at Dax and the priesthood. He died at Saint-Lazare in Paris on September 27, 1660 AD.

  1. 1581–1600 AD

    The flock, the school, the altar

    A peasant boy of Pouy is sent to the friars at Dax and ordained in the diocese of Dax.

    St. Vincent de Paul kept his father's sheep on the open country of the Landes. According to longstanding Catholic tradition, he prayed as a small child before a statue he had set himself in the hollow of an oak. His father decided the boy should be a priest and sent him to the Franciscan friars at Dax.

    His parents sold two of their oxen to pay for the journey to the university of Toulouse. He was ordained priest on September 23, 1600 AD. At his first Mass he would have no one present but a server and a priest to direct him.

    “I remember that one time when at college, being told that my father, who was only a poor peasant, was waiting for me, I refused to see him, which was a great sin.”
    St. Vincent de Paul, confessing a youthful sin of shame at his father's poverty

  2. 1605–1607 AD

    Sold at Tunis

    Pirates take his ship, and two years of slavery end in a small boat on the Mediterranean.

    Three Turkish brigantines chased and pursued his boat in the Gulf of Lyon. He carried the arrow wound of that fight for the rest of his life. Landed at Tunis, he was sold as a slave.

    A fisherman bought him first, then an old alchemist who kept ten or fifteen furnaces always burning. His third master, a renegade from Nice, returned to the Church and fled with him. They crossed in a little skiff and landed at Aigues-Mortes on June 28, 1607 AD.

    “God always inspired me with an assurance of my release, through the constant prayers I offered to the Blessed Virgin, and to her intercession I attribute my deliverance.”
    St. Vincent de Paul to M. de Commet, July 24, 1607 AD

  3. 1608–1611 AD

    A room in the Faubourg Saint-Germain

    In Paris he drops his family name, is accused of theft, and vows himself to the poor.

    In Paris he gave up his family name and had himself called by his baptismal name alone. He took a poor room near a hospital and served the sick and the dying there. A country magistrate who shared the room accused him of stealing four hundred crowns.

    An apothecary's boy had taken the money. For four years he bore a temptation against faith he had asked to carry for a tormented doctor of divinity. One day, more dejected than usual, he knelt and vowed his life to Jesus Christ in the person of the poor.

    “God knows the truth.”
    St. Vincent de Paul to his accuser and those present, response to false accusation of theft before Father de Bérulle

  4. 1612–1617 AD

    Gannes, Folleville, Châtillon

    A dying peasant's confession leads to the first mission sermon; months later a pulpit appeal at Châtillon produces the first confraternity of Charity.

    He was installed as curé of Clichy on May 2, 1612 AD, his first charge of souls. A year later he became tutor to the sons of Philippe-Emmanuel de Gondi, general of the galleys. In January 1617 AD a dying peasant at Gannes made a general confession of his whole life to him.

    On January 25, 1617 AD he preached on general confession at Folleville, counted as the first sermon of the mission. That August, as curé of Châtillon-les-Dombes, he appealed from the pulpit for a sick and abandoned family. The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints records that the first cell of the Vincentian Charity came to life on August 20, 1617 AD.

    “Why, these good people are like sheep which have no shepherd. This is great charity, but not well directed; the poor people will be overloaded with provisions for a few days, and then they will be in as much distress as before.”
    St. Vincent de Paul to those present at Châtillon, August 1617 AD

  5. 1619–1633 AD

    The galleys and the little company

    Chaplain-General of the galleys, founder of the Congregation of the Mission, master of Saint-Lazare.

    Saint Vincent de Paul stands among convicts in the dungeon of the galleys.
    Saint Vincent de Paul ramene des galeriens a la foi, Jean-Jules-Antoine Lecomte du Nouy (1842-1923 AD), 1876 AD Jean-Jules-Antoine Lecomte du Nouy (1842-1923 AD), Chapel of Saint Vincent de Paul, eglise de la Sainte-Trinite, Paris (3)

    Louis XIII named him Chaplain-General of the Galleys of France on February 18, 1619 AD. He gave missions to the convicts on the galleys of Marseilles and Bordeaux. The Count and Countess de Joigny endowed his company of priests by a deed of April 17, 1625 AD.

    He took possession of the priory of Saint-Lazare on January 8, 1632 AD, and it became the mother house. Pope Urban VIII erected the Congregation of the Mission by the bull Salvatoris Nostri that same month. On November 29, 1633 AD St. Louise de Marillac took four or five village girls into a house on the Rue des Fossés Saint-Victor.

    “a community who had no monastery but the houses of the sick, no cells but a lodging of the poorest room, no cloisters but the streets, no grille but the fear of God, and no veil but their own modesty.”
    St. Vincent de Paul, describing the Sisters of Charity

  6. 1637–1652 AD

    Lorraine, and a ride through the lines

    War empties the provinces, and the old priest rides out of a besieged Paris to ask for peace.

    In 1637 AD the people of Lorraine were glad to eat carcasses, and thriving villages stood deserted. From 1640 AD five hundred livres a month went to Nancy, Verdun, Metz, Toul and Bar-le-Duc. In January 1649 AD, with Paris besieged, he rode out long before daybreak with a single companion.

    At Saint-Germain he spoke to Queen Anne of Austria of the state of Paris and urged Cardinal Mazarin to withdraw for the sake of peace. Five days later eight hundred soldiers broke into Saint-Lazare and destroyed what they found. In a letter of June 21, 1652 AD he set down that soup went out daily to fifteen or sixteen thousand poor of Paris.

    “Your Eminence, yield to circumstances ; cast yourself into the waves rather than wreck the vessel of the State.”
    St. Vincent de Paul to Cardinal Mazarin, urging Mazarin to withdraw for the sake of peace, January 13, 1649 AD

  7. 1655–1660 AD

    The rules, and the chair

    He gives his priests their printed rules, loses his oldest friends, and dies at four in the morning.

    Saint Vincent de Paul sits in a chair in a bare room receiving the last sacraments, his priests and brothers around him.
    Vincent de Paul recevant les derniers sacrements, nineteenth-century copy after an earlier composition; photographed by the Wikimedia contributor Vinckie, October 20, 2020 AD, nineteenth century nineteenth-century copy after an earlier composition; photographed by the Wikimedia contributor Vinckie, October 20, 2020 AD, eglise Saint-Jacques-le-Majeur-et-Saint-Jean-Baptiste, Folleville, Somme (3)

    Swelling and pain in his legs had kept him inside the house since the beginning of 1650 AD. On the evening of May 17, 1658 AD he handed each of his priests a printed copy of the Common Rules. St. Louise de Marillac died in March 1660 AD, and he could not leave his room to see her.

    On Sunday, September 26, 1660 AD he was carried to the chapel, heard Mass and received communion for the last time. He died about four the next morning, seated in an arm-chair, while his priests were saying matins.

    “Confido — I trust”
    St. Vincent de Paul, last words before dying, September 27, 1660 AD

  8. 1660–2017 AD

    Patron of charity

    Paris buries him at Saint-Lazare, and Rome gives his name to the charitable works of the whole Church.

    He was buried in the middle of the chancel of the church of Saint-Lazare on September 28, 1660 AD. Pope Benedict XIII inscribed him among the Blessed on August 13, 1729 AD. Pope Clement XII canonized him at Saint John Lateran on June 16, 1737 AD.

    Frédéric Ozanam founded the lay Society of Saint Vincent de Paul in Paris in 1833 AD. Pope Leo XIII declared him patron of all Catholic charitable associations on May 12, 1885 AD. Pope Francis wrote to the Vincentian family on September 27, 2017 AD, on the fourth centenary of a charism the Church dates to 1617 AD.

Pray with the Church

A prayer of Saint Vincent de Paul for his company

A prayer Saint Vincent de Paul made aloud in a conference to his priests, recorded by Mgr Émile Bougaud in his History of St. Vincent de Paul, volume 1.

O Lord, who seest me all covered and filled with sins, do not on my account take away Thy grace from this little company !May it continue to serve you in humility and with fidelity

All 11 reports on Saint Vincent de Paul

A painting of a young priest in a black cassock and small white collar sitting alone in a bare room, his right hand pressed to his chest, beside a table with a lit candle, an inkwell with a quill and a blank sheet of parchment; a black cloak and hat hang on the wall by a narrow bed.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of French oil painting of the middle of the seventeenth century, from the paper's reference portrait based on Portrait de saint Vincent de Paul (1581-1660) (Anonymous, after a model by Simon Francois de Tours, circa 1660, Musee Carnavalet - Histoire de Paris) View source artwork.

In his first years in Paris, Saint Vincent de Paul asked God to free a priest from doubts about the faith and offered to carry them in his place. The priest was freed at once, and the doubts passed to St. Vincent for four years. They left him on the day he vowed to spend his life serving Jesus Christ in the poor.

Edition of · 3 min read

In a bare stone church, a crowd seen from behind watches priests in black and white surplices stand around a coffin under a black pall beside an open grave in the floor, as a row of women in grey habits and small white caps kneels at the chancel step.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of French oil painting of the middle of the seventeenth century, from the paper's reference portrait based on Portrait de saint Vincent de Paul (1581-1660) (Anonymous, after a model by Simon François de Tours, circa 1660, Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris) View source artwork.

Saint Vincent de Paul was buried in the chancel of Saint-Lazare in Paris on September 28, 1660 AD. His priests, the Sisters of Charity he founded with St. Louise de Marillac, princes, bishops and thousands of the city's poor followed the coffin. His bones were hidden through the French Revolution and carried in procession to his priests' new chapel in 1830 AD.

Edition of · 4 min read

A painting of an elderly priest in a white surplice and gold stole seated in an armchair, surrounded by priests holding candles, one kneeling at his side and another standing with the holy oils.
event · PARIS, September 27, 1660 AD

St. Vincent de Paul dies at four, his hour of prayer

Saint Vincent de Paul died in his armchair at Saint-Lazare in Paris at about a quarter past four on Monday morning, while the priests of his house were saying matins. He founded a congregation of priests to teach the country poor, and with St. Louise de Marillac he founded the Sisters of Charity. His priests prayed beside him through the night, and when one of them reached the words of trust in the act of hope, St. Vincent murmured 'Confido' (*I trust*).

Edition of · 5 min read

An old bald priest in a black soutane and skullcap sleeps upright in a wooden armchair in a bare grey room, his bandaged feet on a low stool, with crutches against the wall, a narrow bed behind him, and two men in black cassocks watching from an open doorway.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of French oil painting of the middle of the seventeenth century, from the paper's reference portrait based on Portrait de saint Vincent de Paul (1581-1660) (Anonymous, after a model by Simon Francois de Tours, circa 1660, Musee Carnavalet - Histoire de Paris) View source artwork.

Saint Vincent de Paul, seventy-nine and unable to walk, was carried to the infirmary at Saint-Lazare in Paris for a last long talk with Father René Alméras. St. Vincent had secretly chosen Father Alméras to lead, after his death, the order of priests he founded to preach to the poor of the countryside. At about noon St. Vincent fell asleep in his chair more deeply, and for longer, than ever before, and those with him thought he was dying.

Edition of · 4 min read

A priest in a black cassock extends his hand toward a crowd of poor men and chained galley convicts gathered at his feet, while an angel beside him holds up a monstrance with the Eucharist, and the Virgin and Child look down from clouds above.
event · CHÂTEAU-L'ÉVÊQUE, Périgord, September 23, 1600 AD

St. Vincent de Paul, a farmer's son of nineteen, is ordained priest

Bishop François de Bourdeille of Périgueux ordained St. Vincent de Paul to the priesthood on September 23, 1600 AD, in the church at Château-l'Évêque, a village used because Protestants had pulled down the cathedral in the city. He was nineteen — or twenty-four, by an older reckoning of the year he was born — a farmer's son from the Landes whose father had chosen him for the Church and sold two oxen to keep him at his studies. He said his first Mass in a hill chapel above Buzet, with nobody there but a server and a priest to direct him.

Edition of · 4 min read

An old priest in a black soutane, white collar and black skullcap sits at a plain wooden table in a bare grey room and looks down at a sheet of handwritten parchment with a red wax seal; an inkstand and a quill lie to one side.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of seventeenth-century French oil portraiture, from the paper's reference portrait based on Portrait de saint Vincent de Paul (1581-1660) (anonymous, after a model by Simon François de Tours, circa 1660, Musée Carnavalet - Histoire de Paris) View source artwork.

Pope Alexander VII has approved vows for the Congregation of the Mission, the priests Saint Vincent de Paul founded to preach to the poor of the French countryside. Each man vows poverty, chastity and obedience, yet his priests stay secular priests and do not become a religious order. Older cardinals had refused the plan for years; a commission of cardinals examined it before the Pope approved it.

Edition of · 3 min read

In a dim vaulted workshop a barefoot young man in a coarse linen shirt and drawers kneels at a row of small glowing furnaces, shovelling charcoal, while an old turbaned apothecary stands watching beside a bench of glass stills and a boy carries in a basket of charcoal from the sunlit yard door.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of French oil painting of the middle of the seventeenth century, from the paper's reference portrait based on Portrait de saint Vincent de Paul (1581-1660) (Anonymous, after a model by Simon Francois de Tours, circa 1660, Musee Carnavalet - Histoire de Paris, inv. P863) View source artwork.

St. Vincent de Paul, a French priest of twenty-four taken by pirates in July and sold at Tunis, has been sold on this month to an old apothecary who has spent fifty years hunting the substance that was to turn base metal into gold. He feeds ten or fifteen furnaces that are never let go out, and has refused his master's offer of riches and learning in exchange for his faith. The letters he wrote about these months were produced in Rome long afterwards as an argument against making him a saint.

Edition of · 4 min read

A painted interior: a woman in a black gown stands at a tall leaded window with her back to the room, an opened letter and a second sheet with a broken red seal lie on a carpet-covered table, and a servant waits by the door with a cup on a tray.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of French oil painting of the middle of the seventeenth century, from the paper's reference portrait based on Saint Vincent de Paul ramene des galeriens a la foi (Jean-Jules-Antoine Lecomte du Nouy, 1876, Chapel of Saint Vincent de Paul, eglise de la Sainte-Trinite, Paris) View source artwork.

The letter reached Madame de Gondi in Paris on the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. It told her that Saint Vincent de Paul, tutor to her three sons and her own spiritual director for four years, had taken a village parish in the Bresse and did not mean to come back. She has since asked his own spiritual director for permission to fight it, and has written to St. Vincent de Paul.

Edition of · 4 min read

A plain, balding priest in a worn black cassock and skullcap stands beside a cloth-covered table in a bare lime-washed hall, speaking without gesture to some twenty young men in black cassocks seated in rows before him.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of French oil painting of the middle of the seventeenth century, from the paper's reference portrait based on Saint Vicent de Paul prechant la charite aux dames de la cour de Louis XIII (Charles Meynier, 1824 AD, Centre national des arts plastiques, FNAC PFH-5608) View source artwork.

event · BEAUVAIS, France, September 1628 AD

Bishop gives the men he will ordain to St. Vincent de Paul

Augustin Potier des Gesvres, Bishop of Beauvais, has asked Saint Vincent de Paul to prepare the men he is about to make priests. St. Vincent de Paul arrived fifteen days before the ordination with two doctors of theology and a written timetable. By the end of the fortnight nearly all the candidates had asked him to hear the confession of their whole lives.

Edition of · 4 min read

An oil painting of a plain low chapel: a woman in a black gown with a white lace collar stands at a small cloth-covered table holding a quill over a sheet of names, a group of townswomen in linen caps behind her, a row of townsmen in dark cloth holding their hats at the right, and a spare, upright priest in a plain black cassock and small white collar standing at the near end of the table.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of French oil painting of the middle of the seventeenth century, from the paper's reference portrait based on Saint Vincent de Paul prechant la charite aux dames de la cour de Louis XIII (Charles Meynier, 1824 AD, Centre national des arts plastiques, FNAC PFH-5608) View source artwork.

event · JOIGNY, France, September 6, 1618 AD

Joigny's leading women sign a rule to nurse the town's sick poor

In the chapel of Saint-Antoine at Joigny today, the leading women of the town put their names to a rule that binds them to feed, nurse and bury their sick neighbours. The priest who drew it up is Saint Vincent de Paul, chaplain to the lord of the town. It is the second such association he has founded in thirteen months.

Edition of · 4 min read

In a bare, low entry passage, a spare priest in a black cassock and skullcap comes down a wooden stair with his hand held out to a thin country boy in patched brown wool who stands in the light of the open street door, holding his felt hat, while a younger priest watches from the stair and two men in black wait at the right.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of French oil painting of the middle of the seventeenth century, from the paper's reference portrait based on Saint Vincent de Paul ramène des galériens à la foi (Jean-Jules-Antoine Lecomte du Nouÿ, 1876, Chapel of Saint Vincent de Paul, église de la Sainte-Trinité, Paris) View source artwork.

A young peasant in poor clothes came to the door of the Paris college where Saint Vincent de Paul lives and told the porter he was the priest's nephew. St. Vincent de Paul went out to the street, brought him in and presented him to the priests of the house. The boy stayed at his side in his country clothes for the rest of the day, in front of callers of rank.

Edition of