Frédéric Ozanam - A Layman for Now Shaun McCarty, S.T. (Excerpts)

In a brief but productive life (1813-1853), [Frederic] Ozanam responded to the call of his own era in France by joining ideas and action in a life's task of reconciling past and future, faith and reason, Church and world, rich and poor….

The Church in general and Christians in particular face the perennial questions of modernity: How can we live the faith today? How discern, receive and hand on a living tradition that is at once faithful to the past and responsive to the present? How love this Church enough to challenge it? How unite a world of ideas with one of action? How square reason with faith? How utilize advances in human knowledge, yet keep the critique of faith? How integrate a career in society with a Christian vocation? How bring one's gifts into concert with others in tasks of ministry? How strive to lessen the gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots"? How try to mediate between the factions of a divided world so that we may be one?

….As he [Ozanam] pursued this double-pronged effort to champion the cause of the poor by word and deed, several observations might be made with particular challenge to our contemporary situation:

1) He was unwilling to seek change by means of mere humanitarian reform. As we have seen, he made careful distinctions between charity and philanthropy. Both his motivating force and methodology were rooted in the Gospel. The love of God and neighbor and finding Christ in the person of the poor were the Vincentian heritage to which he made himself and his followers heir. And the protection of that fundamental charity that informed the works was a personal and corporate humility that saved the effort from the contamination of selfish pursuit or ambiguous motivations. Great insistence on anonymity in services rendered and on benefits received from serving the poor were a legacy preserved in the spirit of St. Vincent de Paul.

This would seem to speak to modern efforts for liberation and the need to ground them in such charity and humility so as to avoid the pitfalls of neglecting the spiritual dimension so essential to total human development of people and sustained dedication in their behalf. This spirit of charity and humility would seem to offer much to media-conscious Americans to save them from individual and corporate recognition needs and political ambitions that can upset priorities. The spirit of Vincent and Ozanam challenges advocates of social reform to save them from the illusion of building merely a kingdom of this world for the poor, and from the deception of messianic aspiration. There are lessons to be learned in the practice of these Christian principles of charity and humility that perhaps purged the ideals of the Revolution from the chaff of selfishness that produced new oppressions. One gets the feeling with some of the modern liberation movements of our own time and culture that some striving for liberation often become new oppressors.

2) Consonant with this spirit of charity and humility, it is not surprising to find in Ozanam and his conception of the Conferences that of a mediator. Though he took clear and strongstands on issues, his design was to bridge the gaps. Consequently he displayed great respect for those whose views differed from his own as well as insistence on finding solutions through peaceful rather than violent means because he perceived this as the Gospel way.

This appears to confront polarization and tactics today that tend to divide and to conquer rather than to unite and to elicit free cooperation.

3) For Ozanam, the real school for those who would work for the poor was 'personal involvement in the lives of those to whom help was given - through visiting the poor and the sick and the underprivileged in the places where they lived and struggled. And it meant for Ozanam and his followers not just bringing them material aid, but it involved attention to deeper needs of the spirit.

Further, such personal attention to the needs of the poor was not just token and for a time, but was to endure through the years. Then Ozanam felt people would have the right and competency to theorize….

4) The charity of which Ozanam speaks and which he and his followers practiced would seem to embrace a biblical and contemporary understanding of justice. It was not charity in the sense of giving to people out of abundance what they have no right to. Rather it seemed to be the sharing of what belongs to the poor by right. Nor was it that the members of the Conference were to give condescendingly as a mere expression of their own largesse. Rather it was that they needed the poor more than the poor needed them. Seemingly central to the Vincentian spirit is a charity that embraces justice and makes of the poor masters to those who help them. Perhaps those sentiments attributed to St. Vincent best summarize the spirit that animated him and was likewise reflected in Frederic Ozanam.

“You will find out that charity is a heavy burden to carry, heavier than the bowl of soup and full basket. But you will keep your gentleness and your smile. It is not enough to give bread and soup. This the rich can do. You are the servant of the poor. ..They are your masters, and the more difficult they will be, the more unjust and insulting, the more love you must give them. It is for your love alone that the poor will forgive you the bread you give them.”

http://www.famvin.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Ozanam_-_A_Layman_for_Now_-_Shaun_McCarty,_S.T.
Accessed 9/4/10

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