St. Vincent Ferrer: Angel of the Apocalypse

0
383
St. Vincent Ferrer, by Pedro García de Benabarre - National Art Museum of Catalonia, Barcelona (Spain)

Considered one of the greatest preachers in the history of the Church, St. Vincent Ferrer said “he was the Angel of the Apocalypse, who had come to announce the downfall of Christian civilization … he fought enormously for the moralization of customs, with a view to halting this moral decay.”

Newsdesk (14/10/2024 11:48, Gaudium Press) St. Vincent Ferrer was born in the city of Valencia, eastern Spain, in 1350. As his father was a notary public, the members of the town council were his baptismal godparents; a crowd turned up at the church to watch the ceremony.

From an early age, he fasted twice a week and was very devoted to Our Lady. At the age of twelve, he began studying philosophy and, at fifteen, theology.

He joined the Dominican Order, was ordained a priest and took a doctorate in Theology at the University of Lleida. His sermons in churches and preaching in auditoriums attracted huge numbers of people.

The Spanish Cardinal Pedro de Luna, who became antipope under the title Benedict XIII, ordered him to move to Avignon – southern France – and appointed him master of the palace occupied by Luna.

The saint went there, but wanted to live in the Dominican monastery in that city and refused the Bishopric and Cardinalate that Benedict XIII offered him. Moving away from the antipope, he continued his mission as a popular preacher.

The Gift of tongues

He preached in France, Switzerland, Germany and – at the request of King Henry IV of Lancaster – in England, Ireland and Scotland. Important cities in Italy, such as Genoa, Pisa and Florence, received his word.

He was also in the deep valleys of the western Alps, where he carried out many conversions of Waldensians, adherents of a heretical sect according to which ‘evangelical poverty was absolutely necessary for salvation.’[1]

An extraordinary miracle! St. Vincent spoke in the dialect of Valencia and people from other nations, with different languages, understood him perfectly because he had the gift of tongues, like St. Peter after the descent of the Holy Spirit, speaking in the Upper Room.

In Spain, he converted thousands of Mohammedans. In Toledo, the country’s capital at the time, the Jews were numerous, rich and powerful. Many of them became Catholics and several synagogues were transformed into churches.

He criticized vice and encouraged virtue

In his sermons, St. Vincent dealt especially with the Four Last Things – Death, Judgement, Heaven, Hell – and he criticized the vices of the clergy, the nobility and the common people, encouraging people to practise the virtues. He had a vision of St. Dominic Guzman and St. Francis of Assisi, who ordered him to speak on these themes.

He gave ‘more than 6,000 sermons, each lasting more than three hours.’[2] They were later edited based on notes from listeners.

King Ferdinand I of Aragon, northern Spain, appointed him as his representative at the Council of Constance, held from 1414 to 1418.

On his way to that German city, he evangelized some regions of France. Due to his advanced age, he could only walk supported by the arms of disciples, but when preaching he had the vigour of youth.

On the recommendation of his superiors, he began his return to Valencia. However, in the city of Vannes – western France – on April 5th, 1419, he gave his soul to God[3].

The putrefaction of the clergy brings about the corruption of the faithful

Regarding Saint Vincent Ferrer, Dr. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira commented:

“Few things are as beautiful in the lives of the Saints as situating their mission in the panorama of the struggle between the Revolution and the Counter-Revolution.

‘According to this panorama, in 14th century Europe, Christendom began to decline. It was a terrible ecclesiastical decadence that was attested to by the fact that popes were exiled to Avignon, under the iron fist of the kings of France, a tremendous schism.

‘But such was the confusion in Christendom that, alongside every pseudo-pope or pope, there were saints who supported them.

‘For this to be possible, one can well understand what the putrefaction of the clergy was, which led to the corruption of the faithful. In this way, it was the whole of the Middle Ages that was putrefying, more morally than intellectually.

It wasn’t so much a question of a great heresy, but of a moral deterioration, an explosion of pride and sensuality that was beginning, which would later generate the intellectual deviations that are the errors of the Revolution.

‘So Providence sent, very appropriately for that time, a saint who was great in his own sphere, as, for example, St. Thomas Aquinas was in his. Because if we can say that St. Thomas Aquinas was the common Doctor, the philosopher of philosophers, the theologian of theologians, the teacher of teachers, we can say that, as a popular preacher, after the Apostles, probably no one exceeded St. Vincent Ferrer.

He said of himself that he was the Angel of the Apocalypse, who had come to announce the downfall of Christian civilization and the beginning of the end of the world. In fact, he fought enormously for the moralization of customs, with a view to halting this moral decay.”

He vigorously combated the lukewarmness of Catholics

Much more important than the conversions of Jews, Mohammedans and heretics, “was the power of his preaching, through which he shook consciences that were half asleep, making him, par excellence, the saint opposed to lukewarmness, because that kind of preacher who talks about Hell, about sins, who shouts, who calls for the punishment of Heaven, is exactly the saint called to speak, not to fervent souls, but above all to lukewarm ones, and made to shake those who cannot be convinced otherwise. This explains the colossal number of conversions he brought about.

However numerous they may have been, these conversions were insufficient. They did not give rise to a movement, an organized current to fight the Revolution that was being born.

‘The result is that St. Vincent Ferrer converted many souls, but not Christianity, he didn’t convert society as such, because he wasn’t listened to as much by the men of his time as they should have listened to him.

‘Thus, St. Vincent Ferrer was the dam that Providence raised against the Revolution, but which the wickedness of men destroyed. However, at the opening of this torrent that is beginning to fall into the abyss, his grandiose figure stands, announcing the catastrophes that came from the fact that he had not been heard, just like that of an Old Testament prophet announcing misfortunes to the chosen people because they had not paid attention to those sent by God.“[4]

By Paulo Francisco Martos

Noções de História da Igreja

[1] MIGNE, Jacques-Paul. Abbé. Encyclopédie Theologique. Paris: Ateliers Catholiques du Petit-Montrouge. 1851, v. 35-II, coluna 965.

[2] VACANT, A; MANGENOT, E. Dictionnaire de théologie catholique. Paris: Letouzey et Ané. 1950, v. 15-II, coluna 3042.

[3] Cf. DARRAS, Joseph Epiphane. Histoire Génerale de l’Église. Paris: Louis Vivès. 1883, v. 31, p. 588-596.

[4] CORRÊA DE OLIVEIRA, Plinio. Dique levantado contra a Revolução. In Dr. Plinio. São Paulo. Ano 23, n. 265 (abril 2020), p. 11-12.

The post St. Vincent Ferrer: Angel of the Apocalypse appeared first on Gaudium Press.

Compiled by Roberta MacEwan

Subscribe to our Headlines

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here