Remembering Pope Francis – A Shepherd to the Poor

 

By Linda Dollard, National President, SSVP Canada
reprinted from Chez Vincent Bulletin

How exciting it was to see the white smoke in Rome on May 8! How exciting it was to hear Pope Leo XIV’s first address and blessing to the People of the world!

Thank you to the Holy Spirit for guiding the Cardinals in their choice. Let us pray for Pope Leo XIV as he leads his flock, bringing peace and unity and hope to the poor and marginalized.

We will always remember Pope Francis for being a Pope for the People and going out to be with the people in the streets to meet them where they were.

How fitting that Pope Francis was able to give the Easter Blessing in St. Peter’s Square before dying the morning of Easter Monday. He is now home with Our Lord.

In his World Day of the Poor messages, Pope Francis poured out his heart to those on the margins, and to those who serve them. In 2021, he wrote, “The poor, always and everywhere, evangelize us, because they enable us to discover in new ways the true face of the Father.” Those of us involved with the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul know the truth of those words. We encounter Jesus in the trembling hands of the hungry, in the fear of a single mother who does not know how she will be provide for her children, and in the loss of hope of someone about to lose their home.

Pope Francis was not content to merely speak about the poor — he went to them. He visited hospitals, refugee camps, prisons and homeless shelters. His actions loudly reinforced his words: “We are called to discover Christ in them, to lend our voice to their causes, but also to be their friends, to listen to them, to speak for them and to embrace the mysterious wisdom which God wishes to share with us through them.” (World Day of the Poor, 2017)

In a letter to the Superior General to celebrate 400 years of the founding of the Congregation of the Mission of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, Pope Francis stated, “The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul is an extraordinary force for good in the service of the poor, with hundreds of thousands of members worldwide.

We thank God for the gift of his life. We thank Pope Francis for all that he did reaching out to the poor and bringing us World Day of the Poor.

During this Jubilee Year, let us be Pilgrims of Hope!

Linda Dollard, National President

National Volunteer Week 2025

 

A special thank you goes out to all our SSVP volunteers. Our volunteers are making positive waves in Newmarket and East Gwillimbury #VolunteersMakeWaves #NVW2025 @VolunteerCanada. Your sharing of time, skills, and empathy is vital to the inclusivity, strength, and well-being of our communities.

Our SSVP volunteers help our families become more aware of the resources available in our community:
- free meals in our community
- free income tax help
- applying for the Canada Learning Bond
- summer camp possibilities, to name a few.

Our Bingo volunteers raise money through our charitable gaming fundraising at Bingo World and Gaming Newmarket. The funds raised assists our SSVP Conference to support needy members of our community by providing food cards and boxes of fresh fruit and vegetables. This bingo fundraising is supported by the Newmarket Charitable Gaming Association and Charitable Gaming Community Good.

Thanks again to all our volunteers for all the things you do.

#VolunteersMakeWaves #NVW2025

A Tribute to Pope Francis

 

- by Guido Kelly, ONRC President.

As Vincentians, in our opening prayer at each meeting we attend, we call on our Lord to be with us and to help us: “Lord Jesus, make us responsive to the Christian calling to seek and find the forgotten, the suffering or the deprived, so that we may bring them Your Love”. Along came Pope Francis, a friend of Vincentians, who instituted the “World Day of the Poor” which is now celebrated by the Church on the 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time since 2017.

In addition, Pope Francis has left us a number of “his words” listed here on the poor, on helping them…

1. “There is an inseparable bond between our faith and the poor. May we never abandon them”.

2. “At times, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people's pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else's responsibility and not our own”.

3. “The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase. In the meantime, all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us”.

4. “I encourage financial experts and political leaders to ponder the words of Saint John Chrysostom, one of the sages of antiquity: "Not to share one's wealth with the poor is to steal from them and to take away their livelihood. It is not our own goods which we hold, but theirs”.

5. “Each individual Christian and community are called to be an instrument of God for the liberation and promotion of the poor, and for enabling them to be fully a part of society. This demands that we be docile and attentive to the cry of the poor and to come to their aid”.

These messages of Pope Francis surely strengthen us in our resolve, as Vincentians, to “go to the poor” as Christ himself had asked us, when He said, “Feed My lambs, feed My sheep”. Let us continue to pray for the Pope and to him as he encourages us when we reach out to the poor, the hungry and the homeless. May he rest in peace.