St. Vincent Ferrer - “Apostle of the Apocalypse”

Ordinarily we would have commemorated the feast day of St. Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419) last week on April 5th. But this year that day was Holy Thursday.

Since this Dominican saint was an outstanding preacher whose passion and zeal for the salvation of souls knew no bounds, I did not want to wait unitl next year before sharing a little bit about him. There is much we can learn from him today.

His early years – Prior to his birth in Valencia, Spain on January 23, 1350, Vincent’s parents, William and Constance, had several experiences which led them and others to understand how uniquely gifted would be the child in Constance’s womb.

A Dominican friar appeared to William in a dream and told him he would have a son who would be a “prodigy of learning and sanctity,” whose wondrous deeds would be known throughout the world, who would fill “heaven with joy and Hell with terror,” and who would accomplish these things as a Dominican priest.[i]

Sometime thereafter, a blind woman’s sight was restored immediately after she prayed, at Constance’s request, that the child Constance was carrying would arrive safely. “Madam,” exclaimed she who was once blind but could now see, “it is an angel you have, and it is he who has cured me of my affliction.” [ii]

   

While Vincent was a mere infant, Valencia suffered a prolonged and difficult drought despite the offering of public prayer.  Her infant son startled Constance one day by speaking and telling her: “If you wish for rain, carry me in procession, and you shall be favorably heard.” [iii]The townsfolk did so and the drought ended.

His extraordinary intelligence and piety were apparent to all.  Vincent assisted at daily Mass.  He would later refer to the Mass as “the most sublime work of contemplation”. Not surprisingly, he had a tender devotion to Our Lord’s Passion, honored the Blessed Mother as his spiritual mother, fasted regularly on Wednesdays and Fridays, and had a great love for the poor. He began the study of philosophy at age twelve and his theological studies at age fourteen! 

Entry into the Dominican Order –William escorted his eighteen year old son to the Convent of the Friar Preachers in Valencia on February 2, 1367 where Vincent began his novitiate in what was to be the first of his 50 years in religious life.  He was clothed in the Dominican habit three days later, and demonstrated by the following comments that he understood the nature of his Dominican vocation:

  

“Our Order does not lead its subjects to Heaven by the ladder of the contemplative life alone, nor by that of the active life only, but it enables them to ascend to the conquest of paradise by means of both.  They who are in the simple monastic state reach Heaven by the ladder of contemplation; and it is by ascending that of the active life that the military orders arrive at the possession of their country.  But the children of St. Dominic must have a foot on each, by uniting the exercises of prayer and study to the work of apostolic preaching.” [iv]