The Artwork of St. Vincent de Paul Church
St. Gerard
The statue of St. Gerard Majella was created by Jorge Posada. The St. Gerard relic is displayed in the saint's outstretched arm.
o Photographs of the St. Gerard relic
o Information on St. Gerard
o Prayers to St. Gerard
Icons
The Sanctuary contains nine icons, one of the Risen Christ surrounded by eight saints.
The icons depict the following: St. Francis of Assisi, St. Vincent de Paul, St. Martin de Porres, St. John the Baptist, the Risen Christ, St. Clare of Assisi, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, St. Gregory the Great, and St. Frances Cabrini.
These saints were chosen to represent various aspects of the Christian experience.The following is an explanation and brief account of the lives of these holy men and women. Each saint's story deals with overcoming the struggles of everyday life. Each story is a testimony of the power of faith in their lives. This faith empowered them to make the journey of death to a new life, dying to themselves so that Christ could live in them.
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These icons represent the lives of real people. They are our heroes in the faith. They have dealt with many of the same struggles and obstacles to the faith that we face. Whether it be as basic as - is Jesus the Son of God, or coping with grief, or facing racism, or moving to a new country, or converting to the Catholic faith - these saints show us the way through their faith response.Not only did they overcome various personal obstacles, each of them in turn gave expression to their faith by their ministry. Whether it be founding a new religious community, reaching out to the poor in their midst, educating the youth, caring for the sick - they enfleshed their faith with apostolic actions.They stand before us as models, and they encourage us to take up our cross each day and follow the Lord. They teach us by example how we can breathe new life into our world by our response to the Gospel invitation of Christ. They are present to us as representatives of the full communion of saints, whose prayers we can request as we make our own response to our baptismal vows.
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St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226)
Francis is probably the most known and regarded saint by people of various
faiths throughout the world. He was born into a wealthy family
in Assisi, Italy. Francis, like many young people, searched for
the meaning in his life. One day while in prayer at the chapel
of San Damiano, Francis heard from the image of Christ on the
cross telling him "Francis, go out and build up my house,
for it is nearly falling down." He would eventually understand
these words to mean that he was being called to renew the Church.
He turned to the gospels as his guide in life. It was through the
gospels that he embraced a life of poverty, chastity and obedience.
While Francis is best known as the patron saint of ecology because
of his profound love of all creation, he was chosen to be part
of our icons because of his faithfulness to the gospel. St. Francis
is also the founder of the Order of the Friars who once staffed
our Mission.
St. Vincent de Paul (1580-1660)
Vincent is the patron saint of our faith community. Vincent's story is
another one of struggle. Vincent aspired to the priesthood with
little more ambition than to have a comfortable life. But when
he was confronted with the plight of the poor in his native France,
he had an inner conversion. He dedicated his life to the service
of the poor. He founded the Vincentians, a community of priests
professing vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and stability.
They devoted themselves entirely to the people in smaller towns
and villages.Later Vincent established confraternities of charity
for the spiritual and physical relief of the poor and sick of
each parish. From these, with help of Saint Louisa de Marillac,
came the Sisters of Charity, "whose convent is the sickroom,
whose chapel is the parish church, whose cloister is the streets
of the city." He organized the rich women of Paris to collect
funds for his missionary projects, founded several hospitals,
collected relief funds for the victims of war, and ransomed over
1200 galley slaves from North Africa. He was zealous in conducting
retreats for clergy at a time when there was great laxity, abuse
and ignorance among them. He was a pioneer in clerical training
and was instrumental in establishing seminaries.
St. Martin de Porres (1579-1639)
Martin's story is about a different type of struggle that he encountered.
He was the illegitimate son of a freed-woman of Panama, probably
a Negro but possibly of Indian descent, and a Spanish grandee
of Lima, Peru. Martin was reared in poverty, locked into a low
level of Lima's society.
At 12 his mother apprenticed him to a barber-surgeon. He learned
to cut hair and also how to draw blood (a standard medical treatment
then), care for wounds, and prepare and administer medicines.
He applied to the Dominicans to be a "lay helper”, not
feeling himself worthy to be a religious brother. After nine years,
the example of his prayer and penance, charity and humility led
the community to request him to make full religious profession.
His days were spent caring for the poor and nursing the sick.
Side by side with his daily work in the kitchen, laundry and infirmary,
God chose to fill Martin's life with extraordinary gifts: ecstasies
that lifted him into the air, light filling the room where he
prayed, bi location, miraculous knowledge, instantaneous cures
and remarkable control over animals. He has been chosen because
of his struggle with racism.
John the Baptist (Born shortly before Christ - Martyred prior to Christ's Passion and Resurrection)
John was called by Jesus the greatest of all those who had preceded
him: "History has not known a man born of woman greater the
John the Baptizer." John spent his time in the desert, an
ascetic. He began to announce the coming of the Kingdom, and to
call everyone to a fundamental reformation of life.
His purpose was to prepare the way for Jesus. His baptism was for
repentance. But One would come who would baptize with he Holy
Spirit and fire. Perhaps John’s idea of the coming of the
Kingdom was not being perfectly fulfilled in the public ministry
of Jesus. As he struggled with this question, he sent his disciples
(when he was in prison) to ask Jesus if he was the Messiah. Jesus’
answer showed the Messiah that he was to be a figure like that
of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah. John himself would share in
the pattern of messianic suffering, losing his life to the revenge
of Herodias. John has been chosen to represent all of the prophets.
St. Clare of Assisi (1194-1253)
Clare was a contemporary of Francis of Assisi. Clare struggled with
her family so that she could pursue a religious vocation. Having
heard Francis preach, she refused to marry at 15. At 18, she escaped
one night from her father's home, was met on the road to the Portiuncula
by friars carrying torches, and in that poor chapel received a
rough woolen habit, exchanged her jeweled belt for a common rope
with knots in it, and sacrificed her long hair to Francis' scissors.
He placed her in a Benedictine convent for her protection from
her father. Sixteen days later her sister Agnes joined her. Others
came. They lived a simple life of great poverty, austerity and
complete seclusion from the world, according to a rule Francis
gave them as the Second Order (Poor Clares). She is portrayed in
the icon holding a monstrance with the Blessed Sacrament. This
recounts the time the Sacrens were invading the city. Clare had
the Blessed Sacrament placed on a wall and she prayed: "Does
it please you, O God, to deliver into the hands of these beasts
the defenseless children I have nourished with your love? I beseech
you, dear Lord, protect these whom I am now unable to protect."
The Sacrens fled. She has been chosen because of her deep devotion
to the Eucharist.
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774-1821)
Elizabeth is the first native-born American saint. By birth and marriage,
she was linked to the first families of New York and enjoyed the
benefits of high society. Reared a staunch Episcopalian, she learned
the value of prayer, Scripture and a nightly examination of conscience.
The early deaths of her mother in 1777 and her sister in 1778
gave Elizabeth a feel for eternity and the temporariness of the
pilgrim life on earth. Far from being brooding and sullen, she
faced each new "holocaust," as she put it, with hopeful
cheerfulness. At 19, Elizabeth married a wealthy businessman, William
Magee Seton. They had five children before his business failed
and he died of tuberculosis. At 30, Elizabeth was widowed and
penniless, with five small children to support. While in Italy
with her dying husband, Elizabeth witnessed Catholicity in action
through family friends. Three basic points led her to become a
Catholic; belief in the Real Presence, devotion to the Blessed
Mother and conviction that the Catholic Church led back to the
Apostles and to Christ. Many in her family and friends rejected
her when she became a Catholic in March, 1805. In 1809 she was
invited to open a school in Baltimore. This would be the beginning
of the far-reaching Catholic parochial school system in the United
States. On July 19,1813 she took vows along with eighteen other
sisters and became the foundress of the Sisters of Charity, the
first American religious society. The order spread throughout
the United States and numbered some twenty communities by the
time of her death at Emmitsburg, Maryland on January 4, 1821.
She suffered great trials of sickness, misunderstanding, the death
of loved ones (her husband and two young daughters) and the heartache
of a wayward son.
St. Gregory the Great (540-604)
Gregory was the Prefect of Rome before he was 30. After five years in
office he went on to establish six monasteries on his Sicilian
estate, and became a Benedictine monk in his own home at Rome.Ordained
a priest, he became one of the Pope's seven deacons, and also
served six years in the East as papal nuncio in Constantinople.
At the age of 50 he was elected pope by the clergy and people
of Rome. He was direct and firm. He removed unworthy priests from
office, emptied the papal treasury to ransom prisoners of the
Lombards and to care for persecuted Jews and the victims of plague
and famine. He was very concerned about the conversion of England,
sending 40 monks from his own monastery. He is known for his reform
of the liturgy and for strengthening respect for doctrine. He
has been attributed with Gregorian Chant, a form of ecclesial
music used in the liturgy. Gregory strengthened the papacy so that
the medieval Church could face the struggles, confusion, the lawlessness
and the chaotic state of the times with a sense of strength and
direction. His book, Pastoral Care, on the duties and qualities
of a bishop, was read for centuries after his death. He described
bishops mainly as physicians whose main duties were preaching
and the enforcement of disciplines.
Mother Frances Cabrini (1850-1917)
Frances was the youngest of thirteen children of Augustine Cabrini, a
farmer, and Stella Oldini. She was born on July 15, 1850 at Sant'
Angelo Lodigiano, Italy and christened Maria Francesca. She was
destined to be a schoolteacher but when orphaned at eighteen,
she decided to follow a religious life. Two communities refused
her, but in 1874 she was invited by Monsignor Serrati to take
over a badly managed orphanage, House of Providence, at Codogno.
Fierce opposition by its foundress, Antonia Tondini, eventually
led to its closing by the bishop of Todi, who then invited Frances
to found an institution.
With seven followers she moved into an abandoned Franciscan friary
at Codogna and founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart,
devoted to the education of girls. The institute received the
approval of the bishop in 1880 and soon spread to Grumello, Milan
and Rome.
In 1889 Frances went to New York at the invitation of Archbishop
Corrigan to work with Italian immigrants. During the next twenty
seven years, in the face of great obstacles, she traveled extensively
and the congregation spread all over the United States, Italy,
South and Central America and England. In 1892 the community opened
its first hospital, Columbus, in New York. Its constitutions received
final approval from the Holy See in 1907. By the time of her death
in Chicago on December 22, 1917 there were more than fifty hospitals,
schools, orphanages, convents and other foundations in existence.
She became an American citizen in 1909. Pope Pius XII canonized her
in 1946; she was the first American citizen to be so honored.
Pius named her patroness of immigrants in 1950.
Paul Wagener - the artist
These icons have been lovingly painted and donated by Paul Wagener,
a member of Saint Vincent de Paul Church community.
Holy Family Candles and Altar