Vincent
Ferrer, although born in Valencia in Spain, was from Scotch-English
descent on his father’s side. His parents instilled in him a deep
devotion to Our Lord and Our Lady and a tremendous love for the poor.
In
1367 he entered the Dominican Order, and before he reached the age of
twenty-one was already teaching philosophy at Lérida, the most famous
university in Catalonia.
Transferred to Barcelona to preach to
the public, he arrived in the coastal city to find the citizens ravaged
by hunger. A famine was raging through that region and the people were
desperate for the arrival of a ship of corn. Vincent foretold that the
ship would be in harbor before nightfall, and so it happened, at which
the people acclaimed the young Dominican preacher a prophet and his
superiors cautiously moved him to Toulouse.
Vincent inflamed
souls with the ardor of his preaching, rousing sinners to penance, lax
Catholics to fervor, and converting a number of Jews to the Faith, one
of them the Rabbi of Burgos who went on to become a bishop.
It
was the time of the great schism with a pope in Rome and another in
Avignon, a time when even saints were confused. For a time Vincent
favored Benedict XIII, or Peter de Luna, as he was popularly known, who
ruled from the French city of Avignon. Vincent was also de Luna's
confessor. But as the Church began moving to rule against the claim of
Peter de Luna, and the latter remained obstinate, Vincent distanced
himself from the claimant, and, eventually, played a major role in
Benedict XIII’s abdication in favor of Church unity.
Vincent
Ferrer preached throughout Europe as far north as the Netherlands, and
his learning, ardent preaching and miracles worked numerous
conversions. In one location Vincent worked so many miracles that an
hour was reserved every day for healing the sick. At Liguria in Italy he
convinced the ladies to modify their fantastic headdress, which one of
his biographers calls “the greatest of all his marvelous deeds”.
In Granada in Spain, then under Moorish rule, 8000 Muslims asked for Baptism after hearing him preach.
Vincent
spent the last three years of his life in France, where he became ill
after preaching a sermon in 1419, and died on Wednesday of Passion Week.
He was canonized in 1455 by Pope Calixtus III.
Monday, April 5, 2021
St. Vincent Ferrer
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