Vincent

was a young priest, still continuing his studies and traveling, when he was kidnapped by violent men from the Middle East and forced into slave labor. Within two years, however, he converted one of his captors to Christianity and together they made their escape.

Back home, Vincent soon found himself ministering to the rich and powerful, but his heart went out to the poor and the rejected. He established groups to care for the poor and for prisoners. He also wanted to establish an order of priests to serve the rural poor, but he soon realized that there was a desperate need for more and better seminaries. Vincent’s priests would eventually run a third of the seminaries in the country, in addition to their missionary work to the rural poor in many places.

St. Vincent de Paul, founder of the Congregation of the Mission and of the Daughters of Charity, died on this very day in 1660. He was canonized in 1737. A hundred years after that, a group of laymen drew upon St. Vincent as the inspiration for the service of the poor and founded the St. Vincent de Paul Society.