Saint of the Month: St. Vincent Ferrer

    St. Vincent Ferrer was a brilliant and influential Spanish Dominican priest, missionary, and wonder worker. Vincent was born in 1350 at Valencia in the Spanish Kingdom of Valencia. His parents, Guillem and Constança, were both of noble birth. Vincent was brilliant and unusually devout, even from childhood. He fasted two days each week and personally delivered alms to the needy. He was educated in classical studies and studied philosophy and theology, starting as a young teen. He entered the Dominican order at age seventeen. He taught philosophy at universities at Lérida and at Barcelona and was ordained a priest in 1379. Also, that year, he was elected prior at the Dominican house in Valencia, at age twenty-nine. By the time of his ordination, he had memorized the Bible. He went on to earn a master’s and then Doctorate degrees in theology and taught at the Valencia cathedral.
The Western Schism arose when Vincent was in his twenties, and for nearly forty years the Church endured a pope in Rome, an antipope in Avignon (France), followed by another antipope in Avignon. So distressed was Vincent by the ongoing strife, confusion, and disunity, he became physically ill and depressed. By 1398, he was gravely sick. During his illness, he experienced an apparition of Jesus, as well as Sts. Dominic and Francis of Assisi, in which Jesus told him that he was to “preach repentance throughout the world”. He was healed of his illness from that time.

POWERFUL PREACHER

Vincent was incredibly gifted, and he possessed the ability to deliver powerful sermons that moved people to reform themselves. Much like St. John the Baptist, he also attracted the curious in addition to the faithful. He was blessed with a powerful speaking voice and was not shy in preaching about sin, the need for repentance, the unpredictability of each individual’s death, as well as the Second Coming of Christ and the Last Judgment. He attracted large crowds wherever he went and spent the rest of his life in this preaching commission. His effect on his hearers was extraordinary, and he was responsible for tens of thousands of conversions. For nearly twenty-one years he walked all over western Europe, including the British Isles and the Alpine countries. In his native Spain, he was responsible for the conversions of thousands of (Muslim) Moors. He converted more than twenty thousand Jews during his travels. He is believed to have had the gift of tongues, because he only knew his native Valencian language, yet everyone could understand him. 

WORKER OF WONDERS

Vincent also was a miracle worker. Thousands of people were healed from illness, injury, or blindness at his command and more than twenty people were raised from the dead. Among his friends were [Sts.] Colette of Corbie and Bernadine of Siena, and [Bl.] Margaret of Savoy. Regarding the Schism, Vincent believed the Avignon popes to have been legitimately elected. The second antipope, Benedict XIII, had been Cardinal de Luna, whom he had worked with and befriended. The Church Council in 1414 asked all papal claimants to step down so that a new pope could be elected. Despite Vincent’s pleading, Benedict refused to resign, and Vincent retracted his support for him, and he was deposed. In addition to his great influence on the ending of the Western Schism, he also played a pivotal role in choosing the king of his homeland. When King Martin of Aragon died in 1410 without leaving an heir, a board was formed to choose among several qualified candidates. Representing Valencia on this board, Vincent endorsed Ferdinand, the Castilian prince, who did become the next King of Aragon. Informed by a prophecy of [St.] Colette that he would die in France, Vincent did, in fact, die at Vannes in the Brittany region of France, April 5, 1419. He was sixty-nine.

MAKING DISCIPLES

St. Vincent Ferrer combined his extraordinary giftedness with a very deep devotion to the commission of Christ to go forth and make disciples of all nations. He was able to reach people’s hearts, which resulted in sincere repentance and a desire for holiness. His powerful voice could also be very gentle, much like that of Our Lord. At his canonization proceedings, many hundreds of healings were authenticated. He was canonized in 1455 and his shrine and tomb are at St. Peter Cathedral at Vannes. His feast day is April 5. His patronages include the Archdiocese of Valencia, Breton fishermen, and several entities in the Philippines.