The Vincentian Family is preparing for its 400th anniversary in April 2025 with various initiatives. Among them, is the restoration of the Maison Mère (mother-house) in Paris, which will accommodate people and groups who want to go on a pilgrimage to pray before the relics of its founder, Saint Vincent de Paul, and two martyrs of the 19th century in China, which are found there.
Without forgetting that a few steps from there is the Rue du Bac, where the apparitions of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal to Saint Catherine Labouré, Vincentian, novice, of the Daughters of Charity, were recorded, in addition to so many monuments and sanctuaries.
A structure available to a congregation that has some 4 million people involved in works of charity towards the poorest, carrying forward the spiritual impulse raised by Saint Vincent de Paul in 1625.
In addition, work is being done so that “la Maison Mère”, which, legally, belongs to the Province of France, receives a new status: that of the Mother House of the entire congregation.
The superior of the Congregation of the Mission, Father Tomaž Mavrič, indicated in recent statements that the idea is to convert “the Maison Mère” into a center of evangelization to which pilgrims can go. After the restoration, about 80 rooms will be available to accommodate a hundred people.
They range from single rooms to quadruple rooms, also for people with mobility difficulties.
The Superior General of the Congregation of the Mission commented on this historic event:
We want the Mother House to be a special place where people meet Saint Vincent and learn about his path of holiness. As we celebrate the 400 years of the Mother House, we invite everyone to come to pray, rest, study and serve, meet and reflect so that we, and the entire Vincentian Family, live more fully the mission that Saint Vincent began. A place to celebrate our 400 years. I hope that our Mother House becomes a home for all who visit it.
This without forgetting that the Congregation of the Mission sends about thirty missionaries to remote places every year, fulfilling a promise made to Pope Francis, who told them in a meeting “my heart is Vincentian.”
And not only in distant places, given that today Europe is a land of re-evangelization, a place of migration where it is necessary to help new arrivals from different countries to integrate.
Expansion that also suffers setbacks, as in Russia, where Vincentian missionaries were expelled by Putin’s government (except for the nuns of the Daughters of Charity).
Today, Vincentians are in many parishes in the cities, with consolidated structures, although the most distant places are targeted to be “Church on the move.”
