Our 2015 Annual General Assembly is over. Hamilton Particular Council was a most gracious host. I think that, once we all got past the maze that is the campus, those who attended were very comfortable at McMaster University. A good time was had by all.

SSVP VALUES:
The mission of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul implies that as Vincentians we: see Christ in anyone who suffers, come together as family, have personal contact with the poor, help in all possible ways.

I wonder if sometimes we get so busy that we forget the 'come together as family' part of our values?

Blessed Frederic's vision was for a network of charity encircling the world. The means to accomplish that is the growth of our Society, person-to-person, coming together as a family.

How does a family come together? Ideally a family comes together frequently, in good times and in bad, for formal occasions and for no occasion, but always with love and support for each other and for the family as a unit. So it must be with us. The conference is the foundation of our Society. Every Vincentian belongs to a conference. From the beginning each conference comes together regularly to share and support its members and those we serve. My conference is my Vincentian nuclear family. These are the people I know best, the ones I can lean on and who I support in their daily lives, the people I pray with and play with. When my husband and I celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary this summer, our Vincentian family will celebrate with us, right beside our biological family.

Just as we have an extended personal family, we have an extended Vincentian one. I now enjoy the visits with my extended Vincentian family the way I enjoyed the summer vacations of my childhood shared with cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. I learn from my extended Vincentian family just as I learned from my extended paternal and maternal family. I learn now, as I learned then, about my history. Who I am now is due in large part to those family members who came before me. They inspire me to go on, to learn more and to do my best in the name of my family.

My prayer is that every Vincentian in Canada will, at some time, experience the Vincentian family beyond his/her own conference. To know only my own conference is to miss out on who we are and where we come from. I think it is comparable to never knowing anything about your own extended family: who your grandparents were and where they came from, who your cousins and their families are and what they are doing with their lives.

The next opportunity for coming together with our Ontario family will be in Guelph on September 18 and 19 for the fall AGA. If you are able to be there, please come. I would love to meet more of my extended family, to pray with you, to share successes and trials, to support each other in Christ's love. If you can't make it, please pray for our Society and all those we serve.

Denise Bondy - Chair, ONRC Spirituality Committee