A member of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, he was martyred on 9 August 1936 in Spain. After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil in July 1936, Ceferino saw a priest being arrested and spoke up on the priest’s behalf. The soldiers turned on him and he was eventually executed.

Contardo Ferrini said “If on any particular day we do nothing more than give a little joy to a neighbor, that day will not be wasted. For we have succeeded in giving comfort to an immortal soul.”

“Jesus, empty me of myself, let me be clothed in you. Jesus, for you I live and for you I die…” was a prayer said by Némésia Valle throughout her life.

A Dominican priest, Father Marie-Jean Joseph Lataste is the founder of Congregation of the Dominican Sisters of Bethany. As a working layman, he was an active member of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and credited the Society with planting the seeds of his religious vocation. He entered the Dominican Novitiate at Flavigny in November 1857 and was ordained on February 8, 1863. He began his apostolate after giving a retreat to incarcerated women in Cadillac, France in the year 1864. He had a great devotion to Saint Joseph and wrote to Pope Pius IX, telling him that he would offer his life so that the name of St. Joseph be added to the Canon of the Mass.(1) He did not live to see his request granted but on November 13, 1962, Pope John XXIII, added St. Joseph’s name to the First Eucharistic Prayer. Father Lataste was declared blessed on June 3rd, 2012,(2) the forty-ninth anniversary of Saint John XXIII’s death. On the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, May 1st, 2013, Pope Francis decreed that the Saint’s name be added to Eucharistic Prayers II, III and IV. (3) 1. Clairval.com February 8 2012. 2. Ibid. 3. Vatican Roman Curia Congregations 130501 May 1, 2013.

Saint Louis Martin, the father of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face (Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower), canonized along with his wife Marie Azelie Guerin Martin (1831-1877) on October 18, 2015, was an active member of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. His brother-in-law, Isadore Guerin, took part in the foundation of the Conference in Lisieux in the year 1874.* *Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin “A Call to a Deeper Love the Family Correspondence of the Parents of St. Therese of the Child Jesus (1864-1885)” (Alba House, June 2011) p. 147.

This brilliant, sensitive young man of middle class background was confronted daily by the misery of the working poor of Paris, immortalized in Puccini’s La Boheme. He and a group of students founded the St. Vincent de Paul Society, which now has 700,000 members in 142 countries.

The Blessed Mother displayed herself to St. Catherine Labouré and described the images to be put on medallions that we know as the Miraculous Medal. She told her that “All who wear them will receive great graces.”

A missionary priest and martyr of the Congregation of the Mission, St. John Gabriel Perboyre was tortured by the Chinese. He declared “I would sooner die than deny my faith!”

One initiative of Marco Antonio Durando was the propagation of the Marian Association of the Miraculous Medal among young people. The Association became a fertile ground for vocations; in only ten years, 260 young women of the area joined the Daughters of Charity.

St. Justin de Jacobis was one of the first Italian missionary Vincentian Priests to go to Ethiopia, a Christian country that had slipped into schism and heresy. Under resentment from Paris because he was not French, he integrated into the Ethiopian culture and is considered an apostle to Africa.