REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE CELEBRATION OF 160 YEARS OF SERVICE BY THE SOCIETY OF SVP
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE CELEBRATION OF 160 YEARS OF SERVICE BY THE SOCIETY OF SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL IN IRELAND
Dia dhíbh a chairde go léir. Tá an-áthas orm bheith i bhur measc inniu ar an ócáid speisialta, ócáid stairiúil seo.
I am delighted and honoured to be part of this celebration of one hundred and sixty years of caring service by the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. I am very grateful to Brian O'Reilly for the kind invitation and to each of you for that lovely welcome.
We gather in pride and in gratitude for the long journey of the heart this society has traveled with Ireland’s poor, neglected, lonely and overlooked. Often you were their only friend, their only hope. You were the outward manifestation of that great commandment to love one another, making it a lived reality day by day and not just in lofty words but in the hard slog of putting food on tables, clothes on backs, furniture into impoverished homes, coal onto meagre fires. You helped children to go to school, you paid bills so that electricity could be restored, you buried the friendless dead, put a smile and a beautiful dress on many a First Communicant, brought Santa Claus into places his reindeer couldn’t get to, you were the handrail across bad patches in hundreds of thousands of lives. You saw their problems and you found solutions.
You fundraised relentlessly, you championed the marginalized, you told their story over and over to a world that you would not let grow cold-hearted or complacent.
You are a volunteer army. No law of state commands that you do what you do. For over a century and a half the members of this society have decided as individuals to commit to this work simply in order to do some good for others. It is not done for thanks, or recognition, or honours but for love. It shows us what true love involves, what it demands. Your pride in that work so evident today also shows us that St. Francis of Assisi’s prayer got it absolutely right when it asserted that “ it is in giving that we receive.” For each member of this society has experienced the joy, the fulfillment and the self-respect that comes from offering others a helping hand without any compulsion except the impulse of human decency, kindness and unselfishness. So, not only have you helped countless men women and children but you have been and continue to be hugely important voices of contradiction in a world so often accused of selfish individualism.
This organisation links Ireland of the Famine days to Ireland of the Celtic Tiger. Such different worlds and yet both have their poor, their tragically excluded and both have the Society of St.Vincent de Paul. That the work of the Vincent de Paul continues to be relevant and necessary in modern Ireland is not just a testament to the capability and dedication of its members, but a stern reminder that we are still on the way to fulfilling our ambition for a fully inclusive society where all share life’s banquet and none are mere spectators at the feast. We are entitled to be proud of modern Ireland. Its prosperity and success have delivered tangible and visible improvements in living standards and quality of life. The tide of emigration has been reversed, our young can make good lives at home.
It is important that we acknowledge these things with deep gratitude. It is also important that we remain conscious of what it is like to be outside the charmed circle of success no matter how widely that circle is drawn. To be poor in a wealthy economy is a particularly lonely place. When all the talk is of success and house prices, of two cars at the door and college education, of Atkin’s Diets and trips to the gym, to be homeless, or illiterate, to be chronically ill or disabled, to be mentally ill or unemployed, to be hungry, to be a carer with little respite, to be a drug or alcohol abuser, to be a traveller on the roadside, or a homesick immigrant, to be growing old and infirm, to have no money - is to feel very lost and insecure. Into that world where lives are at risk of being only half-lived comes the strong supportive help of the St. Vincent de Paul with a range of help and services that gets more sophisticated and expensive by the day.
The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is working to empower individuals, support families, to strengthen communities and to create an agenda of full social inclusion for us as a Nation. Your work is ensuring that each human being gets a fair chance honouring the challenging words of Frederic Ozanam, founder of the first Conference of the Society who said “ let us occupy ourselves with people who have too many needs and not enough rights… and who cry out against misery.”
He would be very proud of his Society’s legacy of care, of the formidable reputation it has crafted for itself over these 160 years and the huge respect in which it is held by the Irish public. I know I am very proud to have been a member and to have had the chance to see the transcendent power of human kindness and decency give real dignity to lives less fortunate. The preamble to our Constitution is both a rallying call to the present generation and a covenant with past and future generations - it asserts our desire to promote the dignity and freedom of the individual and the attainment of “true social order”. There were times these past one hundred and sixty years when we were far indeed from such a world but not today. Today, we are closer than ever before and we have the potential to deliver that noble vision. I know the members of this Society have the will for they have kept faith with that vision through the most appalling of times and circumstances, never ever losing faith in the power of love to create a better world.
Thank God for the Society, its members and its supporters. They have done Ireland proud and made Ireland a better place. Long may they continue to do so.
Comhghairdeachas libh arís inniu. Go maire sibh. Go raibh maith agaibh.