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We went there because St. Vincent was pastor of a Gothic church in the town in 1617.
You may recall from the blog entry about our visit to Folleville, the Gondi family had hired him to tutor the Gondi children there. At this point, St. Vincent was 36 years old. He heard about a church in Chatillon that was seeking a pastor. He accepted the post but didn’t tell the Gondi family anything. “He just left,” said the Rev. John Rybolt, C.M. The reason for the silent and abrupt departure is unclear. Maybe it was because he was extremely close to the Gondis, and it would have been too difficult to actually tell them he was leaving.
Once in Chatillon, he served as pastor at the church for five months—which is not a long time, but it’s huge in terms of the impact his work had on the mission. There, he made some significant decisions that formed him: he decided that charity work is fine, but it was not well organized. As a result, he established explicit directions relating to the care of poor, sick people in their homes. One of the rules, for example, was that when the sisters went to the home of a sick person to prepare a meal for them, they were to first meticulously spread out a white tablecloth on to the table in order to present the meal in an appetizing and dignified way to make the meal more enjoyable for the individual. St. Vincent must have felt that would help feed the spirit of the sick person as well.
Watch the video to take a tour of the church.
Hearing the white tablecloth story really had a profound impact on many of us in the group. So much so that later in the week when Father Rybolt asked each of us to share our thoughts on the trip with the whole group, DePaul University colleague Martin Williams said that we should all spread out the white tablecloth in every aspect of the work we do at DePaul. That’s really a great way of looking at it.
Because Chatillon-sur-Chalaronne is where St. Vincent developed his idea of organizing charity, the town “is really, really important” in the history of St. Vincent, said Father Rybolt. The other two most important places in terms of his development were the church in Folleville (the town we visited on Aug. 8) and his birthplace (which we visited on Aug. 11).
In addition to the church, we went to a place nearby where St. Vincent lived. Nuns live there now. There, we toured the building and visited a chapel that contained a copy of the rules he established for the mission and a painting of him with babies. The painting, even more so than the statue of St. Vincent with babies that I mentioned in a previous blog entry, begat all the other depictions of him with babies and children, according to Father Rybolt. Here’s a picture of the painting.
You may recall from the blog entry about our visit to Folleville, the Gondi family had hired him to tutor the Gondi children there. At this point, St. Vincent was 36 years old. He heard about a church in Chatillon that was seeking a pastor. He accepted the post but didn’t tell the Gondi family anything. “He just left,” said the Rev. John Rybolt, C.M. The reason for the silent and abrupt departure is unclear. Maybe it was because he was extremely close to the Gondis, and it would have been too difficult to actually tell them he was leaving.
Once in Chatillon, he served as pastor at the church for five months—which is not a long time, but it’s huge in terms of the impact his work had on the mission. There, he made some significant decisions that formed him: he decided that charity work is fine, but it was not well organized. As a result, he established explicit directions relating to the care of poor, sick people in their homes. One of the rules, for example, was that when the sisters went to the home of a sick person to prepare a meal for them, they were to first meticulously spread out a white tablecloth on to the table in order to present the meal in an appetizing and dignified way to make the meal more enjoyable for the individual. St. Vincent must have felt that would help feed the spirit of the sick person as well.
Watch the video to take a tour of the church.
Hearing the white tablecloth story really had a profound impact on many of us in the group. So much so that later in the week when Father Rybolt asked each of us to share our thoughts on the trip with the whole group, DePaul University colleague Martin Williams said that we should all spread out the white tablecloth in every aspect of the work we do at DePaul. That’s really a great way of looking at it.
Because Chatillon-sur-Chalaronne is where St. Vincent developed his idea of organizing charity, the town “is really, really important” in the history of St. Vincent, said Father Rybolt. The other two most important places in terms of his development were the church in Folleville (the town we visited on Aug. 8) and his birthplace (which we visited on Aug. 11).
In addition to the church, we went to a place nearby where St. Vincent lived. Nuns live there now. There, we toured the building and visited a chapel that contained a copy of the rules he established for the mission and a painting of him with babies. The painting, even more so than the statue of St. Vincent with babies that I mentioned in a previous blog entry, begat all the other depictions of him with babies and children, according to Father Rybolt. Here’s a picture of the painting.
After a long walk around the scenic town, we had a leisurely lunch at Hotel du Commerce. It was a long lunch because service here is much slower than back home in the states. Still, it was nice to relax for a few hours. The main course was chicken covered in a white sauce and potatoes, and the food was delicious, except for a cold jellied-ham thing they served as an appetizer (see picture)—yet, it did not look appetizing to most of us.
LYON, FRANCE (Aug. 14)—After lunch, we returned to Lyon for a tour of the old city and La Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourviere. Father Rybolt said the church looked like an elephant on its back with all four legs up in the air. It was a pretty extravagant-looking church. The church had no connection to St. Vincent, so I snapped a few pictures and started to daydream about what kind of shopping I would do in Lyon because we had the rest of the day to do with as we pleased. I did only a little shopping, because the stores closed at 7 p.m., which only gave us about an hour and a half. We were all feeling pretty fatigued at that point. The rain that began at around closing time made us feel even more tired. I had a light dinner and made it an early night.
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