Muslim Wife Speaks the Truth

[JohnR77]

On September 27 we celebrated the Feast of St. Vincent de Paul. In 1605, Vincent sailed from Marseilles and was taken captive by Muslim Barbary pirates, who brought him to Tunis. De Paul was auctioned off as a slave to the highest bidder, and spent two years in bondage.

He was bought and sold several times to different Muslim Masters. His last master was a former priest and Franciscan from Nice, named Guillaume Gautier. He had converted to Islam in order to gain his freedom from slavery and was living in the mountains with three wives. The second wife, a Muslim by birth, was drawn to and visited Vincent in the fields to question him about his faith. She became convinced that his faith was true and admonished her husband for renouncing his Christianity. He became remorseful and decided to escape back to France with his slave, Vincent, in a small boat.

 

[ChurchSoldier]

Thanks for posting.

 

[JohnR77]

Normally, I desire to only share what I consider to be certain, i.e. Catholic doctrine or ways to promote it, or sure interpretations of Sacred Scripture.
Today, I wish to depart from that norm and share my own private opinion for whatever it may or may not be worth.

How did St. Vincent convince the second wife that Catholic Christianity is better than Islam ? To help myself better understand the answer to this question I place myself into his shoes.

If it was me, I would have complained horribly. I even complain about the people in front of me if they do not drive how I think they should. I would have probably said something like, “Woman, don’t you feel sorry for me? I gave my life to God and look what has happened. He has allowed be to be captured and made a slave. Pity poor me. And to make it worse, it is someone who was ordained as a Catholic priest, and who now is a Muslim heretic who enslaves me”

Very few countries have overthrown the yoke of Islam. Statistically, the chances were almost certain that St. Vincent would spend the rest of his life a Muslim slave, and would later die in a Muslim country. He would have, most likely never see the light of day as a free man again. He would have most likely never to have been able to live his life helping the poor and we would have never heard about him. So, assuming a person would rule out converting to Islam in order to be a free man again as his master had done, we can be almost certain that such a person would be a slave for the rest of his life.

This could not have been St. Vincent’s response to the woman. Or the woman would have never been converted. My example would have been a good, a bad, reason not to convert. Even though a life of slavery was almost certain he still had true faith, and a Joy of being Christian in spite of all that he suffered and the almost certainty that he would be a slave for the rest of his life, and all that slavery meant.

What is true faith ?

God have mercy on me. Help me to have true faith.
St. Vincent, please pray for me.

 

[JohnR77]

As best as I see it, the only way St. Vincent could have made a convincing case for the validity of Christianity to the Muslim wife was that he must have had a sincere spirit of gratitude toward Jesus, True God True Man. Even though the most likely prospect for Vincent was to spend the rest of his life as a slave, he was still thankful to God for all that Christianity offered. While even the Muslim would have expected to go to heaven, Christianity offered so much more than Islam, and Vincent in faith and in hope knew that, and trusted in that. How else could have Christianity been attractive to the Muslim wife.

Having the spirit of gratitude is so important even while suffering, and maybe especially then. Scott Hahn said that the one sacrifice from the Old Covenant that carries over to the New Covenant is the sacrifice of Thanksgiving.

If we fail to go to Mass, to our Eucharistic – meaning Thanksgiving- celebration we endanger ourselves to the punishment of losing our faith.

I believe this passage is also relevant.

Luke 17: 5-10
“The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” And the Lord said, “If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this sycamine tree, ‘Be rooted up, and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
“Will any one of you, who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep, say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and sit down at table’?
Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and gird yourself and serve me, till I eat and drink; and afterward you shall eat and drink’? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that is commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’””

So, we must avoid the approach,
“Well God, I went to Mass three times last month. And I obeyed 9 of the 10 commandants today. So, now I expect only good things from you.”

Of course, I am exaggerating. Even when we obey all the commandments we must not think too highly of ourselves that we deserve only the royal treatment and never to be chastised or to have to suffer the trials of life. So, even if we suffer, we are still to be grateful to God.
.

 

[JohnR77]

Hi,

I believe that the passage above in Luke 17 shows a relationship between having and maintaining ones faith with obeying God’s commandments including those expressed by His Catholic Church.

John 15:10
“If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.”

John 8:28-29
“So Jesus said … ‘He has not left me alone, because I always do what is pleasing to him.’”

Our Faith in Jesus, our relationship with Him, and our Love for Him are all tied to keeping His commandments. This is why Faith Alone is such a disaster. When we choose to sin we are denying Faith in Him because we are saying to ourselves by our actions that we trust more in our own way of thinking to lead us to happiness than in trusting what He has revealed.

When we sin we damage our relationship with God and even endanger it to a further degree. As we sin the effects of original sin, the weakened will and the darkness of our intellect and concupiscence become more pronounced.

We become predisposed to wanting to justify our sins. Admitting that our sins are indeed sins becomes even more painful. The temptation to call good evil and evil good grows. As we become more wicked our intellect becomes even more darkened. And our concupiscence grow. Sins of pornography have been scientifically shown to be like an addicting drug. Perverse desires become even more perverse, and even harder to stop.

When people choose to live a life of sin they do not just want to be allowed to sin, they want to force the world to approve of their sin. Their slightly alerted conscience becomes to painful for them to deal with. For example, consider Obama’s mandates. The fines for noncompliance are not just $10 or $20 thousands of dollars. They are enormous and are intended to force either compliance or for the affected companies to be put out of business.

In order to convince the world of the attractiveness of a holy life, as St. Vincent did above, we need show that suffering is not the worst thing. Becoming depraved and separated from God is the worst thing.

Jesus shows us the way. He accepted suffering and conformed his human will with that of the Father’s Divine revealed will in the Garden of Gethsemane.

It is a blessing to have the Church define for us true moral ways of living.
When artificial contraception was confirmed as always intrinsically evil, just as the Church had always taught, it was a time that should have been responded to with rejoicing, not responded to with rebellion and dissent. The Bible, Acts 15, shows us that the proper response to the Church’s proclamation is one of rejoicing.

Acts 15:31
“And when they read it [the decision of the Church on how to live], they rejoiced at the exhortation.”

The highest calling is to live a life of virtue and holiness. And so, God the Father is inviting the Son to choose a life of greatest possible virtue and holiness, a life of perfect love.
Hebrews 2: 7-10“ … you crowned him with glory and honor, subjecting all things under his feet. … we do see Jesus ‘crowned with glory and honor’ because he suffered death …
For it was fitting that he, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the leader to their salvation perfect through suffering.”

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