Vincent conquers in him who conquered the world

Treasures of Our Faith with Deacon Richard Vehige

Today, January 22, as our church celebrates the optional Memorial of Vincent, Deacon and Martyr we are invited to read reflect on a scripture passage from the second letter of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians (4:7---5:8) entitled “The power of Christ is made manifest in suffering”. Our treasure, which follows, is from a sermon by Saint Augustine, bishop.

Saint Vincent was born in today’s Spain in the late third century and carries the title of “protomartyr,” indicating he was the first, or “proto,” man to die for Christ on the Iberian Peninsula. Little is known of his life, but the testimony of Saint Augustine sheds light on his character. As with many early saints, many legends are attributed to him.

According to these legends, the Bishop Valerius of Saragossa, Spain, had a speech impediment, which led him to first ordain and then appoint Deacon Vincent, who was well spoken, as his personal preacher. The local Roman governor at the time, Dacian, ruthlessly carried out the edict of the Emperor Diocletian to force Christians to renounce their faith by burning incense to Roman gods. Both the elderly bishop and his deacon were arrested by Dacian and imprisoned. Both were dragged in chains to Valencia and kept in prison there for a long time.

Vincent endured the rack, where a person’s limbs were stretched until their joints broke; he endured the grill, where he was beaten while one side, his face or his back, was cooked by the flames. The chronicle tells that the torturers would go to rest and divide their beatings into shifts because they were too tired from the long hours of punishment and flogging. Vincent Deacon was not discouraged, he always remembered how much Christ had suffered for him, and that it was a duty of gratitude, a grace, this chance to also carry his cross and be worthy of his beloved Messiah. He died around the year 304.

Saint Augustine was a late fourth century, theologian and philosopher, and Bishop of Hippo, Roman North Africa. He is also a preeminent Catholic Doctor of the Church. His writings influenced the development of western philosophy and western Christianity, and he is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers of the Latin Church in the Patristic Period.