St. Vincent Ferrer, Priest
Obligatory Memorial
He was born at Valencia in Spain in 1350. At the age of 17, he entered the Order and embraced an austere discipline of spiritual life, of which he left a beautiful witness in his treatise On the Spiritual Life.
At first he devoted himself to teaching philosophy and theology, while also carrying out various duties between 1380 and 1390 at the request of Cardinal Legate Pedro de Luna and King John I of Aragon, in order to help resolve civil and ecclesiastical affairs.
Meanwhile, he also devoted himself to preaching: first at the court of the Avignon pope, then in southern France and in Italy, until 1399, when he gave himself entirely to the ministry of itinerant preaching. He did so as a “legate from the side of Christ,” according to a special mission he had received from him, as he himself testifies in a letter to the antipope Benedict XIII.
Deeply concerned for the peace and unity of the Church, which was then torn apart by schism, he abandoned the antipope, whom he had previously followed in good faith, and worked zealously for unity.
Filled with the gifts of the Holy Spirit and strengthened by apostolic faculties, he traveled through almost all the regions of Western Europe, becoming a great charismatic preacher, with immense fruit for souls.
He died in Vannes, France, on April 5, 1419. He was numbered among the saints by Callistus III on June 29, 1455.
Proprium Officiorum Ordinis Praedicatorum ad Normam Decretorum Sacrosancti Oecumenici Concilii Vaticani II Instauratum Vincentii Couesnongle iussu editum, Editio typica, Sanctae Sabinae, Romae 1982.
