Saint Vincent Ferrer, Confessor
S. Vincentii Ferrerii Confessoris
Saint Vincent Ferrer (c. 1350–1419) was a Dominican friar and one of the greatest preachers in the history of the Church, who travelled through many lands calling vast crowds to repentance. His feast is kept on 5 April.
Saint Vincent Ferrer was born around the year 1350 at Valencia, in Spain. While still young he entered the Order of Preachers (the Dominicans), where he gave himself to study and prayer and became a distinguished teacher of philosophy and theology. From the beginning he united deep learning with a fervent interior life, and he was ordained priest and trusted with important responsibilities in the Church of his day.
Apostle of Penance
Saint Vincent is above all remembered as a preacher. For some twenty years he travelled tirelessly through Spain, France, Italy, and other lands, preaching penance and the coming judgment of God. Immense crowds gathered to hear him, and his sermons, joined to his evident holiness, moved countless sinners to conversion, reconciled enemies, and brought many back to the practice of the faith. He preached often on the “judgment to come,” calling all to turn to God while there was yet time. So widespread was the fruit of his labours that he came to be known as the “Angel of the Judgment.”
His lifetime fell during the long and grievous division of the Western Schism, when rival claimants disputed the papacy and the unity of the Church was deeply wounded. Saint Vincent laboured and prayed for the healing of this division, and his efforts contributed to the restoration of unity to the Church. Through it all he remained a humble friar, devoted to prayer, penance, and the salvation of souls.
His Death and Canonization
Worn out by his long apostolic journeys, Saint Vincent Ferrer died at Vannes, in Brittany, on 5 April 1419. He was canonized in 1455. He has been venerated ever since as a model of zealous preaching and as a powerful intercessor.
The Collect
O God, who didst vouchsafe to glorify Thy Church by the merits and preaching of blessed Vincent, Thy Confessor: grant unto us Thy servants, that we may be instructed by his example, and delivered from all dangers by his intercession. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
Deus, qui Ecclesiam tuam beati Vincentii Confessoris tui meritis et praedicatione illustrare dignatus es: concede nobis famulis tuis; ut et ipsius instruamur exemplis, et ab omnibus eius patrociniis liberemur adversis. Per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum Filium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.
Patronage
Saint Vincent Ferrer is venerated as the patron of builders and of various trades, and is invoked by preachers and by the faithful who seek the grace of conversion.
In the Modern Calendar
In the modern calendar, this feast is observed as an optional memorial on the same date, 5 April.
Common Questions
When is the feast of Saint Vincent Ferrer?
His feast is kept on 5 April, the day of his death, in both the traditional and the modern calendars. In the modern calendar it is an optional memorial.
Who was Saint Vincent Ferrer?
He was a Dominican friar of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, one of the most renowned preachers the Church has known. He travelled through many lands calling great crowds to repentance, and is sometimes called the “Angel of the Judgment.”
Why is he called the “Angel of the Judgment”?
The title comes from the central theme of his preaching, the coming judgment of God, and from a passage of the Book of the Apocalypse that the Church applies to him. He urged all who heard him to turn to God in penance while there was still time.
See where this feast falls in the Church’s year on the liturgical calendar, or find a Traditional Latin Mass near you.
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