In the small church of Clichy, a suburb of Paris, an old parochial church constructed by Saint Vincent de Paul, Ozanam gathered his "group", under the auspices and the sponsorship of the Father of the Poor, to help with the transformation of the big city, Paris. Thus the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul was founded in 1833.
Ozanam, a shining university student, was far from being intimidated or from leaving as a result of anticlerical attacks of professors to the religion and his Church. When he finished the course, he was made professor of the university.
Although Ozanam had a brother who was a priest, and a friend, Father Lacordaire, who invited him to enter the Domincan Order, he preferred the layman-state, because he understood that the hour of the layman had come.
Frederic Ozanam dedicated his life to defend and propagate the faith. He tried daily, if possible, to attend Holy Mass. He frequently visited the Holy Sacrament, meditated on the sacred texts and accepted the illness which came upon him. His premature death, at 40 brought to heaven a good Christian and a true saint.
He wrote the following intuition and profecy November 13,1833:
"what divides the men of our day is not a question of political forms but a social question. What will be successful: the spirit of egoism or the spirit of sacrifice. There are men who have too much and they still want to have more and there is a much bigger number that have anything and want to take it if it is not given to them."
Also he said: "the question is to know if our society will be not more than a great exploration in benefit of the strongest or dedication of everybody for the good of all and especially to protect the weakest. "
It looks like Ozanam wrote this letter today.
Biographical data:
The Vincentians in the world and in Brazil.
Already during the life of Ozanam, the Vincentian Conferences
have been spread through countries. Actually exist in 131 different
countries, distributed in five continents, with more or less than
900.000 members. In Brazil it started in 1849, in Bahia, thanks to the
bishop of Cametá-Pará, Dom Romualdo de Seixas, then Archbishop of
Salvador-Bahia, who enlisted according to his own words "conspicuous
men animated with holy enthusiasm". The date of the foundation
of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul in Brazil is August 4,
1870, when in Rio de Janeiro the first Vincentian Conference was
inaugurated. Soon it spread over all the cities of the State of
Rio de Janeiro and passed the frontiers of Brazil, making Brazil
the biggest center of the ideals of Ozanam in the
whole the world.
