Each year on 9 September, the worldwide Vincentian family marks the Feast of Blessed Frédéric Ozanam, the day after the anniversary of his death in Marseille in 1853, aged just 40. It is a day for gratitude, for honouring youthful optimism, and for reflecting on just how young our founder was.

When Frédéric gathered a few friends in a Paris newspaper office on 23 April 1833, it was his twentieth birthday. He was a law student, rattled by a challenge thrown at him in a student debating society: “And you, who pride yourself on your Catholicity, what are you doing now for the poor? Show us your works”.

With him in the room were François Lallier, 19, Auguste Le Taillandier, Jules Devaux and Félix Clavé, aged 22, and Paul Lamache, eldest of the students, 23. Only Emmanuel Bailly, the newspaperman who lent them the room, was an older man, aged nearly 40.

Six students in their teens or early twenties. No funding, no premises, no strategy. What they had was a habit of turning up, and the sense to ask for help; Sister Rosalie Rendu, a Daughter of Charity, introduced them to the impoverished families they would visit. Their first act of charity was to carry what remained of their own winter firewood to a widow.

Someone asked them: “What can seven young men hope to achieve in alleviating the suffering of Paris?”

Within a year there were 100 Members. The Society reached Australia by March 1854, beginning with one Conference in Melbourne; today more than 40,000 Members and volunteers continue Ozanam’s good works around Australia.

There is a reason Pope John Paul II beatified Frédéric at Notre-Dame in August 1997, in the midst of World Youth Day. It was to highlight the dynamism and empowerment of young people.

So this September, as well as asking “what would Frédéric do?”, let’s ask: “who are the twenty-year-olds among us now, and are we making space for them?”

Blessed Frédéric Ozanam, pray for us. 

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