Would you say that the beginnings of our missions were human? God blessed it so greatly that all the inhabitants of the place made their general confession, and in such crowds, that I had to get two Jesuit fathers to come and help me hear confessions, preach and instruct. (…) All three of us went about preaching and giving missions from village to village … That was what we were doing, we three, and yet God was doing what he had foreseen from all eternity. [p. 19]

(St Vincent de Paul. From Jacques Delarue, The Holiness of Vincent de Paul, Geoffrey Chapman Ltd, London 1960, 132 pp)

5 Haec dicit Dominus:
“ Maledictus homo, qui confidit in homine
et ponit carnem brachium suum,
et a Domino recedit cor eius;
6 erit enim quasi myricae in deserto
et non videbit, cum venerit bonum,
sed habitabit in siccitate in deserto,
in terra salsuginis et inhabitabili.

7 Benedictus vir, qui confidit in Domino,
et erit Dominus fiducia eius;
8 et erit quasi lignum,
quod transplantatur super aquas,
quod ad humorem mittit radices suas
et non timebit, cum venerit aestus;
et erit folium eius viride,
et in anno siccitatis non erit sollicitum
nec aliquando desinet facere fructum

5 Thus says the LORD:
"Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his arm,
whose heart turns away from the LORD.
6 He is like a shrub in the desert,
and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,
in an uninhabited salt land.

7* "Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose trust is the LORD.
8 He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit."

(Jeremiah 17:5-8)