SVP Awareness month 2017 – Theme: Welcoming the Stranger

Suggestions for newsletter inserts

This month is SVP Awareness Month. To raise our profile during this time and to supplement the posters and lectern addresses provided to your Conference, you may wish to draw on the following quotes to prepare a notice, or series of notices, for your parish newsletter.

Your aim might be just to raise awareness of the SVP, to encourage people to consider becoming members or to support a second collection. Whatever focus you choose, be sure to make it easy for people to respond and get in touch by including:

  • Contact details for your Conference, such as:“Please contact John Smith

(07501010111) for more information about the SVP in this parish.”

  • The Society’s website address: svp.org.uk

“Our members are not just followers, not just disciples, not just apostles, they are ambassadors for Christ. An ambassador is sent out by the leader, and puts their own thoughts and point of view into their work. Our members are called to go out and seek those in need and put their own personalities and life experience into the friendships they develop.”
SVP National President Adrian Abel, on how SVP members share the love and care of Christ. /
Welcoming the Stranger on the Street with the SVP
“Social isolation is the main poverty of our time. When combined with any other kind of poverty, social isolation makes any kind of difficulty much bigger.”
“Let us allow ourselves to be evangelised by the poor.” This is the very strong message of the Pope, which we consider is the core of our Vincentian commitment.
Bertrand Ousset , Former National President of SVP France /
Welcoming the Stranger in Prison with the SVP
Saint Vincent de Paul said ‘We should strive to keep our hearts open to the sufferings and wretchedness of other people and pray continually that God may grant us that spirit of compassion, which is truly the spirit of God’. That is the Vincentian spirit, to be alongside those who are struggling and in difficulty, and neglected.
Monsignor Malachy Keegan, Prisons Chaplain /
The SVP: Welcoming the Stranger seeking Sanctuary
“The stranger is often the hand of God. Not the drainer of resources, but the donator of gifts.”
“What you often find is that people find it hard to make a life in the country they move to. That comes from the collapse in hope in making a new life – to get work, to begin again, to get a normal family life.”
Sarah Teather, Director of the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) /
The SVP: Welcoming the Stranger, general spiritual wisdom
“To befriend people is vital. We can’t solve everyone’s problems, but we can befriend them.”
Fr Paul Roche, SVP National Spiritual Adviser /
Are you interested in joining the SVP?
“Just do it. Make time for it. We can all make a bit of time.
It might mean less telly watching. But we will meet people who will pull us through”.
SVP Patron John Battle’s advice to anyone who is considering becoming an SVP volunteer. /