Ways of Knowing: Laywomen in Early Vincentian Practices of Reform

Alison Forrestal examines the role of laywomen of various social classes in early Vincentian service. Although the concept of a lay vocation had not been formulated in the seventeenth century, the service that laywomen, whether married or single, provided to society rendered their state valuable and holy in its own right. This was an important facet of the Catholic Reformation. Early Vincentian efforts were innovative for the time, allowing women to organize and perform the administrative work for their own service. Women also gave religious instruction to the poor, which was unusual, and their own spirituality and devotional activities were encouraged as a means of sustaining their endeavors. Forrestal offers the female members of the Lamoignon family as a case study in how laywomen saw themselves as called by God to participate in various forms of charity. Although much of the development of the lay vocation came after their time, Forrestal explains that these women “absorbed and applied newly emerged spiritual and pastoral emphases on discernment, choice, and inclusivity. In doing so, they were drawing the Catholic church a step closer to accepting what they were first imagining and then bringing into being.”