About the book: St Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419), during the last 20 years of his life, preached all over Southern Europe that the Last Judgment was imminent if people did not repent and change their lives. He even maintained that he was "The Angel of the Judgment" mentioned in the Apocalypse (Apoc 14:6-7), and he worked an extraordinary miracle to prove it, which the Church accepted as verification of the truth of his claim.
"And I saw another angel flying through the midst of heaven, having the eternal gospel, to preach unto them that sit upon the earth, and over every nation, and tribe, and tongue, and people: saying with a loud voice: Fear the Lord, and give him honour, because the hour of his judgment is come..." - (Apoc 14:6-7)
And like Nineve at the warning of the Prophet Jonas, the people did change, and the world was spared, and it has subsisted to the present hour - in large part because of this one man! Yet today hardly anyone has ever heard of St Vincent Ferrer!
Commissioned by Our Lord Himself to preach His Gospel, St Vincent began at age 50 an apostolate of preaching that would extend to France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Germany and a few other countries as well. Travelling with him were as many as 10,000 people, including at least 50 priests. The throngs that gathered to hear him came from many miles around, such that he was forced to preach in the open - no church being large enough to hold all the people. Miracles occurred at every step. The author says that if he had worked only 8 per day, they would have totalled over 58,000 - yet he worked far more than 8 miracles each day. At his canonization, the judges became weary and stopped the recitation of validated miracles after they had exceeded 800.
St Vincent was a Spanish Dominican from Valencia, whose very birth was heralded by prodigies, and he worked miracles even in his infancy and youth. Like St Thomas, he knew the Scriptures by heart, and he combined in himself all the charisms of an original Apostle, a Doctor of the Church, the greatest of wonder-workers, and a missionary extraordinaire. Wherever he preached, the Protestant Reformation did not take root. A master of languages, still he preached only in his native Castilian, yet everyone understood him in his own mother tongue. During his 20-year apostolate, he ever maintained his holy religious practices - he wore a hair shirt, slept only 5 hours a night, took the discipline daily, went to Confession every day and ate only once a day.
St Vincent walked everywhere he went, and often he had to enter a town walking in a wooden cage to avoid being crushed by the crowd. Perfect order reigned among the vast concourse that followed him everywhere, and they always had enough money for their needs. Virtually no one could resist the Saint's preaching, and whole cities would be converted in a matter of days from the depths of worldliness and mortal sin to strict Catholicism. He never left a town until all feuds and enmities had been resolved.
And it was largely due to him that the "Great Western Schism" (1378-1417) - where they were 2 and sometimes 3 claimants to the Papal throne - was finally ended. In short, it is hard to imagine that there ever existed a more effective apostolate for Christ than St Vincent Ferrer, so much so that, even in our neo-pagan world, steeped in unbelief and gone nearly mad with self-indulgence, those who read this life will be forced to admit the truth of the Catholic Faith - because the hand of God was obviously on this man!
St Vincent Ferrer: The Angel of the Judgment (1875) is translated from the French by Father T A Dixon, OP.
