St Vincent Ferrer: Angel of the Judgment, Prayer, Feast

St Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419) was the Spanish Dominican who spent the last twenty years of his life walking the roads of Europe to preach penance and the nearness of the Last Judgment, followed by crowds of penitents, and who is painted with wings as the "Angel of the Judgment". The Church keeps his feast on 5 April, a feast of the third class in white vestments in the calendar of 1962, though in most years it falls in Lent, Holy Week or Easter week, which changes how it is kept. Here is his life, his part in the Great Western Schism, the miracles the Church records of him, what he is patron of, and the full prayers of his Mass in Latin and English.

Who was St Vincent Ferrer?

Vincent was born at Valencia, in Spain, on 23 January 1350, the fourth child of William Ferrer and Constantia Miguel. The lessons of his feast in the Roman Breviary, in the full form read before the reform of 1960, say that "from his earliest years he had the heart of an old man" (ab ineunte ætate cor gessit senile): grave, recollected and set on the things of God. One of his brothers, Boniface Ferrer, became Prior General of the Carthusians.

In his eighteenth year, in 1367, he took the habit of the Order of Preachers, the Dominicans. After his profession, the Breviary says, he "applied himself diligently to the sacred letters" and took the degree of master in theology with the highest praise. He then taught philosophy in the schools of his Order.

St Vincent Ferrer and the Great Western Schism

Vincent's life cannot be understood without the great wound of his century. From 1378 the Church was torn by the Western Schism: two, and later three, men claimed to be Pope, one at Rome and one at Avignon, and holy and learned men were found in both obediences. Vincent, in good faith, was persuaded that the Avignon claimant was the true Pope, and became one of his strongest champions. He entered the service of the Aragonese cardinal Pedro de Luna, and when de Luna was elected at Avignon under the name of Benedict XIII, he made Vincent his confessor and Apostolic Penitentiary.

Vincent laboured to bring Benedict to end the Schism, and urged him again and again to have pity on the afflicted Church. The Breviary sums up these years in one sentence: "when the seamless garment of the Church was being rent by a terrible schism, he laboured exceedingly that it might be united, and once united, kept so". In the end, since Benedict would not resign to give peace to the Church, Vincent abandoned him in 1416, at the pressing request of King Ferdinand of Aragon, and the Schism was brought to an end at the Council of Constance in 1417.

The vision of Avignon and the Angel of the Judgment

In 1398 France withdrew from the obedience of Avignon and the city was besieged. Vincent fell gravely ill of a fever. In the illness, as the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1912 relates from the old lives, Our Lord appeared to him accompanied by St Dominic and St Francis of Assisi, cured him, and sent him to preach penance and to prepare men for the coming judgment.

From then on, for twenty years, Vincent preached across western Europe: France, Switzerland and Italy, then for years in the kingdoms of Spain, and finally Brittany. The Breviary describes him as "chosen by God to spread the warnings of salvation among all nations, tribes and tongues, and to show that the day of the last and dreadful judgment was drawing near", so that his hearers, "struck with terror and torn from earthly affections", were stirred to the love of God.

He preached in squares and open places, because no church could hold the crowds, and a company of penitents followed him from town to town. He spoke only his native Valencian, yet many of his biographers held that he was given the gift of tongues and was understood by all the nations he preached to.

Why is St Vincent Ferrer painted with wings?

Because Christian tradition saw in him the angel of the Apocalypse who announces the judgment. St John writes:

"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." (Apocalypse xiv. 6-7, Douay-Rheims)

The lesson of his feast in the Breviary echoes the very words of this passage, "all nations, tribes and tongues", and painters gave him the angel's wings, often with a trumpet, a flame above his head and an open book bearing the words Timete Deum et date illi honorem, "Fear God and give him honour". This is why he is called the Angel of the Judgment, or the Angel of the Apocalypse. It is a title and an image drawn from his preaching, not a claim that he was an angel by nature: he was a man, a friar and a priest, whose whole message was the one the angel cries in the Apocalypse.

You can read what the Church teaches about the judgment he preached in our page on the Four Last Things: death, judgment, heaven and hell.

The life of a preacher of penance

The Breviary gives the rule of his life during these twenty years, and it is worth quoting nearly whole: "Every day he sang Mass early in the morning. Every day he preached to the people. He kept an unbroken fast, unless urgent necessity required otherwise. He refused holy and sound counsel to no one. He never ate meat, and never wore linen. He calmed the quarrels of the people and brought kingdoms at variance to peace." He bore his detractors and persecutors, it adds, "walking in simplicity and humility", and received them with meekness.

His preaching drew Christians, Jews and Moors. Among the converts attributed to him was a learned rabbi, Solomon ha-Levi, who became, as Paul of Burgos, a bishop of the Church. Peter Ranzano, his first biographer, put the number of Jews converted by him at twenty-five thousand. Historians have long debated how free these conversions were in the Spain of his day, where Jewish communities lived under heavy pressure.

He was also drawn into the affairs of kings. After the death of King Martin of Aragon in 1410 left the throne without an heir, Vincent was one of the nine judges, three for each of the realms of the Crown of Aragon, who met at Caspe to name the new king; he took the leading part and proclaimed Ferdinand of Castile king.

The miracles of St Vincent Ferrer

The Church herself, in the Breviary, gives the summary of his miracles: "Through him the divine power worked many signs and miracles, in confirmation of his life and preaching. For very often he laid his hands upon the sick, and they were healed; he drove unclean spirits out of bodies; he restored hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb, sight to the blind; he cleansed lepers and raised the dead."

The old lives are full of particular wonders, many of which belong to the realm of legend rather than of proven history, and we do not repeat them here as if they were certain. What the Church affirms is the summary above, and she canonized him less than forty years after his death.

How did St Vincent Ferrer die?

Worn out by age and sickness, the "tireless herald of the Gospel", as the Breviary calls him, spent the last two years of his life preaching in Brittany. He died at Vannes, in Brittany, on 5 April 1419, at the age of sixty-nine.

He was canonized by Pope Callistus III in the Dominican church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, in Rome, on 3 June 1455.

The prayer of St Vincent Ferrer (Missal of 1962)

The Mass of St Vincent Ferrer in the Roman Missal is taken from the Common of a Confessor not a Bishop, Os justi, with a proper Collect. The Gospel of the Mass could not suit him better: "Let your loins be girt and lamps burning in your hands... Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching" (St Luke xii. 35-37). There is a Gloria but no Credo. Here are the three prayers in Latin, as the Missal gives them, with our own English translation.

Collect, 5 April

Deus, qui Ecclésiam tuam beáti Vincéntii Confessóris tui méritis et prædicatióne illustráre dignátus es: concéde nobis fámulis tuis; ut et ipsíus instruámur exémplis et ab ómnibus ejus patrocínio liberémur advérsis. Per Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.

O God, who didst vouchsafe to enlighten Thy Church by the merits and the preaching of blessed Vincent, Thy Confessor: grant to us Thy servants, that we may both be instructed by his example and, through his patronage, be delivered from all adversities. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

Secret

Laudis tibi, Dómine, hóstias immolámus in tuórum commemoratióne Sanctórum: quibus nos et præséntibus éxui malis confídimus et futúris. Per Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.

We offer unto Thee, O Lord, sacrifices of praise in commemoration of Thy Saints, by whom we trust to be delivered from evils both present and to come. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

Postcommunion

Refécti cibo potúque cœlésti, Deus noster, te súpplices exorámus: ut, in cujus hæc commemoratióne percépimus, ejus muniámur et précibus. Per Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum, Fílium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.

Refreshed with heavenly food and drink, we humbly beseech Thee, O our God, that we may be strengthened by the prayers of him in whose commemoration we have received these gifts. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

The Collect is the surest prayer to St Vincent Ferrer: the prayer the Church herself has put on the lips of priests for centuries. It asks two things that sum up his life, to learn from his example and to be protected by his patronage. If you wish to make a novena to St Vincent Ferrer, the simplest and safest way is to pray this Collect on each of the nine days before his feast, from 27 March to 4 April, together with the Holy Rosary, which the Dominican Order has long preached, and a good Confession, the fruit he sought above all from his hearers.

When is the feast day of St Vincent Ferrer?

The feast of St Vincent Ferrer is on 5 April, the day of his death. In the calendar of 1962 it is a feast of the third class, in white vestments. Because 5 April falls so near Easter, how it is kept depends on the date of Easter:

• in Lent, when Easter falls on or after 13 April, the Lenten weekday takes precedence, and St Vincent is only commemorated, with his Collect added to the Mass and Office of the day (if 5 April is then a Sunday of Lent, a day of the first class, he is not even commemorated);
• in Holy Week or in the Octave of Easter, days of the first class that admit no commemoration of a saint, his feast is not kept at all that year (in 2026, 5 April was Easter Sunday);
• after the Octave of Easter, when Easter falls on or before 28 March, the feast is kept in full, as in 2027, when 5 April is the Monday after Low Sunday (should 5 April fall on a Sunday, the Sunday takes precedence and the saint is at most commemorated).

You will find each year's arrangement in our traditional Catholic calendar of 1962, and St Vincent in his place among the saints of the year in our guide to the Catholic saints.

What is St Vincent Ferrer the patron saint of?

St Vincent is honoured above all at Valencia, his birthplace, and at Vannes, where he died, and the Dominican Order venerates him as one of its greatest preachers. Lists on the internet commonly make him patron of builders, construction workers and plumbers, and ask why; we have found no ancient or liturgical source that explains or establishes these patronages, and we prefer not to invent a reason. What is certain is the patronage the Church herself asks of him in his Collect: to be "delivered from all adversities" through his intercession.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was St Vincent Ferrer?

A Dominican friar and priest of Valencia (1350-1419), master in theology, confessor to Pedro de Luna during the Great Western Schism, and above all an itinerant preacher who for twenty years called the nations of Europe to penance before the Last Judgment.

Where and when was St Vincent Ferrer born?

At Valencia, in Spain, on 23 January 1350.

Who were the parents of St Vincent Ferrer?

William Ferrer and Constantia Miguel. He was their fourth child.

Why does St Vincent Ferrer have wings?

Because he is identified with the angel of Apocalypse xiv. 6-7, who flies "through the midst of heaven" crying "Fear the Lord and give him honour, because the hour of his judgment is come": the very message of his preaching. Hence his title, the Angel of the Judgment.

How did St Vincent Ferrer die?

Of age and sickness, worn out by his labours, at Vannes in Brittany on 5 April 1419, after two years of preaching in that province.

How did St Vincent Ferrer become a saint?

By the heroic holiness of his life and the miracles examined after his death: Pope Callistus III canonized him in Rome on 3 June 1455.

What is the feast day of St Vincent Ferrer?

5 April. In the 1962 calendar it is a feast of the third class, commemorated only when it falls on a weekday of Lent, and omitted when it falls in Holy Week or in the Octave of Easter.

Is there a prayer to St Vincent Ferrer?

Yes: the Collect of his Mass, Deus, qui Ecclesiam tuam, given above in Latin and English with the Secret and the Postcommunion.

The Iter Fidei app carries the traditional calendar of 1962, the Roman Missal with the prayers of each day and the Breviary, in Latin and English. Join early access here.

Sources. Roman Breviary, 5 April (St Vincent Ferrer, Confessor), lessons in their full form before 1960, and the single contracted lesson of 1960. Roman Missal (1962), Proper of Saints, 5 April, and Common of a Confessor not a Bishop. The Catholic Encyclopedia (1912), "St. Vincent Ferrer". Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims version, Apocalypse xiv. 6-7; St Luke xii. 35-37.