St John Vianney

[cappie]

“Cure d’ Ars”

Feast Day: 4th August - Patron Of: Confessors, Parish Priests, Priests, Secular Priests
Also known as: Cure of Ars; Jean Baptiste Marie Vianney; Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney; Jean-Baptiste Vianney; John Baptist Vianney; John Vianney.

Born: 8 May 1786 at Dardilly, Lyons, France Died: 4 August 1859 at Ars, France of natural causes Beatified: 8 January 1905 Canonized: 31 May 1925.


The French Revolution from 1789–1799 turned France into a spiritual wilderness. St John Vianney, born in 1786 experienced this first hand because his devout parents gave hospitality to visiting priests during this time and he attended Mass in the barn or the woods making his first Holy Communion at thirteen in 1799. At 20 he began studies for the priesthood, but seemed unable to learn anything of what he was taught because all the studies for priesthood were in Latin. Abbe Balley then taught him theology from a French manual and was able to present him for Ordination in 1815, but even then he was accepted like St Joseph of Cupertino on account of his devout life.

Given the parish of Ars, he based his personal approach to ministry on “prayer and fasting” and although at first there were only a few old ladies in church, by the time he was finished he had to spend 11 hours in the Confessional in winter and 16 hours in summer to cope with the crowds who came from all over France. In the end people were issued 8 day passes by the coach companies so they might have a chance to see him. When the person who was running dances on Sundays for the young people said to him in defence, “But a person must live!” He replied, “True, but one must also die!” To the person who said he could pray at home he said, “When you pray alone you light one straw, but when we pray together we make such a fire!”

So great was the pressure of people asking for a blessing, or for a cure for a sick relative or trying to cut pieces from his cassock or his hair or to get other relics that he tried to leave the parish three times. Finally he spoke to Pere Leonard, a venerable Capuchin of the Convent of Les Broteaux, of Lyons. He expressed a desire to join the Capuchin Order, but the discerning Capuchin friar told him that he would do more good remaining in his parish. The Curé persisted, and Pere Leonard told him about the Third Order of St. Francis (Secular Franciscans) and gave him the rule to read. Shortly after this he joined the Third Order of St. Francis. The incident, which took place in 1848, was enough to cause concern in the village. A rumour went around that he was going to become a Capuchin. The people of the town hearing he was trying to leave set a guard to watch him day and night to stop him if he tried to leave.

He continued this ministry for 30 years. About 1:00am he would go to the church and ring the Angelus Bell so people would know that he was going to hear confession, then at 7:00am he would come out of the confessional and he would say Mass. After a short thanksgiving he would go back into the confessional emerging at 11.00am to give a short catechesis lesson to the people crowding the church and then he would go for 15 minutes to have his lunch. After lunch he would visit the sick and then go back into the confessional coming out again only for Night Prayer about 10.00pm and then go to his bedroom for only three hours. It is said that he slept on a board having given his mattress away to the poor long ago. For a period of time the devil turned his presbytery into a madhouse of moving furniture, rapping noises, howling and strange voices - even setting his bed on fire.

In the confessional he often read hearts at a glance and told people their future with startling accuracy. In the year of his death, it is estimated that up to 120,000 pilgrims were coming annually to Ars (an average of almost 330 a day) to go to confession. He made light of this, saying: “I am like the zeros, which have no value except alongside other figures.”

At the age of 73, in 1859 worn out by his austere and demanding life he passed easily, without any agony, into the contemplation he always longed for; dying in his parish at Ars among his people.

[StColette]

Happy Feast Day St. John Vianney!

[tinytherese]

I wrote about him on my blog a while back.

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