Saint Jean-Marie-Baptiste Vianney, the Cure d’Ars, Patron Saint of Priests“The priest is above all a man of prayer…We need reflection, prayer, union with God.”

“The priesthood is the love of the heart of Christ.”St. Jean-Marie-Baptiste Vianney 

Pope Benedict XVI has declared 2009-2010 the Year of Priests to coincide with the 150^th anniversary of St. John-Marie-Baptiste Vianney’s death.

In proclaiming St. John Vianney the Patron Saint of Parish Priests in 1929, Pope Pius XI could hardly have chosen a more fitting example of the ideal priest.  Although his life and ministry were atypical in many ways; although he possessed the charismatic gifts of healing, prophecy, and discernment of spirits; and although many miracles are attributed to him, his deep love of and reverence for Jesus and the Blessed Virgin, his total commitment to his vocation, and his selflessness to others are an inspiration to all priests and religious. Of his vocation he said, “The priest does not exist for himself, he exists for you.” St. Jean-Marie Baptiste Vianney, the Cure′ d’Ars, “brilliant without benefit of academic rank, elegant without social rank, [and] worldly wise without benefit of political rank…” devoted his life to the “unspeakable honor,” as he called it, of being a priest.

   

St. John Vianney was a frail, angular man. Pope Pius XI described his long white hair “…which was to him a shining crown,” and Pope John XXIII spoke of his “thin face hollowed with fasting.”  He was the son of a peasant farmer, lacking a formal early education, and without a good memory, which made his studies for the priesthood difficult and lengthy. He lived at a time in the history of France when the Church was persecuted and forced underground by the French Revolution and later by the Emperor Napoleon. As a child, John Vianney experienced the rare clandestine visits to the village by priests and the celebration of Mass indoors under the cover of darkness. When he asked the definition of a priest, he was told, “A priest is a man who would die so that he could be one.” He knew then a priest was what he wanted to be.

   

Though he prayed for solitude from age eleven and longed for a contemplative religious life, St. John Vianney accepted God’s will and remained at his parish for 41 years, ministering to his congregation and to the thousands of people who came there. On the few occasions when he tried to leave and when he begged the bishop for another assignment, throngs of the faithful turned him back to Ars, once literally carrying him back to his confessional.

   

Few people could live the way he did, carrying out his priestly duties for over twenty hours a day, every day, for his entire ministry. He subsisted on one or two potatoes and a cup of milk a day and slept no more than two hours, often falling asleep standing up as he was reading. He owned only one cassock, a battered hat, and a pair of shoes. He gave away most of his possessions—once even his shoes—and kept only a small pot in which to cook his potatoes.

   

He was devoted to St. Philomena, to whom he gave credit for the miracles he performed, and to St. John the Baptist, whose name he chose as his confirmation name and used thereafter. He also had a special love for St. Francis of Assisi, whose vows and simple life he emulated. He even became a Franciscan tertiary in 1846.

   

Truly amazing is the fact that in a world before rapid transportation and mass communication, the world discovered this “unlikely saint” and transformed the tiny French village of Ars into a place visited by people from all over the world. They came to be present at his Masses, to pray with him, to hear him preach, to confess their sins and receive absolution, and, in many cases, to witness or experience healing of mind and body.   

It must have been a life-changing experience for those who experienced his piercing gaze from the pulpit that seemed to see into their souls. Though his sermons were lengthy and spoken in a voice that was, to many, shrill, they were filled with simple wisdom. His hold on the congregation was so strong that the shepherds and farmers would come in from the fields for daily prayers at the sound of his church bell. Penitents often waited over a week to have their confessions heard by this extraordinary confessor, who often knew their sins before they spoke them.

   

Most priests do not live the austere life that John Vianney did. Most will not have to suffer the physical and mental torments of Satan (who called Vianney “potato eater.”) Most will never be known and revered worldwide. But every priest can live his vocation as the saint described it: “The priesthood is the true love of the Heart of Jesus. When you see the priest, think of Our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Catechism on the Priesthood)

Whether ministering in parishes or in missions throughout the world, serving in schools, universities or hospitals, or living as brothers in community, every priest can pray to St. Jean-Marie-Baptiste Vianney for the grace to live out his vocation.

Readings of Vianney’s life and thoughts will provide a wealth of inspiration to religious and laity alike, reminding us to find joy in the love of Jesus Christ and in the life we have chosen. His sermons and catechisms can teach us much about spirituality. The road to salvation, he taught, is simple. He said, “In your work, offer your difficulties and troubles quite simply to God…and you will find that His blessing will rest upon you and on all you do.” (On the Sanctification of Daily Life)

In a 1986 retreat at Ars for priests, deacons, and seminarians, Pope John Paul II said: “In the Cure′ d’ Ars we see precisely a priest who was not satisfied with an external act of redemption; he shared in this in his very being, in his love of Christ, in his constant prayer, in the offering of his trials or his voluntary mortifications…You know the saying of the Cure′ d’Ars: ‘Oh, the priest is something great! If he knew it, he would die.’”

“The Cure′ d’Ars remains for all countries an unequaled model both of the carrying out of the ministry and the holiness of the minister.”  Pope John Paul II, 1980   

By Kathleen Gilmour