St. Jean-Marie Baptiste Vianney
(1786 - 1859)
French Catholic priest, often referred to as the "Curé d'Ars" (i.e. the parish priest of Ars)
The following is extracted from Life of the Curé d'Ars by Alfred Monnin, published in 1862, just three years after St. John Vianney's death.
Birth & Home
Jean Baptiste Marie Vianney was born at Dardilly, a village not far from Lyons, where his humble forefathers had dwelt for many generations. Their simple farmhouse, with its little courtyard before it, stands near the entrance of the village, amid scenery of singular beauty. All the scenes surrounding his infancy were lovely to look upon, and the moral and spiritual aspect of his home was no less fair. The house of the Vianneys had been known from time immemorial as the home of the poor, the well-known resort of all the wandering beggars, who were accustomed to seek and find a nightly shelter beneath its hospitable roof.
His Parents
The parents of Jean Marie, Matthieu Vianney and Marie Beluse, possessed, in a high degree, the traditional virtues of their race. Matthieu was a pious Christian, and a thoroughly honest man; to the virtues which distinguished her husband, Marie added a sweetness and tenderness of character, a gentleness of manner, and an elevation of mind which sprang from a deeply interior spirit, and fitted her to be the mother of a saint. Before the birth of the second of her six children, Marie had often offered him to God and the Blessed Virgin, and had even made a secret vow, should God accept her desire, to consecrate him to the service of the altar; with this view he received in baptism, on the very day of his birth, the names of Jean Baptiste and of Marie. Like the mother of St. Bernard, Marie Beluse watched for the first dawn of reason to turn her child's earliest thoughts to God. At eighteen months old he had already learned to join his little hands in prayer, and to lisp the names of Jesus and Mary. M. Vianney used often to tell how his mother would always come herself every morning to awaken her children, that she might see that they offered their hearts to God, and secure the first thought and the first action of the day for Him.
Childhood
At three years old Jean Marie already began to retire into solitary places to pray. When he could yet hardly speak he loved to join in all the devotions of the family. He was the first to kneel down at midday or sunset to recite the Angelus with infantine gravity. The first present which he received from his mother was a little statue of the Blessed Virgin.. He prized it, not as a child's toy, but as an object of pious veneration. It was the surest remedy for all his childish troubles. "Oh how I have loved that image!" said he, more than sixty years afterwards: "I could not bear to part with it day or night; and I could not have slept quietly, if I had not had it beside me in my little bed."
In the long winter evenings he would sit for hours by his mother's side, talking with her of God and holy things, till her heart swelled with joy that her long-cherished hopes were thus being realized in the early sanctity of her child.
St. John Vianney said, "When I was quite little I had a pretty little rosary, to which my sister took a fancy; she wanted to have it. This was one of my first troubles. I went to consult my mother about it. She advised me to give it up for the love of God. I obeyed; but it cost me many tears."
All these holy affections grew with his growth ; prayer was his delight before he understood it to be his duty. It was the spontaneous language of his lips, which were never profaned by any of the coarse and unbefitting words so commonly learned by village children. He was shielded from the knowledge of evil by the pure atmosphere of his father's house, and he seldom left his mother's side but to retire to some quiet comer to pour out his heart to his heavenly Mother.
The French Revolution
When the neighbors saw the extraordinary devotion and recollection with which the child assisted at Mass, they would say to his parents, "You must make your little son a priest." But the time was at hand when that most intense desire of the mother's heart seemed destined to bitter disappointment. The revolution, which swept away throne and altar barred the way to the sanctuary. A day came when the little church of Dardilly opened its doors no more for holy Mass; the bell no longer called the faithful to prayer; every indication of Christian feeling was forbidden under the name of liberty. Jean Marie was then only in his eighth year; but the seed had been sown too deeply in his heart to be scattered by the cold blast of infidelity which swept over his unhappy country.
Few and far between were now the blessed seasons when, in fear and haste, the faithful were summoned to some carefully guarded hiding-place to hear the Mass said by some proscribed and persecuted priest, at peril of his life and their own. But under the free sky, by the light of the silent stars, the lonely boy conversed with God, and learned of Him that heavenly wisdom by which he was hereafter to make many wise unto salvation.
Certain it is that, even from that early age, all his thoughts and emotions seem to have been concentrated in the desire to serve God and to unite himself to Him alone.
Next to God, Jean Marie loved the poor. The unbounded charity, which was one day to be identified with his very life, already inflamed his young heart.
When he met with children of his own age, he set to work to teach them the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Acts of Faith, Hope, and Charity, and the chief truths of religion. He taught them that they must be very good; that they must love the good God very much; never complain of their lot but bear its hardships patiently in the prospect of eternal life.
As he passed out of early childhood, it was but to advance from the ignorance of evil to its detestation. Such was the innocence of his childhood, that he has been heard to say: "I knew nothing of evil till I learned to know it in the confessional."
Jean Marie dearly loved the remembrance of his childhood days of rustic labor and would often speak of them to his intimate friends. "When I was young," he used to say, " I tilled the ground. I am not ashamed of it; I am nothing but an ignorant husbandman. I often used to say to myself, as I struck my pickaxe into the ground: "So should thou cultivate thy soul; so pluck up the evil weeds to prepare it for the good seed of the good God."
His Education & Studies
At length the revolution had worn itself out; and France, weary of herself, had taken shelter under the strong hand of Napoleon. One of his first acts was to restore a measure of liberty to the Church. Her temples were re-opened, and her altars raised again; but her faithful priests had perished on the guillotine, or pined away in exile, and who was to minister in their stead?
John Vianney's desire was to devote himself, soul and body, to the service of the suffering Church of Jesus Christ. As a child this had been an instinct, at eighteen it was a vocation. "If I were ever a priest," he would say, "I would win many souls to God." Due to the Revolution, he committed his vocation to God in obedience and prayer, until it should please Him to remove the obstacles which then stood in the way of its accomplishment.
With one obstacle removed, a new and severe trial came upon him. He was free to devote himself to the life which had long been the choice of his heart; every outward obstacle was removed, but now his path was crossed by one which seemed insurmountable. His education had been utterly neglected. He knew nothing but the science of the saints. At an age when other youths have finished their classical studies, he was but beginning Latin; and what was more depressing still, he had no natural talents to enable him to cope with these disadvantages. His conception (we are told) was slow, and his memory unretentive. He made little or no progress. Only because of his deepest desire to be a priest—and his Fr. Balley's patience—did he persevere.
In the autumn of 1809, the young student was drawn for the conscription. As soon as he had reached the age which rendered him liable to be called up, Fr. Balley, his teacher, had taken the precaution to have his name inscribed on the list of students for the priesthood, this inscription constituting an exemption from military service; but by some oversight the entry was never made. An order to join the troops at Bayonne came upon him and his whole family like a thunderclap. Parents, brothers, sisters, and friends were all overwhelmed with grief and consternation. Matthieu Vianney made an ineffectual attempt, at an enormous cost, to procure a substitute for his son; but this did not work out.
The self-control which Jean Marie had exercised brought on a severe attack of illness, and instead of sending him at once to Bayonne, the military authorities were obliged to place him in the hospital at Lyons. At the end of a fortnight, he was considered fit to travel, but was seized with a fresh attack of fever on the road and laid up again at the hospital at Roanne. He spent six weeks recovering there, then was appointed to a detachment forming at Roanne to join the army in Spain.
John Vianney deserts his military draft & hides as Jerome Vincent
On the day that he was supposed to report for duty, he was praying in a church and lost track of time. He appeared late, and after it was determined that he was not trying to desert (why would he have shown up at all if he was deserting?) he was sent to catch up with his company. He was walking alone, praying the Rosary, when a stranger appeared and offered to lead him to the place he needed to go. The stranger took Jean Marie's heavy pack and they walked a great distance. "They travelled thus all day long through woods and by mountain tracks avoiding as much as possible high roads or frequented paths. Jean Marie was sinking with fatigue; but the kind words and looks of his companion seemed to give him strength and courage. At ten o'clock at night they halted for the first time at the door of a lonely house. The good people to whose care he had been commended received him most hospitably. The following day these kind protectors guided him to a village called Noes, at the entrance of the great forest of the Madeleine, on the borders of the departments of the Loire and the Allier. Jean Marie hid here for 14 months (under the name Jerome Vincent) before he was able to return home.
He continues his studies
To continue his studies, Jean Marie was sent to the Petit Seminaire of Verrieres to pursue his course of philosophy. Here he had many opportunities of exercising and making progress in humility. His companions, seeing no deeper than the surface, and discovering that he was inferior to most of them in intellectual acquirements, set him down as something not far removed from a simpleton, and treated him accordingly. It was not long before a very different estimate began to be formed of him. Prejudice gave place to cordial admiration when longer intercourse revealed the deep wisdom of this ignorant youth.
Having finished his course of philosophy, Jean Marie returned, in the July of 1813, to begin that of theology, under the direction of the Abbe Bailey. "In this study," says M. Monnin, "he felt no longer the dryness, the disgust, and the difficulty which had more than once nearly discouraged him in his previous course."
After a year or two of assiduous care on the part of the master, and persevering efforts on that of the disciple. Fr. Balley thought he might venture to present him for examination at the Great Seminary of Lyons. Alas, this presentation was to lead to the greatest of all those humiliations by which it pleased God to achieve in his soul that interior work of universal abnegation which was to render him hereafter an instrument of such admirable pliancy in His hands. Jean Marie no sooner appeared in the awful presence of the examiners than his self-possession entirely deserted him, his memory became a blank, and to the questions addressed to him he returned incoherent and inconsequent replies, which gave all present the impression that he knew nothing whatever of the subjects of his examination.
Fr. Balley went at once to the superior of the seminary and requested him to come the next day with one of the Vicars General and examine the disappointed candidate in private. The result of this second trial was, as he had hoped, satisfactory. Jean Marie was admitted into the Great Seminary of St. Irenaeus to prepare for holy orders.
The impression left of him upon the minds of his fellow-seminarists is thus given by M. Monnin: " He grew visibly in humility, sweetness, and piety; these virtues could hardly be concealed from the observation of his fellow-students, but the acts of self-denial and penance, by which the new man is formed upon the ruins of the old, were known to God alone. He had already acquired so great a command over himself as to make it his one aim to do always that which is most perfect. He was never seen to infringe a rule, even in the minutest point. Never was he heard to speak in time of silence, to talk apart during recreation, or to show coldness or discourtesy to any of his companions. He conversed with all indifferently, without choice or partiality, making himself all things to all, that he might win them to Christ Though his taste and disposition led him by preference to converse on religious subjects, he never sought to introduce them with a view to set forth his own familiarity with them, or in any way to gain credit to himself. He accommodated himself to every subject, every mind, and every character, without constraint and without affectation and always kept himself as much as possible out of sight."
We find also, from the testimony of his contemporaries in the seminary of Lyons, that the inferiority of M. Vianney's attainments has been much exaggerated. One of them tells us, indeed, that "whenever M. Vianney was questioned, either upon doctrines or morals, it was always in French, because he could not speak Latin; but his answers, though short, were always correct and exact."
Another writes thus: "He knew little of Latin, having begun his studies late, and gone through them very rapidly; but he knew quite enough to understand the approved authors in philosophy and theology. As far as I could judge (for we were not in the same class), he was not strong in philosophy; there were many others, however, no farther advanced in it than himself. To describe him as an ignorant person is a great mistake.'' It was a mistake, however, shared and fostered by his own singular humility.
Meanwhile the time for his ordination drew near, and the directors of the seminary were still in a most painful state of indecision. Were they to reject a subject whose piety and regularity had won him the esteem of all, or were they to present him for holy orders deficient, as they knew him to be, in the learning usually required of candidates for the sacred office?
"Is this young Vianney pious? Does he say his rosary well? Is he devout to the Blessed Virgin?" asked the Vicar-General.
"He is a model of piety,'' replied all the directors with one voice.
"Very well," answered the Vicar-General, "I will receive him. Divine grace will do the rest."
The Abbe Vianney was ordained sub-deacon at Lyons; he received deacon's orders in the July of the following year, and six months afterwards was ordained priest in the cathedral-church of Grenoble.
Priesthood
Jean Marie was ordained priest on the 9th of August 1815 at the age of twenty-nine. It is not known where he said his first Mass. He was soon in possession of the confidence of all around him, and his confessional was continually surrounded. The first confession he ever received was that of his beloved master, Fr. Balley, who chose him at once for his confessor. On the eve of great feasts, he passed the day and part of the night in his confessional, leaving himself scarcely time to say Mass, recite his Office, and snatch his single and scanty meal.
He was severe to himself, gentle and indulgent towards others, especially to the poor and lowly. His heart and his purse were open to all. One instance among many has heen preserved of his tender charity. He had persisted for a long time in wearing a cassock so old and ragged as to call forth the frequent remonstrances of his friends, who told him that the dignity of his office called for a more suitable exterior.
The life which the Fr. Balley and his Fr. Vianney led in common was that of the strictest religious order. They said the canonical office together at a fixed and invariable hour; they slept in their clothes; they made a day's retreat every month, and the ^spiritual exercises every year.
Two years after Vianney's ordination, Fr. Balley, his beloved master whom he venerated so highly, died. "He died," said Vianney, "like a Saint as he was, and his pure soul departed to add new joy to Paradise."
Appointment to Ars
Three months afterwards he was appointed Cure of Ars, a small town of 230 inhabitants. "Go, my friend," said the Vicar-General; "there is but little of the love of God in that parish; you will enkindle it."
The population of Ars is wholly agricultural. The houses were scarcely visible amid the thick foliage of its fruit-trees. They were scattered here and there without any regard to symmetrical order. The people of Ars were not slow to discover what a treasure they possessed in their new cure. Those who heard his first Mass were struck with his extraordinary fervor, and with the saintliness of his whole bearing. The simple peasants, rude and uncultivated as they were, failed not to discover that their pastor was a man of prayer, a priest, in very deed, after the heart of his Divine Master.
No sooner was he installed in his parish than he chose the church as his dwelling place. He would be seen for hours kneeling perfectly motionless in the midst of the sanctuary, "bathing (to use his own expression) in the flames of love which issued from the Divine Presence on the Altar." He entered the church at daybreak and remained there till the evening Angelus. There he was sure to be found whenever he was wanted.
The notes of Catherine Lassagne give us the following unfavourable picture of the state of the parish when he first undertook its pastoral care. "Ars," says she, *' at the time of M. le Cure's arrival, was in the utmost spiritual poverty; virtue was little known, and less practiced ; nearly all its inhabitants had forsaken the right way and neglected the care of their salvation. The young people had nothing in their heads but pleasure and amusement Nearly every Sunday they assembled together on the green, a few steps from the church, or, according to the season, in the village-taverns, to indulge in dancing and amusements of every kind.'' They were, in fact, remarkable among the villagers of the neighborhood for a headlong and reckless devotion to pleasure.
How is their pastor to stem the tide ? He has but two weapons : one, as we have seen, pursuing prayer, and the daily offering of the all-prevailing sacrifice; the other, the faithful and fervent preaching of the Word of God. To this last he attached very great importance, and he spared no pains in preparing his sermons. He would shut himself up for days together in his sacristy, devoting to this employment every moment which he had to spare from his spiritual exercises. When he had finished writing his discourse, he would recite it aloud by himself, as if from the pulpit.
But he had another way of preaching, not less effectual. M. Vianney mastered the hearts of his people. They felt that he loved them, not only as a whole and in a general way, but with the discriminating and individual love of the Sacred Heart itself for each severally and alone. No child could pass him in the street without receiving a smile or a caress; no trouble was beneath his notice, no sorrow too trifling for his sympathy. Without ever for a moment forgetting, or suffering others to forget, the dignity of his sacred office, he would enter uncalled the dwellings of his poor people, and converse familiarly with them on their family matters, till he found an opportunity, without any abrupt or harsh transition, to speak to them of divine things. Many a soul was brought back to God by these simple pastoral visits.
(1) Established Adoration: His first desire was to establish in his church the perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Now was the heart of the holy cure glad within him. His Lord would no longer be left alone: he had formed a little court around Him. At whatever hour you entered the church, you would find at least two adorers. The day which had been begun by the offering of the holy Mass, was ended by the recitation of the Rosary and of night prayers in common. It was announced by the sound of the bell, and it was the joy of the curb's heart to see, one by one, members of almost all the village households come in after their daily toil for a half-hour of prayer before they went to rest.
(2) Encouraged Frequenting the Sacraments: Another aim which was continually before him was to bring his parishioners to a more frequent use of the Sacraments.
(3) Establishing confraternities: To aid and expand the growing spirit of devotion among his people, M. Vianney lost no time in establishing two devout confraternities: that of the Blessed Sacrament for the men and that of the Rosary for the women, and especially the young girls of his flock.
(4) Established beauty in the church building: Next only to his zeal for the salvation of souls and the purification of those living temples of God, was the care of M. Vianney for the order and beauty of His material sanctuary. The austere lover of poverty was even lavish and prodigal where the glory of God's house was to be maintained. When he came to Ars, he found his little church cold and empty as the hearts of the worshipers. His first care was to replace the high altar, which was actually falling to pieces from age and neglect, by one more worthy of its sacred purpose. It was a joyful day to him when the fine new altar was erected at his own sole charge. Next, the old carving of the choir was renovated, under his direction, hj the hand of the village carpenter, to the great delight of the people of Ars, who looked upon the bright coloring which was laid on with no sparing hand as a masterpiece of art. They learned of their cure to care for the house of the Lord, and to aid him to the best of their power in celebrating the festivals of the Church with due solemnity.
(5) Erected chapels: The next work of Vianney, after the restoration of the choir and altar, was to erect several small chapels, not only for the purpose of enlarging the church, but to assist the devotion of the faithful.
His devotion to St. Philomena:
The second chapel erected by the holy cure was dedicated to his chosen patroness, St. Philomena. The relics of this virgin saint had been discovered at Rome, in the cemetery of St. Priscilla, on the S5th of May 180^. On the entrance of the tomb which contained them were carved the symbols of virginity and martyrdom, — an anchor, three arrows, a palm, and a lily, — with the legend, [Fi]lumena, pax tecum. Fi[at]. (Philomena, peace be with thee. Amen.) Within appeared the relics of the saint, with an urn still bearing the traces of the blood shed for Jesus Christ.
"The love of the Cure of Ars,'" says M. Monnin, "for his dear little saint, as he called her, was almost chivalrous. There was the most touching sympathy between them. She granted everything to his prayers; he refused nothing to her love. He set down to her account all the graces and wonders which contributed to the celebrity of the pilgrimage of Ars. It was all her work; he had nothing whatever to do with it.''
John Vianney brought miraculous change to Ars
"I believe," says Catherine, in her notes of this period, ''that it is impossible to calculate the number of the conversions which M. le Curd obtained at the time of the jubilee by the prayers, and above all by the Masses, which he offered for his parishioners. There was such a renewal of fervor that almost all set to work with their whole might to free themselves from their sins. Human respect was turned the other way. Though M. le Cure had engaged another priest to help him, almost all chose to go to confession to their own pastor. In the sermon which he preached at the close of the exercises, M. le Cure was able to say, in the joy of his heart, * My brethren, Ars is no longer Ars. Not for many years past has so great a change taken place in this parish. I have assisted at many missions and jubilees, but never at one like this/ It is true," adds Catherine, " that this fervor has in some degree cooled, but our good God still keeps he upper hand* Religion is generally reverenced among us, and those who practise it respected."
In the beginning of the year 1823 he was called upon to take part in a mission given at Trevoux by the priests of the Society of the Chartreux at Lyons. This mission lasted for six weeks, and he was nearly weighed down by the labor which fell to his share. So great was the press which surrounded him, that on one occasion the confessional, which was not very firmly fixed, gave way. He was always the first in the church in the morning and the last at night, and on one occasion was so completely exhausted by his labors, that M. Morel was obliged to take him on his shoulders and carry him half dead to his room.
The fame of the conversions wrought at Trevoux spread throughout the neighboring parishes, and Jean Vianney was thenceforth beset with petitions from others of his brethren in the priesthood, to confer the like benefit upon their flocks. M. Monnin gives the names of six parishes in which he labored with the same marvelous success as at Trevoux; "yet in this incessant toil for the souls of others," adds he, " he neglected not his own. His heart ascended continually to God in fervent ejaculations; he gave a considerable time to meditation, to the reading of the lives of the saints, and to visits to the Blessed Sacrament, — no short and passing visits, but long hours prostrate before the tabernacle. Labour was with him but the prolongation of prayer; he was always speaking to God, or of God; loving Him, or moving others to love Him. Neither does it appear that his own parish ever suffered from these frequent evangelical journeys. He accepted the office of missionary only when he could do so without neglecting his duty as a parish priest."
Founding of Orphanage
It was in the year 1885, the seventh of his ministry at Ars, that M. Vianney founded the asylum for orphan and destitute girls, which, under the name of Providence, became afterwards the model of so many institutions of the same kind throughout the length and breadth of France.
His Sufferings
Of the sufferings of our holy cure, some were inflicted by himself, some by the devil, some by good and some by evil men; some, and those the most intense of all, by the hand of God Himself.
(1) Self-imposed: he had cast aside all the bedding he had brought with him from Ecully, till nothing remained but the straw; and that finding even this too luxurious, he had put a board on the top of it. M. Vianney was in the habit of discarding his bed altogether and sleeping on the bare floor of the granary with a stone for his pillow.
His favorite food consisted of some pieces of the coarsest black bread bought out of the basket of some poor man. The Abbe Renard, in a memoir drawn up by him of the early days of the holy cure's ministry, tells us that he had often witnessed the joy with which he ate this most distasteful food. If he perceived the disgust which his companion felt at the sight of it, he would laugh and invite him to share his dinner, saying, "It is a blessing, dear friend, to be permitted to eat the bread of the poor; they are the friends of Jesus Christ" I feel as if I were sitting at His table. When these delicacies were not to be procured, his ordinary meal consisted of potatoes, which he boiled himself once a week. Sometimes, when his own stock of potatoes had come to an end, he has been seen, with his basket in his hand, begging his week's provision from door to door. He took our Lord at His word, and left the whole care of his life, and all that belonged to it, to the pledged care of His Providence.
It has, in fact, been ascertained that the Cure of Ars often passed several days together without taking any nourishment whatever, when he desired to obtain some special grace for himself or his parishioners, to make reparation for some scandal which had wrung his heart, or to do penance for some grievous sinner, whom he judged too weak in courage, or in contrition, to perform it for himself. When asked how a confessor was to act in order to exact due reparation for sin, and at the same time show necessary consideration for the weakness of sinners, he said, " I will tell you my recipe. I give them a light penance and do the rest in their place." He had great confidence in the efficacy of fasting as a means of appeasing Divine justice, and a weapon against the evil one.
The dress of M. Vianney corresponded with his fare. Though a great lover of order and cleanliness, he never allowed himself more than one cassock at a time. It 'was 'washed and mended till it would no longer hold together, and not till then would he consent to replace it by a new one. It was the same with his hat, which was worn till it was perfectly shapeless; and with his shoes, which were never approached by brush or blacking.
(2) Sufferings inflicted upon him by the devil: "The first time the devil came to torment me was at about nine o'clock at night, just as I was going to bed. Three great blows sounded on the outer door, as if someone were trying to break it open with an enormous club. I immediately opened my window, and said, * Who is there V but I saw nothing. So I went quietly to bed, recommending myself to God, the holy Virgin, and my good Angel. I had not fallen asleep, when I was startled by three more strokes louder than the first, not on the outer door, but on that which opens upon the staircase leading to my room. I arose and called out a second time, *Who is there?' No one answered. When the noise began, I thought it might proceed from robbers, who had been attracted by the valuable gifts of M. d'Ars, and therefore began to take precautions. I got two courageous men to sleep in the house, in order to assist me in case of necessity. They came for several successive nights heard the noise but could discover nothings and remained fully convinced that it had another source than the malice of men. I was soon convinced of this myself; for one winter's nighty when a quantity of snow had fallen, I heard three tremendous blows in the middle of the night* I sprang hastily from my bed, and ran down staird into the court, thinking that this time I should catch the evil-doers, and intending to* call for help. But to my great astonishment I saw nothing, I heard nothing, and what is more, I saw not a trace of footprints upon the snow. I had no longer a doubt that it was the devil who wanted to terrify me, I resigned myself to the will of God, beseeching Him to be my guardian and defender, and to draw near to me with His holy angels whenever my enemy should return to torment me."
As soon as M. Vianney felt convinced that the noises were preternatural, he dismissed them and in time grew accustomed to them. He was usually awakened at midnight by the three loud knocks which betokened the presence of his enemy [the devil]. After making a horrible noise on the staircase, the demon would enter the room, seize the curtains, and seem to be tearing them to pieces, so that the cure was astonished in the morning to see them uninjured.
Sometimes he pulled the chairs about, and disarranged all the furniture, as if he were hunting for something, calling at the same time in a tone of mockery, "Vianney, Vianney, thou eater of potatoes! we shall have thee yet!"
One of the demon's customary modes of annoying him was to cover a favourite picture of the Blessed Virgin, and an image of St. Philomena, with mud and filth.
(3) Sufferings inflicted by men: "While,'' says M. Monnin, " the reputation of our holy cur^ swelled rapidly, passed from mouth to mouth, and brought to his feet an ever-increasing number of penitents, his brethren began to murmur. Some felt a natural distrust, and perhaps unconscious jealousy, at seeing the guidance of souls transferred from their own hands to those of a simple and unlearned priest, whose talents they had been accustomed to hold in slender estimation. They found an excuse, in a pious anxiety for the salvation and direction of their flocks, for bitter criticisms and ill-disguised tokens of jealous displeasure.
(4) The sufferings inflicted on him by God: It was God's purpose to make M. Vanney a saint; and therefore, in addition to the sufferings inflicted upon him by himself, by the devil, and by men, his Divine Master gave him to drink of that bitterest draught of His own chalice.
The Abbe Baux, who was for many years the confessor of the Cure of Ars, affirms that his soul was habitually subject to the bitterest desolation. Our Lord hid from him the immense good which He was working by his means. He believed himself to be an utterly useless being, devoid of piety, understanding, knowledge, discernment, or virtue. He was good for nothing but to injure and ruin everything— to disedify everybody ! — to be a hindrance in the way of all good. In the humility of his heart, he shed tears over his sins, indevotion, and ignorance, while at the same time the generosity of his courage led him to throw himself in all his helplessness and weakness into the arms of his Lord.
Vianney said, "God has showed me this great mercy, that He has given me nothing on which I could rely, neither talents, nor wisdom, nor knowledge, nor strength, nor virtue. When I look at myself, I can discover nothing but my poor sins. Yet He suffers me not to see them all, nor to know myself fully, lest I should despair. I have no resource against this temptation to despair, but to throw myself before the Tabernacle, like a little dog at his master's." "He was continually haunted," says M. Monnin, "by confusion for faults past, and by fear of faults to come; by the constant dread of doing ill on every occasion."
The pilgrimage of Ars "Divine Providence,'' says M. Leon Aubineau, "has so ordered it, that during the course of thirty years, the men of the seventeenth century, so enamored of all manner of vanities, should come in crowds to do homage to humility and simplicity. While the philosophers of our day have been inveighing against confession and its consequences, the people have replied by flocking to Ars to venerate a confessor."
The first object of the pilgrimage was unquestionably the confessional. Curiosity doubtless had its place among the motives which brought pilgrims to Ars. Many came simply to look at the magnificent ornaments which enrich the little church, and to wonder at the ascetic form of the cure, who was spoken of far and wide as a wonder of mortification and sanctity.
It was calculated that more than 20,000 persons then visited Ars in the course of each year.
His Day's Work
It is this daily unremitting labor for souls which constitutes the miracle of the life of M. Vianney. "It was passed," as M. Monnin tells us, "in the confessional." Of the eighteen or twenty hours which he gave to labor, he reserved only the time to say his Mass and Office, and to snatch the semblance of a meal at mid-day. A priest can go through a day of sixteen hours in the confessional, as an occasional and exceptional case; but who would not shrink from encountering such a labor the next day and the next, without rest or pause, and that not for a week or a month, but for thirty years — for life?
A letter written from Ars during the Lent of 1840, nearly twenty years before the death of M. Vianney, gives the following picture of his sufferings at that time: "The sight of what our holy cure endures is really heart-rending. It is impossible to see and hear him without unbounded pity and admiration for this sublime and continual sacrifice; for the zeal, the resignation, and the sweetness, with which he suffers himself^ day after day, to be oppressed and stifled by the ever-increasing multitudes who come to him for a last counsel or a last benediction."
His Death
His end was remarkable only for its astonishing simplicity. His death was as hidden as his life had been. Many expected to see, at the last moment, a manifestation of those transports of love, those raptures, those burning words and holy tears, the source of which had become daily more abundant. But nothing of the kind appeared. It seemed as if he still desired to shroud himself as much as possible in silence and obscurity.
"What should we expect of one whose life was so like the life of our Lord, and whose mind was so much the life of a little child, but that when he came to die his death should be childlike too? And certainly, among all the deaths of the Saints of God, we hardly see one marked with greater tranquillity and calmness, peace and sweetness; like the sleep of a little child."
M. le Cure had certainly foreseen and foretold his approaching death. In the month of August 1858 he had declared positively that he had but a year to live and that by that time in the year 1859 he should be no longer in this world. When the morning came, he did not speak of saying Mass, and resigned himself to the cares and attentions which he had hitherto rejected. These were alarming symptoms. He would not, however, submit to the use of a fan, which he considered a luxury. " Leave me," said he, " with my poor flies."
At two o'clock in the morning, without struggle or agony, Jean Baptiste Marie Vianney fell asleep in the Lord, while the priest who writes these lines, as he recited the prayers for the commendation of the soul, pronounced these words: Veniant illi obviam sancii angeli Deiy et perducant eum in civitatem coelestem Jerusalem. Two o'clock in the morning: it was the hour when, in every convent where the night-office is said, the hymn of confessors were being chanted in honor of St. Dominic (Vianney died on August 4th, the feast of St. Dominic)
The Cure of Ars gave up his holy soul to God in the arms of the faithful companions of his labors, the Abbe Toccanier and the Abbe Monnin, and in the presence of the Brothers of the Holy Family, the Comte des Garets, and some others of his tried and dearest friends.
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