Shalom Times, 23 May 2013
Written by Super User
When Jean Baptist Vianney entered his parish on that winter evening in February, 1818, he quickly realized the religious indifference prevailing there and the contrast in this respect to the kindly and religiously inclined Ecully. Upon his arrival, no one came forward to bid him welcome. The very atmosphere of the neighborhood seemed cold and repellant. The people of that place, while not positively bad, were for the most part indifferent in the matter of their eternal welfare. Daily Mass was attended by only two or three elderly women. For the most trivial excuse, men neglected Sunday Mass. Not one of them attended Vespers, although at the same time the cafes of the village were crowded. Even the most devout of the women approached the Sacraments but rarely, while the men, through human pride, neglected to make their Easter duty. In fact, one of their number begged the pastor to give him Holy Communion in the sacristy, so that no one might see him. Servile work of every kind was done on Sunday, and at harvest time the carts and wagons were in use during the entire day “carting souls to hell,” as Father Vianney not inaptly expressed it. Not in a day were these conditions changed. Such a result required many years of effort. In time, however, Divine grace triumphed and the almost unknown parish of Ars became the glorious model for the whole of France. The spirit of religion was revived, public worship restored, the Lord’s day unusually respected and observed. The parish formed, as it were, one large-family, in which each member vied with the other in the service of God. What had the young pastor done to thus transform his parish? He did nothing that any other country pastor may not attempt to do. As his parishioners did not come to him, he went to them in their homes. He was not satisfied with one formal visit but called repeatedly upon his people, as their spiritual or temporal needs seemed to require. He timed his visits for the most part when the family was assembled for the noonday meal. He would enter the living room or stand at the threshold and chat in a friendly manner with the members of the household. Although invited to partake of their hospitality he never accepted the least refreshment, not even a drink of water. He talked with them about their every day life, their cares and anxieties, their hopes and disappointments.
The people soon perceived that Father Vianney was one of themselves and thus they learned to confide in him and to ask his advice in their temporal affairs. Then, whenever occasion presented, with great aptitude he turned the conversation to things supernatural. At the same time he was never insistent. His manner was always affable, never impatient, never reproving; even when he might justly have given reproof. This gentleness in his manner, which, was only the reflex of the charity in his heart, soon won over his people, who now looked forward to his visits and considered themselves highly honored when he called. We have already had occasion to notice his defective memory, and how in consequence he was so greatly impeded in the prosecution of his studies. This drawback made itself particularly felt when he came to prepare his sermons. Many a sleepless night did the poor man devote to the preparation of the discourses to be given to his people. But his industry, strengthened by the Divine assistance, conquered, so that, while he never possessed the gift of oratory, he spoke easily, earnestly and convincingly, and when, in after years, the pilgrims poured in to Ars, sometimes as many as 20,000 in a single year, he was able to give his daily instruction from the pulpit without any special preparation and without the embarrassment which he had experienced at the beginning of his priestly career.
In order to make the practice of religion more attractive for his parishioners, he sought to beautify and decorate the little parish church. In this work he was greatly aided by Mademoiselle d’Ars, sister of the Vicomte d’Ars, who himself generously provided the little church with new vestments and altar vessels. With the co-operation of his parishioners, who, day by day were learning to appreciate their pastor’s solid piety, he built two chapels as an addition to the parish church. One of these he dedicated to Saint Philomena, a youthful martyr, whose relics were recovered at Rome in the beginning of the nineteenth century; the other was placed under the invocation of Saint John the Baptist, and in it stood the confessional of the cure of Ars, the “Mercy Seat,” as it were, of the Almighty, at which untold thousands of souls were reconciled to their Creator. Despite the fact that the number of his friends and co-workers steadily increased, thus evidencing the fruitfulness of his labors,
One evening when Mr. Mandy, the Maire of Ars, came to visit the curé, he found him pale as death and apparently exhausted. Greatly alarmed, he exclaimed: “Are you ill, Father Vianney?” “Oh, my good friend,” the latter replied, “you are just in time, I have nothing left to eat.” For three days Father Vianney had had no provisions whatever in the house, having bestowed the last of his potatoes upon a poor mendicant.
He offered up to God all his mortifications for the welfare of his people, increasing these exercises habitually as Easter approached, and whenever it was a question of touching the heart of a hardened sinner. He joined prayer to fasting. At two o’clock in the morning he arose and said the night-office of the breviary. At four o’clock he entered the church to visit our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament and then said his Mass.
After Mass he gave instruction in catechism and heard confessions. So steadily was he occupied in this work that he seldom left the church until noon-time. He devoted the afternoons to visiting the sick and spent the rest of the day in the church, where, to the edification of all, he held evening devotions in public. What could the Lord refuse to such self-sacrificing love? Vianney himself used to say: “I obtained from Him everything that I wanted!” The progress in the spiritual condition of the congregation at Ars necessarily became known in the surrounding country and Father Vianney’s fellow priests of other parishes begged him to help them in the pulpit and confessional.
These requests Father Vianney never refused, so that, in the space of two years, he became the real apostle of the cathedral circuit. So great was the success of his spiritual labors that the faithful who desired his assistance no longer waited until he should come again to their parishes, but themselves visited him at Ars.
Soon the high road to Ars was filled with pedestrians and vehicles carrying a great number of visitors, and this procession of pilgrims increased when reports were spread of the miracles which took place at Ars.
