St. John Baptiste Marie Vianney
The Curé of Ars
Curé of Ars, born at Dardilly, near Lyons, France,
on 8 May, 1786; died at Ars, 4 August, 1859; son of Matthieu Vianney and
Marie Beluze.
In
1806, the curé at Ecully, M. Balley, opened a school for ecclesiastical
students, and Jean-Marie was sent to him. Though he was of average
intelligence and his masters never seem to have doubted his vocation,
his knowledge was extremely limited, being confined to a little
arithmetic, history, and geography, and he found learning, especially
the study of Latin, excessively difficult. One of his fellow-students,
Matthias Loras, afterwards first Bishop of Dubuque, assisted him with
his Latin lessons.
But now another obstacle presented itself. Young
Vianney was drawn in the conscription, the war with Spain and the urgent
need of recruits having caused Napoleon to withdraw the exemption
enjoyed by the ecclesiastical students in the diocese of his uncle,
Cardinal Fesch. Matthieu Vianney tried unsuccessfully to procure a
substitute, so his son was obliged to go. His regiment soon received
marching orders. The morning of departure, Jean-Baptiste went to church
to pray, and on his return to the barracks found that his comrades had
already left. He was threatened with arrest, but the recruiting captain
believed his story and sent him after the troops. At nightfall he met a
young man who volunteered to guide him to his fellow-soldiers, but led
him to Noes, where some deserters had gathered. The mayor persuaded him
to remain there, under an assumed name, as schoolmaster. After fourteen
months, he was able to communicate with his family. His father was vexed
to know that he was a deserter and ordered him to surrender but the
matter was settled by his younger brother offering to serve in his stead
and being accepted.
Jean-Baptiste now resumed his studies at Ecully. In
1812, he was sent to the seminary at Verrieres; he was so deficient in
Latin as to be obliged to follow the philosophy course in French. He
failed to pass the examinations for entrance to the seminary proper, but
on re-examination three months later succeeded. On 13 August, 1815, he
was ordained priest by Mgr. Simon, Bishop of Grenoble. His difficulties
in making the preparatory studies seem to have been due to a lack of
mental suppleness in dealing with theory as distinct from practice -- a
lack accounted for by the meagreness of his early schooling, the
advanced age at which he began to study, the fact that he was not of
more than average intelligence, and that he was far advanced in
spiritual science and in the practice of virtue long before he came to
study it in the abstract. He was sent to Ecully as assistant to M.
Balley, who had first recognized and encouraged his vocation, who urged
him to persevere when the obstacles in his way seemed insurmountable,
who interceded with the examiners when he failed to pass for the higher
seminary, and who was his model as well as his preceptor and patron. In
1818, after the death of M. Balley, M. Vianney was made parish priest of
Ars, a village not very far from Lyons. It was in the exercise of the
functions of the parish priest in this remote French hamlet that as the
"curé d'Ars" he became known throughout France and the Christian world.
A few years after he went to Ars, he founded a sort of orphanage for
destitute girls. It was called "The Providence" and was the model of
similar institutions established later all over France. M. Vianney
himself instructed the children of "The Providence" in the catechism,
and these catechetical instructions came to be so popular that at last
they were given every day in the church to large crowds. "The
Providence" was the favourite work of the "curé d'Ars", but, although it
was successful, it was closed in 1847, because the holy curé thought
that he was not justified in maintaining it in the face of the
opposition of many good people. Its closing was a very heavy trial to
him.
But the chief labour of the Curé d'Ars was the
direction of souls. He had not been long at Ars when people began coming
to him from other parishes, then from distant places, then from all
parts of France, and finally from other countries. As early as 1835, his
bishop forbade him to attend the annual retreats of the diocesan clergy
because of "the souls awaiting him yonder". During the last ten years of
his life, he spent from sixteen to eighteen hours a day in the
confessional. His advice was sought by bishops, priests, religious,
young men and women in doubt as to their vocation, sinners, persons in
all sorts of difficulties and the sick. In 1855, the number of pilgrims
had reached twenty thousand a year. The most distinguished persons
visited Ars for the purpose of seeing the holy curé and hearing his
daily instruction. The Venerable Father Colin was ordained deacon at the
same time, and was his life-long friend, while Mother Marie de la
Providence founded the Helpers of the Holy Souls on his advice and with
his constant encouragement. His direction was characterized by common
sense, remarkable insight, and supernatural knowledge. He would
sometimes divine sins withheld in an imperfect confession. His
instructions were simple in language, full of imagery drawn from daily
life and country scenes, but breathing faith and that love of God which
was his life principle and which he infused into his audience as much by
his manner and appearance as by his words, for, at the last, his voice
was almost inaudible.
The miracles recorded by his biographers are of
three classes:
-
first, the obtaining of money for his charities
and food for his orphans;
-
secondly, supernatural knowledge of the past and
future;
-
thirdly, healing the sick, especially children.
The greatest miracle of all was his life. He
practiced mortification from his early youth. and for forty years his
food and sleep were insufficient, humanly speaking, to sustain life. And
yet he labored incessantly, with unfailing humility, gentleness,
patience, and cheerfulness, until he was more than seventy-three years
old.
On 3 October, 1874 Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney was
proclaimed Venerable by Pius IX and on 8 January, 1905, he was enrolled
among the Blessed. Pope Pius X proposed him as a model to the parochial
clergy.
[Note: In 1925, Pope Pius XI canonized him. His
feast is kept on 4 August.]
Otten, S.
(1910). St. Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney.
In The Catholic Encyclopedia.
New York: Robert Appleton Company.
Retrieved June 18, 2009 from New Advent:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08326c.htm
This
article was transcribed for New Advent by Gerard Haffner.
Nihil Obstat.
October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor.
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley,
Archbishop of New York.