Cure of Ars
One
St. John Vianney was a blockhead and so am I.
St. John Vianney was born into a peasant family in a small town near Lyon, France in 1786. He spent so many years of his childhood and as a teenager in the fields and tending the flocks that at the age of seventeen he was still illiterate. He desperately wanted to be a priest. But soon after he entered the seminary, they asked him to leave mid-semester because he could not keep up with the academic work. At that point, an old priest took him under his wing, tutored him, and interceded on his behalf with the Bishop of Grenoble who ordained him when he was 29.
Before long, thousands of people came from all over France to hear his wisdom and were converted. But they were not converted by the brilliant intellect or charismatic personality of John Vianney, for he possessed neither of these. He won over even the most rebellious souls by his commitment to two things: a deep friendship with Jesus through prayer and by living genuine friendship with others.
We all have family and friends who are not interested in Jesus. We may feel that we don’t know enough or that we are not good enough to help them. St. John Vianney shows us you don’t have to be a theologian. We just need to develop a deep friendship with Jesus in prayer and then foster an authentic friendship with others because friendship is the bridge to help them cross over to Christ.
That is why we live a simple way of life of friendship, good conversation and then when the time is right, invite them to encounter Jesus through Mary in the Rosary.
Two
Take Back Sundays
When Vianney got to his parish in Ars, France, it was a spiritual disaster. As a rural farming community, there was a big problem. The people were not against religion, but they were just totally lukewarm and indifferent. During the busy seasons, these farmers worked all day on Sundays. During the winter they stayed up all hours at dances on Saturday night and then spent all day Sunday in the bars and taverns and wouldn’t go to Church.
Where does one begin when the culture is totally broken? Vianney began by taking back Sundays.
Sunday is the soul of the week. If we live Sunday well it will start to heal every day of our week. So how do we take back Sundays? By living as apostles of delight. On Sunday, go to Mass and delight in all that God has given you and all that he has forgiven in you.
Then delight in family and friends. Invite them to do some good thing together on Sunday, a meal or some good activity. And while you do it, be genuinely interested in them, delight in them. Talk with them, get to know them, understand them, show them you love them unconditionally and that you care for them. But don’t spend your time together in front of a screen because. That’s not time together. You might be in the same room but you're not talking or growing in friendship.
If you do this often enough and long enough, you can invite them to pray the Rosary with you and Mary will lead them to Jesus and the Eucharist. It took eight years for St. John Vianney to win the people over but he persevered and he won!
Three
Confession
Our sin is the only thing that blocks us from perfect happiness. Jesus gave us the remedy: Confession. If we would do a brief examination of conscience every day and go to confession once a month, Jesus would set us free from our sins and we could reach the happiness we long for. This is what St. John Vianney taught the people.
Three hundred people a day and over one hundred thousand a year came to him for confession. Why? Sin makes us spiritually blind. The people could not see the sad state they were in. So, God gave Vianney the gift of reading souls, of seeing their sins. In Confession, he told them what he saw and this enabled them to see. It helped them to examine and form their conscience well and make a sincere confession. It was love for souls that led him to spend sixteen to seventeen hours a day in the confessional.
God has probably not given your priest the ability to read souls. That is because you are supposed to learn to read your own soul. That means we must form our conscience by learning the Catholic moral principles and then make an honest and fearless examination of conscience identifying our sins and predominant vices and submitting these to Christ the Divine Physician in Confession. Our Lady said that the Church in the West would be healed if it went to Confession once a month.
Four
The real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist
The key to St. John Vianney was friendship with Jesus and friendship with others.
St. John Vianney spent much of his free time with Jesus in Eucharistic Adoration. It makes sense, doesn’t it? Friends want to spend time together, face to face. When we spend time with Jesus in thanksgiving after Communion and in Eucharistic Adoration we are in the personal presence of Jesus and this close proximity causes us to grow in intimacy.
St. John Vianney lived a life of face-to-face friendship with Jesus and when others found out, they began to imitate him. One time a farmer went to the home of a farmer friend. His wife told him he was at the Church. So he went and found him just sitting there in the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. His friend exclaimed, “What are you doing?’ The man responded, “I look at Jesus and He looks at me!”
If we want to have a deeper friendship with Jesus, then go spend time with him, face-to-face in the Eucharist. Jesus is physically present in every Tabernacle of every Catholic Church in the world. He’s probably waiting for you, just down the street. He waits for you 24/7, 365 days a year. Got any other friends that wait for you like that?
Five
Humility
Unfortunately, there were many priests and laypeople in the area of Ars who thought John Vianney was asking too much of the people by insisting on going to Mass every Sunday, and with his constant encouragement to prayer and a deeper conversion and his emphasis on regular confession and a love for the Eucharist. So much so that a group organized a petition to present to the Bishop to have Vianney removed. When John found out about the petition, he signed it himself.
Vianney had two great qualities, humility and a sense of humor.
Humility has two parts: I am not God, I have strengths as well as limitations, I accept my strengths and use them for good. I accept my limitations because these remind me of my need for God. Therefore, when criticized I don’t need to argue or defend myself. Secondly, I am a child of God with infinite dignity. My value is not derived from the opinion of people. My value comes from God my Father. God is making me divine by participation with Him.