4 Aug: St. John Vianney (2005 MartRom)

From the 2005 Martyrologium Romanum:

Memoria sancti Ioannis Mariae Vianney, presbyteri, qui, quadraginta amplius annos paroeciae ipsi commissae in vico Ars prope Bellicium in Gallia actuosa praedicatione, oratione et paenitentiae exemplo mirum in modum ministravit et cotidie pueros et adultos catechizans, paenitentes reconcilians atque ardenti caritate e sacra Eucharistia velut e fonte hausta refulgens tantopere provexit, ut longe lateque consilia sua diffunderet et permultos ad Deum sapienter duceret.

 

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13 Comments

  1. Jack Hughes says:

    memorial of holy John Mary Vianny, priest………. something about adult catachises and confession, a love of the sacred eucharist , a Love of God…… and I give up

  2. Lori Ehrman says:

    The Memorial of Saint Jean-Marie Vianney, priest, who for more than 40 years was the Pastor of Ars near Bellicium in France. He was a prayerful and penitent man and a world wide example who took care of the poor and catechized adults. He reconciled the penitent through his ardent love/charity. He was especially devoted to the Eucharist in which he found a fount of refuse and where his found the counsel and wisdom of God.

    Ok, I tried. I speak “european” in that I was a French/Italian major who also took Spanish. So when I speak French I add italian when I don’t know the French word and vice a versa and a versa vice.

    St. Jean-Marie Vianney’s statue is in my parish right now and Father Paul Weinberger of St. William’s in Texas is very much devoted to this Cure of Ars and models himself on him by basically living in the Confessional box, refuting error, catechizing the parish himself, etc.

  3. Lori Ehrman says:

    Refuge…….sorry typo can you fix it Father Z…I don’t have edit power.

  4. Parochus says:

    Bellicium = Belley

  5. Parochus says:

    The memorial of St. John Mary Vianney, priest, who for over 40 years wondrously served the parish entrusted to him in the village of Ars near Belley, France, with zealous preaching, prayer and an example of penance, and by catechizing children and adults, reconciling penitents and reflecting an ardent love drawn from the Holy Eucharist as if from a fount, he advanced to a such a high degree that he spread his counsels far and wide and led a great many to God.

  6. Parochus says:

    *… and wisely led a great many to God.

  7. Lori Ehrman says:

    Parochus,

    That was great. You are amazing.

  8. Hidden One says:

    Reads liken the perfect path to sanctity for parish priests.

    Wait a second…

  9. Thomas G. says:

    Whew, now that we’ve got that translation part done, can we discuss?

    What a humble priest this was! I heard from my pastor in a homily that the Cure’s fellow priests were so appalled by his lack of learning that they circulated a petition to the Bishop asserting Fr. Vianney’s unfitness for the priesthood and asking that he be removed from ministry. By mistake they sent the petition to the Cure de Ars and . . . he signed it!

    Odd to think that St. John Vianney would probably have struggled with the Latin of this passage.

  10. Tom in NY says:

    Perhaps Vianney should also be the patron of seminarians and students who struggle with Latin. He needed special permission to be ordained in a world where studies were normally in Latin.
    We forget today how harshly the Revolution rolled over the Church and faith. Even after Napoleon, the Church faced an indifferent world. The Lord sent the right man with the right example for his time and for later times, when dark aspects of the Enlightenment still remain strong.
    Salutationes omnibus.

  11. Tom in NY says:

    Obiter dictum:
    Perhaps we can suggest him as a patron for development officers. He founded a charity “La Providence (naturally)” for girls and was able to maintain it for many years.
    Salutationes omnibus.

  12. jaykay says:

    There’s a nice little article about him in this week’s “Catholic Herald” (UK & Ireland) under the “Saint of the week” column. http://www.catholicherald.co.uk. The fact that he spent up to 17 hours a day in the confessional is well known (as it says above: paenitentes reconcilians), but what I certainly didn’t know was the following: “This burden (the confessional), together with his distaste for flattery, tempted him on three occasions to flee Ars. Obedient to his Bishop, however, … he remained at his post until his death”. It also shows a picture of his entire incorrupt heart in a reliquary but doesn’t say where it is. I wonder?

  13. Thomas G. says:

    jaykay – I’ve been to Ars and as I recall his incorrupt heart is on display in the church in the little town, in a side niche off the nave. Of course, the church now on the site is a much grander version of the church that the Cure de Ars knew.

    I also went to confession there in Ars, and they have a unique feature: the priests are French, and the confessor I got spoke no English (and I no French). So he handed me a paper with list of sins in English and French, and I had to check off my sins on the list and hand it back to him.

    He absolved me (in French) and checked off a penance on the list and gave it back. Most curious, but it worked. I wonder if that procedure violated the requirement for auricular confession?

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