Feast of St. John Baptist Vianney (August 4)

Roman Catholic Priest; Died in 1859

From the New Zealand Anglicans:

The French Revolution and its aftermath had a devastating effect on religion in France. Under the ideology of the revolution, religion was attacked and the priesthood proscribed. In the years after the revolution many people became pre-occupied with the practical business of re-constructing their lives and had found solace in other pursuits. The country was in disarray, but Jean-Marie-Baptiste Vianney brought an important and distinctive contribution to the revival of religion.

Jean-Marie was born into a peasant family at Dardilly near Lyons in 1786. He received little education and, in the upheavals of the 1790s, was soon working on his uncle’s farm at Ecully. Although church-going was discouraged in post-revolutionary France, Jean-Marie felt called to the priesthood. His academic limitations hampered him, and then he was conscripted into the Napoleonic army. He deserted and resumed his studies after a general amnesty in 1810. After a great struggle he was ordained in 1815. Three years later, at the age of 30, he was appointed to the little village of Ars, a remote and insignificant place north of Lyons. Here he stayed until his death on 4 August 1859.

There had been no effective ministry in Ars for some years, and Jean-Marie had to rebuild the parish virtually from nothing. He visited his parishioners; he re-established education for the children and set up an orphanage for girls; but above all he set out to reclaim the habits of his parishioners. He followed a rigid self-discipline, and in his early years at Ars attacked the dancing and drinking of the locals in an effort to reform the parish. He used the confessional as a means of correcting people’s habits. In the confessional he read hearts like a book. Not without a lot of sometimes bitter opposition, he succeeded in transforming the village by 1827. Shin­ing through the rigour and discipline was a profound love of people. He came to place great stress on the love and mercy of God.

By 1827 the Abbé Vianney was widely regarded as a priest of deep devotion and spiritual skill. People began arriving at Ars from further afield, seeking the counsel of the Curé d’Ars, as increas­ingly he was simply known. The pressure on him, compounded by his own disregard of his health and comfort, made for an enormous spiritual burden. People also came to expect miracles of him, but he simply attributed these to St Philomena.

Eventually Lyons railway station had a separate booking office for trains to Ars, and in 1853 it was calculated that 20,000 people a year were visiting him. Those who could not visit in person wrote to him. Even though he could not answer all the letters in person, he determined the general scope of the replies. During his later years he spent up to 16 hours a day in the confessional. He would have dearly loved to leave the parish and devote himself to solitary prayer, but was not allowed by his bishop and the villagers to leave. He died, worn out by his self-denying life-style and devoted ministry to those who came to him. In 1929 he was designated the patron saint of parish priests.

For Liturgical Use

John-Marie-Baptiste Vianney was born in 1786. Despite his academic limitations, he was eventually ordained in 1815. The ravages of the French Revolution meant that few were becoming priests and churches were not well patronised. At the age of thirty he was sent to the parish of Ars. Over the course of time he re-established the life of the parish. Above all he became known for his work in the confessional, where he “read people like a book”. Ars became a centre of pilgrimage, and he was recognised as a living saint. He died in 1859.

Everliving God,
you gave to your servant John Vianney
gifts of discernment and wise counsel;
grant to all pastors
a full measure of your wisdom and your love,
that through their ministry
your truth may be revealed;
through Jesus Christ our Saviour.  Amen.

Deuteronomy 10:12-13; Psalm 103:1-14 or Psalm 119:137-144; 1 Peter 4:7-11; Matthew 16:24-28