Saint John Vianney the Curate of Ars

A lot of us have a special love towards Saint John Baptist Marie Vianney known as the Parish Priest (Curate) of Ars, due to his simple life and capacity to bring people to God. This saint, known all over the world, was born in Dardilly near Lyons in France, on the 8th of May 1786 to Matthew and Maria nee Beluse. He was the fourth child of six. His family was a family of farmers and in 1804 at the age of 18 whilst working on the family farm, he made it known to his father that he wanted to become a priest.

Two years after Abbè Balley opened a presbytery-school, John Vianney started to attend. A few years later however, he was drafted into Napoleon’s army, but managed to escape this duty. When the French revolution finally ended, an agreement was made with the Church that priests could continue their apostolic mission in the open.

At the age of 27, John Vianney entered the seminary. As his studies were all in Latin, he found it very difficult to study and many times could not understand what the teachers were asking. Despite these difficulties, he did not give up.

He had a great devotion towards Our Lady and whenever he studied, he would put Her statue in front of him and with great faith tell Her: “I’ll soon get it right.” In his first term, however, he was asked to leave the seminary, but Abbè Balley helped him continue his studies.

Before becoming a priest, he failed his final exam. In spite of this, a private exam was held for him, where it became evident that his moral qualities made up for his lack of memory and academic shortcomings. When he was examined, one of the examiners was heard whispering to another, “what are we going to do with this donkey?” When St John Vianney heard him say this, he said “Samson managed to kill one thousand Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey, imagine what God can do with a whole donkey.” He was ordained priest on 13 December 1815.

After becoming a priest, he was chosen to be the Curate of Ars, a small town with a population of about 370 people. Here he was renowned for his confessions and as a spiritual director of souls. This eventually made him world famous.

At the time, Ars was a remote and ‘tough’ region and when the Vicar General sent him there he warned him: “There is not much love in this parish so you need to put some in yourself.” When he left he had no idea of where the place was and after asking around, he managed to reach it. When he arrived in Ars the first thing he asked for was the church. When he saw the state it was in, he decided to repair it as best he could. He cleaned it up and prepared it for his first Eucharistic celebration.

The French revolution lead to a religious ignorance among the people of this parish, so John Vianney did everything he could to combat this. His sermons were a great challenge to him since he had a very bad memory. As we know from the story of his life, he used to spend hours on end trying to memorise his Sunday homilies and in some instances he would spend up to seven hours trying to learn them by heart. He used to preach in a high tone and with great vigour. Indeed, at the end of his homilies he would be dead tired.

The Curate of Ars opened a free school for girls which later became a boarding school but after some time, began to only accept abandoned children as boarders. He believed strongly in God’s Providence.

Everybody knew what a man of penance he was, and it was not the first time that he was attacked by the devil. Once his bed even got burnt. He was known for the wonders that he performed, including driving out demons from people. He used to hear confessions sixteen hours a day from people from all over the world. He was loved by everyone and had a childish simplicity. Once, when the bishop went to Ars on an unexpected visit, he vested the Curate with a mozzetta of a Canon which made John Vianney feel very uncomfortable and so he tried to remove it.

Today he is considered a life model, a humble priest bound only to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. On 4 August 1859 he went to meet the risen Lord, and was canonised in 1925 by Pope Pius XI. Four years later he was chosen by the Church as the patron saint of parish priests.

Let us pray to this saint so that our priests will have the same spirit and may inherit eternal life after death.