We are fellow-workers with God;
you are his harvest field, you are the temple he builds.

vianney

Years ago, August 4 was the feast of St. Dominic.  Now it is the feast of St. John Vianney, the patron of parish priests, who went home to the Lord 150 years ago today.

This nineteenth-century French pastor remains a model of charity for all priests charged with the care of souls.  John Vianney spent himself, to the point of ill health, preaching to his flock and administering to it the sacraments of Christ. What drove him to such love and sacrifice was his profound understanding of the sacrifice of Christ, its salvific character, and the service rendered it by the priests of the Church.  In other words, John Vianney grasped the unique dignity enjoyed by the priest as a minister of Christ’s grace, and he sought to conform his whole life to this mystery.  As the following quotations reveal, he deeply understood what the priest is for, especially his divinely-willed service to Christian truth.

“When men want to destroy religion they begin by attacking the priest, because where the priest is no more, there is no more sacrifice, and where there is no more sacrifice, there is no more religion.”

“Leave a parish for twenty years without a priest, and beasts will be worshipped there.”

How fitting then that Pope Benedict XVI has chosen the 150th anniversary of St. John Vianney’s death to call the whole Church to observe a Jubilee Year for Priests, during which he hopes priests and laity alike will grow in the understanding of the ministerial priesthood and its essential teaching, sanctifying, and governing roles in the life of the Church.

For more on the life and holiness of St. John Vianney, click here.

Below the break you’ll find reprinted an account of the meeting between John Vianney and Henri-Dominique Lacordaire, the diocesan priest turned Dominican who reestablished the Order of Preachers in France after the French Revolution. In May of 1845, God brought these two holy priests together for a memorable day of prayer and conversation.

Father of mercy,
you made Saint John Vianney outstanding
in his priestly zeal and concern for your people.
By his example and prayers,
enable us to win our brothers and sisters
to the love of Christ
and come with them to eternal glory.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, forever and ever. Amen.

From Pere Chocarne’s The Inner Life of Pere Lacordaire (London: R. Washbourne, 1878), p. 364-366:

At the end of the Lenten station at Lyons, he wished to go and see the venerable Cure of Ars.  He always entertained the greatest sentiment of esteem and respect for priestly sanctity.  He particularly admired in the old French clergythat grand priestly air which betokened, as he said, the union of two distinct qualities, the elevation of nature and of grace.  He often prayed to God to give a saint to France.  ”My God!” he exclaimed in the pulpit of Notre Dame, “when wilt Thou deign once more to give us saints?”  He therefore wished to see the Saint of Ars, to edify himself by his example, and doubtless also question him as to the future of his Order in France.  We shall borrow the account of this visit, which displayed the humility of both these illustrious souls, from the interesting history of the Cure of Ars, by the Abbe Monnin:

“On the 3rd of May, 1845, the Cure of Ars had just finished the devotions of the month of Mary.  The crowd of pilgrims were stationed around the church, waiting until the saint should appear, when they saw a modest carriage drive up, containing a priest wrapped in a great black mantle; so under the folds of the mantle there appeared a white habit, and every one began to cry out, ‘It is the great preacher!’  It was thus that our country people were accustomed to designate the orator who was preaching then at Lyons, and producing an emotion altogether without precedent in the records of Christian eloquence.  It was, in fact, Pere Lacordaire.  The next day the inhabitants of Ars were able to contemplate the illustrious Dominican, as he sat listening to the sermon of the Cure of Ars with humble recollection, and in an attitude of respectful attention. Genius forgot itself in the presence of sanctity, appearing under its simplest form.  M. Vianney was touched, and said to someone there, ‘Do you know the reflection that occurred to me during Pere Lacordaire’s visit?  What is greatest in intellect has come to abase itself before what is meanest in ignorance–the two extremes have met.’

“Pere Lacordaire was much moved by the warm exhortation with which he heard the man of God conjure his parishioners to invoke the Holy Ghost, and draw to themselves the plenitude of His gifts; he added, that he felt happy in being able to say, that had he been called on to treat the same subject, he should have done so, if not in the same terms, at least on the same plan.  ’This holy priest and I,’ he said, ‘do not use the same language, but I am happy in being able to affirm that we feel alike, even if we express ourselves differently.’  The orator had heard the saint, but the saint now wished to hear the eloquent religious; he therefore announced that in the evening, at vespers, ‘some one would talk better than he.’  Pere Lacordaire hesitated, and only consented when he was persuaded that to yield to the desire of the Cure of Ars would be to show him a mark of submission and respect.  But he complained of being made to speak instead of listen.  ’I came,’ he said, ‘to ask advice, and to be edified.’  He placed himself at the feet of the servant of God with so profound and sincere a humility, that each one of the parishioners shared in the glory which they felt to be thus reflected on their saint.

“‘Did you hear,’ they said, as they came out of the church, ‘did you hear the great preacher, how he put himself under the feet of our Cure?’

“Every heart was touched as they beheld the most admired Christian orator our our times, with his head bent down, and with an air of profound humility and recollection, following the old man, from whom he had asked perhaps some prophetic word touching the future of that Order which he had restored in France.  The holy Cure appreciated the greatnes and the faith discernible in this conduct.  Tears came into his eyes when, at the earnest entreaty of Pere Lacordaire, he was obliged to give him a blessing.  The elevation of his ideas, and the melody of his language, had produced the effect of enchantment on the mind and imagination of M. Vianney.  ’I shall no longer dare to appear in my pulpit,’ he said: ‘I feel like the man who, having met the Pope, and made him mount his horse, never afterwards ventured to ride it himself.’  As they spoke in his presence of the wonderful effects of the Conferences of Lyons, adding that, nevertheless, there were but few conversions: ‘Listen!,’ he said, ‘it will be an immense result if the preacher has proved to the learned folk who go to hear him, that somebody knows more than they do, and if he convinces all our bright geniuses that they are not quite the cleverest people in the whole world–we must make them admire the beauty of the edifice before inspiring them with the desire to enter.’

“Thus the effect of this memorable visit was complete and reciprocal.  The celebrated pilgrim appeared greatly edified by the holiness of the Cure of Ars; he promised to return, and he kept his word.  Without giving any account of the private conversation which he had held with M. Vianney, he acknowledged that he had received great light from him, and the most positive pledges of hope touching the restoration of the Friars Preachers.  He said, on the subject of the advice which he had received from the Cure of Ars, ‘Learning creates a capacity in our life, but does not fill it up; piety illuminates, elevates, and fills it.’”

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