“Only after the Last Judgment will Mary get any rest; from now until then, she is much too busy with her children.”
Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney was born in 1786 in Dardilly, France and baptized the same day. He was the 4th of 6 children and raised in a Catholic home that often helped the poor.
The anti-clerical terror phase of the French Revolution forced priests to work in secrecy or face execution and young Vianney believed the priests were heroes.
In 1802, the Catholic Church was reestablished in France. Religious freedom and peace spread throughout the country and he began to study for priest-hood. Unfortunately, after only a couple of years, John was drafted into Napoleon’s army. After 2 days in service he fell ill and was hospitalized. He met a young man in a church who volunteered to return him to his military group but instead led him deep into the mountains where military deserters met. He stayed for a short while.
After deserters were granted amnesty, he resumed his studies in a seminary, was ordained a deacon then a priest. He realized many did not know nor care of religion as a result of the revolution which he greatly worked against. He endured severe fasts, short nights with the devil disturbing his sleep and spent up to 16 hours each day with reconciliation or delivering homilies for the people.
With Catherine Lassagne and Benedicta Lardet, he established La Providence, a home for orphaned and abandoned children.
His fame spread and people began to travel to him as he reclaimed thousands of lapsed Catholics. Within 30 years, he received up to 20,000 pilgrims each year. Situations calling for “impossible” deeds followed him everywhere. He was devoted to St. Philomena and erected a chapel and shrine in her honor. He later became deathly ill but miraculously recovered and he attributed his health to her.
Refusing all honors offered to him, John died in 1859.
“Private prayer is like straw scattered here and there: If you set it on fire, it makes a lot of little flames. But gather these straws into a bundle and light them, and you get a mighty fire, rising like a column into the sky; public prayer is like that.”
He is the patron saint of priests.
His feast day is August 4.
For God’s Glory.
