Saint John Vianney - Reflection

Karol Wojtyla, future pope, from his seminary times was fascinated with John Vianney. In his book about the priesthood entitled, Gift and Mystery, (by the way I highly recommend), he said this, “One aspect fascinates me about the life of Cure of Ars. His life reveals the power of the grace of God at work through poverty of human nature.”
This sentence has inspired me on my way to the priesthood and taught me that if we let the grace of God work in and mold our souls, he can do with us marvelous things. One does not to be especially gifted, intelligent, smart and bright to become holy. The life of Saint John Vianney teaches us that. It is enough that we open our souls in total humility so that God can work in us and through us.
It is indeed interesting that the patron of parish priests is not the intellectual and academic thinker, author of books or some kind of scholar. Instead, it is a man who so loved his people and God that he was willing to sacrifice himself for them. One of the lawyers from Lyon after visiting Father John, said, “I have seen God in Man.”
The life of St. John teaches and encourages us that we are capable of holiness. If he was able to become holy so we are.

St. John Mary Vianney

He was born in 1786 in Dardilly, close to Lyon, France, just three years before French Revolution started during which Catholics suffered severe persecutions and discrimination. John felt calling to the priesthood but his path to ordination was not an easy one. He struggled with academic subjects --- in fact, many in the seminary thought that he was too dumb to be a priest. Finally, he was ordained in 1815 and sent to tiny French village called Ars. This is what he was told by the vicar general of the diocese, “There is not too much love of God where you are going. Maybe you could do something about it”.
And he did. He spent almost forty-two years of his life in Ars, devoting himself to prayer, mortification, and pastoral works. His success in directing souls made him known throughout the Christian world --- he would sit in the confessional for 13 to 18 hours a day. People of all ranks and conditions of life sought his guidance and advice. He was beatified by Pope St. Pius X, himself once a parish priest, and canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1929. He is a patron of parish priests and confessors.