Curé of Ars: Transforming the Hearts of So Many

(Picture of the Curé of Ars outside his childhood home).
Having time to reflect on my time in Ars this weekend has been a great joy and privilege. While I was there, I was able to finish the book The Grace of Ars by Fr Frederick Miller. It was a wonderful read and a reminder of the ascetic life of St John Vianney. In the book, priests are warned of three great temptations: for stuff, honour (especially craving the episcopacy), and building a personality cult. The story of his life is amazing and his ministry was second to none. One can feel the love of the Saint while visiting the small quiet village. Ars is about reordering ones private world in order to bring us back to the basics; the basics of labouring, not for ourselves, but for the real purpose of seeing hearts and lives transformed to the truth of Christ's love. Pope Benedict XVI wrote the following when announcing the Year for Priests that I was able to feel and experience in that most holy place that became filled with the love of Christ because that loved flowed from the heart of this wonderful saint.

In his time the Curé of Ars was able to transform the hearts and the lives of so many people because he enabled them to experience the Lord’s merciful love. Our own time urgently needs a similar proclamation and witness to the truth of Love: Deus caritas est (1 Jn: 4:8). Thanks to the word and the sacraments of Jesus, John Mary Vianney built up his flock, although he often trembled from a conviction of his personal inadequacy, and desired more than once to withdraw from the responsibilities of the parish ministry out of a sense of his unworthiness. Nonetheless, with exemplary obedience he never abandoned his post, consumed as he was by apostolic zeal for the salvation of souls. He sought to remain completely faithful to his own vocation and mission through the practice of an austere asceticism: “The great misfortune for us parish priests – he lamented – is that our souls grow tepid”; meaning by this that a pastor can grow dangerously inured to the state of sin or of indifference in which so many of his flock are living.[30] He himself kept a tight rein on his body, with vigils and fasts, lest it rebel against his priestly soul. Nor did he avoid self-mortification for the good of the souls in his care and as a help to expiating the many sins he heard in confession. To a priestly confrere he explained: “I will tell you my recipe: I give sinners a small penance and the rest I do in their place”.[31] Aside from the actual penances which the Curé of Ars practised, the core of his teaching remains valid for each of us: souls have been won at the price of Jesus’ own blood, and a priest cannot devote himself to their salvation if he refuses to share personally in the “precious cost” of redemption.

This is practical for all those baptised into the priestly ministry of Christ. Priests and laity alike face the spiritual temptations that St John Vianney faced. So much of the ministry of winning souls is something we are all called to do together. The warning that the Holy Father gives via the Curé of Ars can speak to each and every one of us. What St J Vianney's life modeled is something everyone is called to live as a baptised member of Christ and his Church.