Preparing for Pilgrimage to Ars

I have been prayerfully preparing myself for my first pilgrimage to Ars next week. Part of this preparation includes my reading of Fr Frederick Miller's book The Grace of Ars with a forward by Archbishop Raymond Burke. There is so much to learn from the life and ministry of St John Vianney. One such lesson is his terms of Jesus' Sacred Heart that for him describe the priesthood. Quoting from Fr Miller's book St John Vianney said,

The priest continues in the word of redemption on earth... If we really understood the priesthood on earth, we would not die of fright but of love... The Priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus.

I am very grateful to be making this pilgrimage with three priests with whom I can pray and have wonderful fellowship during our stay in Ars. It is my prayer that a renewed zeal for teaching and living the Catholic faith will become a fuller personal sanctity of my life in every area where I move and have my being. And so, I prepare meditating on the words from St John Vianney that describe the Eucharist as the gift of Christ's love and happiness for humanity.

Without the Holy Eucharist there would be no happiness in this world; life would be insupportable. When we receive Holy Communion, we receive our joy and our happiness. The good God,wishing to give Himself to us in the Sacrament of His Love, gave us a vast and great desire, which He alone can satisfy. In the presence of this beautiful Sacrament, we are like a person dying of thirst by the side of a river — he would only need to bend his head; like a person still remaining poor, close to a great treasure — he need only stretch out his hand. He who communicates loses himself in God like a drop of water in the ocean. They can no more be separated.