The Curé Of Ars: Saint Jean Baptiste Marie Vianney 1785-1859

JEAN BAPTISTE MARIE VIANNEY was born in 1785 at Dardilly, a village not far from Lyons. His parents were respectable and pious people of the farmer class. His mother was specially noted for her great and deep religious feeling, and it was to her teaching that Monsieur Vianney used to say he owed all his holiest impressions. But from a child the little Jean Marie was noted for his goodness and his love of God. Prayer was his delight, even at four years old, when, being one day missed, he was found on his knees in a corner of the stable. His loving mother would go every morning herself to wake her children, so that she might make them offer their little hearts to God and to secure that this should be their first thought. When she saw her little boy’s extraordinary devotion, her one idea was that he should some day become a priest. But she had many trials to go through ere this hope could be realised. First came the French Revolution, which swept away both throne and altar. Their parish church was closed — their priests exiled or murdered. Few and far between were the blessed seasons when the faithful were summoned to some carefully-guarded hiding-place, where Mass was said by some fugitive priest, at the peril of his life and theirs.