Monday, August 4, is the feast of St. John Baptiste Marie Vianney, the parish priest of Ars in France. He is the patron saint of parish priests. I read about his life way back in highschool, and came to know of the usual facts about him, that he was late in his formation, that he had had difficulty in studies especially in Latin, that he was assigned in Ars a remote province in France because of his limited capacities, that he spent hours and hours [if I remember right upto 16 hours] hearing confession, that he was only taking poatoes inside the confessional box in order not to stop the long lines of penitents, that he was menaced by the devil in his sleep to the point of burning a corner of his bed, and that his body is incorruptible. In seminaries and among seminarians, St. John Marie Vianney is a famous saint.
Then, I got to visit Ars. In 2005, I was privileged to accompany Bishop Ness to an international retreat for priests in Ars. We stayed there for five days. Imagine how blessed we were to be able to live where the holy cura lived, and to celebrate mass where he celebrated mass.
While in Ars, I came to know of a touching detail of the saintly priest's life. There was a time in his stay in Ars that he wanted to leave, thinking that there was no room for him in the village. Nobody was going to mass, to confession, to communion, and nobody was heeding his exhortations. He left the convent one night with no intentions of going back. Before leaving the village, he passed by the cemetery, entered and stopped there for a while. There he was struck by an interesting thought -- the villagers of Ars would all end up in the cemetery, and they would need salvation, a salvation that a priest as he is could offer. The villagers needed him whether they were aware of it or not. By leaving the village, he was taking away from the villagers a way to salvation. And so, he went to the other direction and went back to the convent. And there he found his holiness. Ars became known home to a holy priest.
St. John Marie Vianney was on the verge of giving up on Ars, but he was moved with pity for souls. Compassion pulled him back to the convent and went to become a model and patron for all parish priests. When on the edge of giving up, of saying it quits, of giving in to failure, what pulls us back on our toes is compassion. "To be moved with pity" is to find meaning anew in service, sharing and sacrifice. Sometimes we do not get what we expect from people we serve or from activities we plan. Sometimes we get discouraged. But the challenge for compassion never runs dry. There will always be people to serve, activities to plan, souls to save. To recognize them alway and not be numb, to be sensitive to needs and not on results, to persevere and not to give up, these are lessons I took with me when I lived for five days in the village where St. John Vianney lived. Amen.
