St. John Vianney, Houston, TX - Pope's Encyclical Part I

Dear Brother Priests,

Holy Thursday, the Feast of Priests

1. Here we are again, about to celebrate Holy Thursday, the day on which Christ Jesus instituted the Eucharist and at the same time our ministerial Priesthood. "Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end."(1) As the Good Shepherd, he was about to give up his life for his sheep,(2) to save man, to reconcile himself with his Father and bring him into a new life. And already at the Last Supper he offered the Apostles as food his own Body given up for them, and his Blood shed for them.

Each year this day is an important one for all Christians: like the first disciples, they come to receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the evening liturgy that renews the Last Supper. They receive from the Saviour his testament of fraternal love which must inspire their whole lives, and they begin to watch with him, in order to be united with him in his Passion. You yourselves gather them together and guide their prayer.

But this day is especially important for us, dear brother priests. It is the feast of priests. It is the birthday of our Priesthood, which is a sharing in the one Priesthood of Christ the Mediator. On this day the priests of the whole world are invited to concelebrate the Eucharist with their bishops and with them to renew the promises of their priestly commitment to the service of Christ and his Church.

As you know, I feel particularly close to each one of you on this occasion. And, the same as every year, as a sign of our sacramental union in the same Priesthood, and impelled by my affectionate esteem for you and by my duty to confirm all my brothers in their service of the Lord, I wish to send you this letter to help you stir up the wonderful gift that was conferred on you through the laying on of hands.(3) This ministerial Priesthood which is our lot is also our vocation and our grace. It marks our whole life with the seal of the most necessary and most demanding of services, the salvation of souls. We are led to it by a host of predecessors.

The matchless example of the Curé of Ars

2. One of those predecessors remains particularly present in the memory of the Church, and he will be especially commemorated this year, on the second centenary of his birth: *Saint John Marie Vianney, the Curé of Ars*.

Together we wish to thank Christ, the Prince of Pastors, for this extraordinary model of priestly life and service which the saintly Curé of Ars offers to the whole Church, and above all to us priests.

How many of us prepared ourselves for the Priesthood, or today exercise the difficult task of caring for souls, having before our eyes the figure of Saint John Mary Vianney! His example cannot be forgotten. More than ever we need his witness, his intercession, in order to face the situations of our times when, in spite of a certain number of hopeful signs, evangelization is being contradicted by a growing secularization, when spiritual discipline is being neglected, when many are losing sight of the Kingdom of God, when often, even in the pastoral ministry, there is a too exclusive concern for the social aspect, for temporal aims. In the last century the Curé of Ars had to face difficulties which were perhaps of a different kind but which were no less serious. By his life and work he represented, for the society of his time, a great evangelical challenge that bore astonishing fruits of conversion. Let us not doubt that he still presents to us today that *great evangelical challenge*.

I therefore invite you now to meditate on our Priesthood in the presence of this matchless pastor who illustrates both the fullest realization of the priestly ministry and the holiness of the minister.

As you know, John Mary Baptist Vianney dies at Ars on 4 August 1859, after some forty years of exhausting dedication. He was seventy-three years of age. When he arrived, Ars was a small and obscure village in the Diocese of Lyons, now in the Diocese of Belley. At the end of his life, people came from all over France, and his reputation for holiness, after he had been called home to God, soon attracted the attention of the universal Church. Saint Pius X beatified him in 1905, Pius XI canonized him in 1925, and then in 1929 declared him Patron Saint of the parish priests of the whole world. On the centenary of his death, Pope John XXIII wrote the Encyclical "Nostri Sacerdotii Primitias," to present the Curé of Ars as a model of priestly life and asceticism, a model of pastoral zeal, and this in the context of the needs of our time. Here, I would simply like to draw your attention to certain essential points so as to help us to rediscover and live our Priesthood better.

THE TRULY EXTRAORDINARY LIFE
OF THE CURÉ OF ARS

His tenacious will in preparing for the Priesthood

3. The Curé of Ars is truly a model of strong will for those preparing for the Priesthood. Many of the trials which followed one after another could have discouraged him: the effects of the upheaval of the French Revolution, the lack of opportunities for education in his rural environment, the reluctance of his father, the need for him to do his share of work in the fields, the hazards of military service. Above all, and in spite of his intuitive intelligence and lively sensitivity, there was his great difficulty in learning and memorizing, and so in following the theological courses in Latin, all of which resulted in his dismissal from the seminary in Lyons. However, after the genuineness of his vocation had finally been acknowledged, at 29 years of age he was able to be ordained. Through his tenacity in working and praying, he overcame all obstacles and limitations, just as he did later in his priestly life, by his perseverance in laboriously preparing his sermons or spending the evenings reading the works of theologians and spiritual writers. From his youth he was filled with a great desire to "win souls for the good of God" by being a priest, and he was supported by the confidence placed in him by the parish priest of the neighboring town of Ecully, who never doubted his vocation and took charge of a good part of his training. What an example of courage for those who today experience the grace of being called to the Priesthood!

The depth of his love for Christ and for souls.

4. The Curé of Ars is a model of priestly zeal for all pastors. The secret of his generosity is to be found without doubt in *his love for God*, lived without limits, in constant response to the love made manifest *in Christ crucified*. This is where he bases his desire to do everything to save the souls ransomed by Christ at such a great price, and to bring them back to the love of God. Let us recall one of those pithy sayings which he had the knack of uttering: "The priesthood is the love of the Heart of Jesus."(4) In his sermons and catechesis he continually returned to that love: "O my God, I prefer to die loving you than to live a single instant without loving you... I love you, my divine Saviour, because you were crucified for us... because you have me crucified for you."(5)

For the sake of Christ, he seeks to conform himself exactly to the radical demands that Jesus in the Gospels puts before the disciples whom he sends out: prayer, poverty, humility, self-denial, voluntary penance. And, like Christ, he has a love for his flock that leads him to extreme pastoral commitment and self-sacrifice. Rarely has a pastor been so acutely aware of his responsibilities, so consumed by a desire to wrest his people from the sins of their lukewarmness. "O my God, grant me the conversion of my parish: I consent to suffer whatever you wish, for as long as I live."

Dear brother priests, nourished by the Second Vatican Council which has felicitously placed the priest's consecration within the framework of his pastoral mission, let us join Saint John Mary Vianney and seek the dynamism of our pastoral zeal in the Heart of Jesus, in his love for souls. If we do not draw from the same source, our ministry risks bearing little fruit!

The many wonderful fruits of his ministry

5. In the case of the Curé of Ars, the results were indeed wonderful, somewhat as with Jesus in the Gospel. Through John Mary Vianney, who consecrates his whole strength and his whole heart to him, Jesus saves souls. The Saviour entrusts them to him, in abundance.

First, *his parish* - which numbered only 230 people when he arrived - which will be profoundly changed. One recalls that in that village there was a great deal of indifference and very little religious practice among the men. The bishop had warned John Mary Vianney: "There is not much love of God in that parish, you will put some there." But quite soon, far beyond his own village, the Curé becomes *the pastor of a multitude* coming from the entire region, from different parts of France and from other countries. It is said that 80,000 came in the year 1858! People sometimes waited for days to see him, to go to confession to him. What attracted them to him was not merely curiosity nor even a reputation justified by miracles and extraordinary cures, which the saint would wish to hide. It was much more the realization of meeting a saint, amazing for his penance, so close to God in prayer, remarkable for his peace and humility in the midst of popular acclaim, and above all so intuitive in responding to the inner disposition of souls and in freeing them from their burdens, especially in the confessional. Yes, God chose as a model for pastors one who could have appeared poor, weak, defenseless and contemptible in the eyes of men.(6) He graced them with his best gifts as a guide and healer of souls.

While recognizing the special nature of the grace given to the Curé of Ars, is there not here a sign of hope for pastors today who are suffering from a kind of spiritual desert?

THE MAIN ACTS OF THE MINISTRY
OF THE CURÉ OF ARS
Different apostolic approaches to what is essential

6. John Mary Vianney dedicated himself essentially to teaching the faith and to purifying consciences, and these two ministries were directed towards the Eucharist. Should we not see here, today also, the three objectives of the priest's pastoral service?

While the purpose is undoubtedly to bring the people of God together around the Eucharistic mystery by means of catechesis and penance, other apostolic approaches, varying according to circumstances, are also necessary. Sometimes it is a simple presence, over the years, with the silent witness of faith in the midst of non-Christian surroundings; or being near to people, to families and their concerns; there is a preliminary evangelization that seeks to awaken to the faith unbelievers and the lukewarm; there is the witness of charity and justice shared with Christian lay people, which makes the faith more credible and puts it into practice. These give rise to a whole series of undertakings and apostolic works which prepare or continue Christian formation. The Curé of Ars himself taxed his ingenuity to devise initiatives adapted to his time and his parishioners. However, all these priestly activities were centered on the Eucharist, catechesis and the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

The Sacrament of Reconciliation

7. It is undoubtedly his untiring devotion to ... | MORE |

FOOTNOTES

1. Jn 13:1.
2. Cf. Jn 10:11.
3. Cf. 2 Tm 1:6.
4. Cf. "Jean-Marie Vianney, Curé d'Ars, sa pensee, son coeur presentes par l'Abbe Bernard nodet, editions Xavier Mappus, LePuy, 1958, p. 100; henceforth qouted as: Nodet.
5. Nodet, p. 44.
6. Cf. 1 Cor 1:28-29.