Apostleship of Prayer - Saints
August 2 - St John Vianney
John Vianney was born near Lyons in France in 1786. John started his schooling when he was twenty years of age, which did not help much for his seminary training. According to one story, John never passed an exam in his life. He was hopeless in trying to understand the lectures that were given in Latin. However he was ordained in 1815. Then he was appointed to be a curate to a venerable but acknowledge old Parish Priest. But what they had in common was their great love of God and Jesus.
In 1818 he was appointed to be the Parish Priest of Ars-en-Dombes. The people of this village were indifferent to God and quite comfortable with their own style of living. Here he poured out the rest of his life on their behalf. His life was noted for its prayer and fasting.
He became noted as a confessor and he would spend between ten to twelve hours in the confessional to the thousands of people who came from all over France to go to confession to this man who became acknowledged as a saint in his own life time. In the summer months this time was increased to sixteen hours of the day.
He died in 1859.
John Vianney had a strong desire to combat the lack of interest that people had in religion and the love of material comfort that they also had. If there are two potential sins in our own time are these two. John's great love of God and of People drove him to fight against these sins of his time and we can ask him to intercede for us in our times.
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