The Secret of the Curé de Ars Compiled, Partially Adapted, and Arranged by Pauly Fongemie SOURCES USED: Secrets of the Saints, Henri Ghéon, 1944; From the Housetops Magazine, Vol. XXIV, No. 3, Serial No. 53; The Life of the Curé de Ars, Abbé Alfred Monnin, 1861; and Eucharistic Meditations, Curé de Ars, Eccles. Appr. 1923 SUFFERINGS INFLICTED ON HIM BY GOD "A Christian," says St. Augustine, "must suffer more than another man, and a Saint more than an ordinary Christian." Now, since it was God's will that the Curé of Ars be His Saint, it was necessary for his sanctity that he should not only suffer from the ordinary course of life and his dealings with men, and by the devil, but by afflictions directly willed by God, because Saints in some fashion partake of the bitterness of the Chalice of the Divine Master, Who uttered from the Cross, "My God, My God, why hast Thou abandoned Me?" We know from the Abbé Baux, who served as the Saint's confessor for a number of years, that the soul of M. Vianney was habitually tested by the bitterest desolation. God did not permit him to know the immense good he was accomplishing and so, our Saint thought himself to be of no use, devoid of piety, understanding, knowledge and any virtue at all. In fact, Jean Vianney held himself to be a hindrance to all good. In his humbled heart, he shed much tears over his sins, his indevotion and ignorance, and yet, at the same time he demonstrated a generosity and courage that led him to abandon himself completely to God because of this very weakness he perceived. Let us cite from Monnin: "God," said he, almost in the words of St. Francis, "has showed me this great mercy, that He has given me nothing on which I could rely, neither talents, nor wisdom, nor knowledge, nor strength, nor virtue. When I look at myself, I can discover nothing but my poor sins. Yet He suffers me not to see them all, nor to know myself fully, lest I should despair. I have no resource against this temptation to despair, but to throw myself before the tabernacle, like a little dog at his master's feet." "He was continually haunted," says M. Monnin, "by confusion for faults past, and by fear of faults to come; by the constant dread of doing ill on every occasion." "It would be difficult to overrate the intensity of such a trial to a man overwhelmed, as he was, with labour for souls, and compelled to give instant decision upon cases involving the eternal salvation of those who hung upon his words as the oracles of God. His intense appreciation of the sanctity required of the ministers of the sanctuary was another source of suffering. He was speaking one day with deep sadness of the difficulty of corresponding with the sanctity of a priest's vocation, when the young ecclesiastic with whom he was conversing said to him, 'But still, M. le Curé, there are many good men among the clergy.'   "What do you say, my friend?" replied M. Vianney. "Assuredly there are many good men among us! Where should they be found, if not among us? But," continued he, with increasing animation, "to say Mass, one ought to be a seraph;" and he began to weep bitterly. Then, after a pause, "See, my friend, I place Him on the right, He remains on the right; I place Him on the left, He remains on the left. If we really knew what the Mass is, we should die! We shall never understand how blessed a thing it is to say Mass till we are in Heaven. My friend the cause of all the misery and relaxation of the priesthood is the want of due attention to the Mass. My God, how pitiable is the state of that priest who does this as an ordinary thing! There are some who have begun well, who have said Mass so devoutly for some months; and afterwards"---again his voice was choked, with tears. "Oh, when we consider what it is that our great God has intrusted to us, miserable creatures that we are! What does the mischief is, all this worldly news, this worldly conversation, these politics, these newspapers. We fill our heads with them; then we go on to say our Mass, or our Office. My one great desire would be to retire to Four-vières, having no charge of any soul but my own; and after I had said my prayers well, to spend the rest of my day in serving the sick. Oh, how happy should I be!" Then, speaking of a priest, well known to his visitor, "He wished," said he, "to enter religion; he would have joined the Marist fathers. Theirs is a work according to God 's own heart, for it combines humility, simplicity, and contradictions. They go on bravely. If I could, I would become a Marist. But the friends of this priest having made sacrifices for him, he thought it best, in order to relieve them, to accept a curé, as he said, for a time. He thinks no more now of his purpose of entering religion. Oh, when we have taken this first step, it is hard to get loose!" "M. le Curé, if you could get Mgr. Devie's consent, you would soon get loose." The holy curé began to laugh: "Most assuredly! Well, my friend, we must not lose confidence. But the breviary is not overburdened with canonized parish-priests. This Saint was a monk, that a missionary; there are many others of different callings. St. John Francis Regis and St. Vincent of Paul did not remain parish-priests to the end of their days. There are even more Bishops canonized, though their number is so small compared with that of priests. My friend, the ruin of priests is the habit of continually going to visit each other. By all means let them go occasionally to visit a brother for mutual edification, or for confession. But to be always running about! Alas!---You are a subdeacon, my friend; you are happy. When once we are priests, we have nothing to do but to weep over our poor misery. That which prevents us priests from becoming Saints, is the want of reflection. We do not enter into ourselves; we do not know what we are doing. What we want is reflection, prayer, and union with God. Oh, how unhappy is a priest who is not interior! But to be interior, we need silence and retirement, my friend,---retirement. It is in solitude that God speaks to us. I say sometimes to Mgr. Devie, 'If you want to convert your diocese, you must make Saints of all your parish-priests.' Oh, my friend, what a fearful thing it is to be a priest! Confession! the Sacraments! What a charge! Oh, if men knew what it is to be a priest, they would fly, like the Saints of old, into the desert to escape the burden. The way to be a good priest would be to live always like a seminarist; but this is not always possible. One of our great misfortunes is, that our souls become callous. At first we are deeply moved at the state of those who do not love God; at last we come to say, ' These people do their duty well, so much the better; these others keep away from the Sacraments, so much the worse.' And we do neither more nor less in consequence." He added, that the isolation of priests was another dangerous snare, and source of manifold temptation. "Unfortunately," says M. Monnin, " his words upon that subject were not recorded; which is the more to be regretted, as they touch upon a vital question, and would have completed this remarkable enumeration of the duties and dangers of the life of a parish-priest." M. Vianney once said, in the anguish of his heart, to a beloved brother in the priesthood.. "I am withering away with sadness upon this poor earth: my soul is sorrowful, even unto death. My ears hear nothing but horrors, which pierce my heart. I have no time to pray. I can hold out no longer. Tell me, would it be a great sin to disobey my Bishop by running away secretly?" "M. le Curé," was the reply, "if you wish to lose all the fruit of your labour, you have nothing to do but to give way to this temptation." Another day, as he came from his confessional more broken down than usual, he stopped to look at some fowls ,which had scratched a hole in the sand of his court-yard, and were resting there asleep in the cool shade, with their heads under their wings. " I think these hens are very happy," said he. " If they had but a soul, I should like to be in their place." But the bitterest drop in his chalice was the perpetual vision of sin; the daily insults offered to the Master lie adored. "My God," cried he one day, "how long shall I dwell among sinners? when shall I be with the Saints? Our God is so continually offended, that one is tempted to pray for the end of the world. If there were not here and there some few holy souls, to console our hearts, and rest our eyes, from all the evil which we see slid hear, we could not bear up against all we have to endure in this life. When we think of the ingratitude of men towards the good God, we are tempted to go to th. other side of the earth, to see no more of it. It is horrible. If only the good God were less good; but He is so good! O my God! my God! what will be our shame when the day of judgment shall discover to us all our ingratitude! We shall then understand it; but it will be too late." "No," said he, in one of his catechetical instructions, with an accent of the bitterest anguish, " there is no one in this world so unhappy as a priest. In what does he pass his life? In beholding the good God offended; His holy name continually blasphemed; His commandments continually violated; His love continually outraged. The priest sees nothing but this; hears nothing out this. He is always like St. Peter in the pretorium of Pilate. He has al ways before his eyes his Lord insulted, despised, mocked, covered with ignominy. Some spit in his face, others strike him, others set It crown of thorns upon His head, others load Him with stripes. They push Him, they trample Him under their feet, they crucify Him, they pierce His heart. Ah, if I had known what it is to be a priest, instead of entering a seminary, I would have escaped to La Trappe." It was observed that on Fridays the countenance of the holy priest indicated, by its paleness and the deep sadness of its expression, the intensity of his sympathy with the sufferings of our Lord. Generally speaking, however, there was no outward indication of the conflict within, such was the strength of the patience in which he possessed his soul. " Only," as M. Monnin tells us, "the countenance, whose prevailing expression, when he looked at others, was benevolence, unconsciously assumed a look of sadness when he gazed inward upon himself, and found himself face to face with all the faults, weaknesses, and miseries of his poor life." Yet he flinched not for all this: "he bowed his head; suffered the storm to pass over him; made no change, absolutely none, in his resolutions or his conduct. Ho prayed more than usual; redoubled his fasts, his disciplines, and macerations; he kept himself more closely united to God, and laboured no less. Whatever might be the aspect of the heavens or the state of his heart, he went on his way with the same energetic step, and the same calm and tranquil bearing. No suffering of mind or body ever had power to make him swerve one hair's breadth from the way of duty, or to relax in the slightest degree the steady onward speed of his course." Continued forward. 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