Because our wedding day, August 4th, is the feastday of Saint Jean Baptiste Marie Vianney, we want to share his faithful witness of God's love. We pray that he will intercede for us on our wedding day and throughout our marriage.

"Universally known as the 'Cure of Ars,' St. John Mary Vianney was ordained a priest in 1815. Three years later he was made parish priest of Ars, a remote French hamlet, where his reputation as a confessor and director of souls made him known throughout the Christian world. His life was one of extreme mortification.

Accustomed to the most severe austerities, beleaguered by swarms of penitents, and besieged by the devil, this great mystic manifested a imperturbable patience. He was a wonderworker loved by the crowds, but he retained a childlike simplicity, and he remains to this day the living image of the priest after the heart of Christ.

He heard confessions of people from all over the world for the sixteen hours each day. His life was filled with works of charity and love. It is recorded that even the staunchest of sinners were converted at his mere word. He died August 4, 1859, and was canonized May 31, 1925." - from Catholic Online's saint index


"His direction was characterized by common sense, remarkable insight, and supernatural knowledge. He would sometimes divine sins withheld in an imperfect confession. His instructions were simple in language, full of imagery drawn from daily life and country scenes, but breathing faith and that love of God which was his life principle and which he infused into his audience as much by his manner and appearance as by his words, for, at the last, his voice was almost inaudible.

The miracles recorded by his biographers are of three classes:

• first, the obtaining of money for his charities and food for his orphans;
• secondly, supernatural knowledge of the past and future;
• thirdly, healing the sick, especially children.

The greatest miracle of all was his life. He practised mortification from his early youth. and for forty years his food and sleep were insufficient, humanly speaking, to sustain life. And yet he laboured incessantly, with unfailing humility, gentleness, patience, and cheerfulness, until he was more than seventy-three years old." - from New Advent

Interesting fact: St. John Vianney's body remains incorrupt, which is a special grace given to some saints.

• "'Come now my little one,' [St. John Vianney] said with fatherly kindliness to the woman who confided to him her anxiety because of her large family. 'Do not be alarmed at your burden - our Lord carries it with you. The good God does well all that he does: when he gives many children to a young mother it is that he deems her worthy to rear them. It is a mark of confidence on his part.'" - from an interesting blog post
  
• "If you want to sanctify others, begin with yourself. Vianney's conversion of the parish started with his own, and his deepened along with theirs. He did not arrive in Ars already a saint. He became one at Ars by being a priest for his flock, and gained sanctity over time through much grace and struggle." - from a thorough article on St. John Vianney's priesthood