JESUS CARITAS
Year for Priests:
St. John Vianney
Part Three: Confessor Par Excellence
By Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted | Sept. 3, 2009 | The Catholic Sun
Editor’s note: This is the third part in a new series of columns in celebration of the holy Year for Priests.
The confessional was the place where St. John Vianney spent great lengths of time in service to the Lord and His people. His popularity as a confessor increased year by year until he was spending 10 to 12 hours per day, occasionally many more, hearing confessions; serving as an instrument of God’s mercy. In the latter part of his 41 years as a priest, railway cars had to be added to the trains from Lyons to Ars to accommodate the hundreds of pilgrims traveling there each day to encounter Christ through the priestly ministry of the Cure of Ars and to receive God’s forgiveness through the Sacrament of Penance.
Not resigned to empty confessionals
When Fr. Vianney arrived in Ars, the people had little to no appreciation of the need for the Sacrament of Penance. But this holy priest was convinced that God could transform this sad reality. Fr. Vianney would assist the Lord in this by helping people to discover the close connection between the mystery of the Eucharist and the Sacrament of Penance.
Recently, Pope Benedict XVI said of St. John Vianney, “He was convinced that the fervor of a priest’s life depended entirely upon the Mass: ‘The reason why a priest is lax is that he does not pay attention to the Mass! My God, how we ought to pity a priest who celebrates as if he were engaged in something routine!’ … This deep personal identification with the Sacrifice of the Cross led him — by a sole inward movement — from the altar to the confessional. Priests ought never to be resigned to empty confessionals or the apparent indifference of the faithful to this Sacrament. In France, at the time of the Cure of Ars, confession was no more easy or frequent than in our own day, since the upheaval caused by the revolution had long inhibited the practice of religion. Yet he sought in every way, by his preaching and power of persuasion, to help his parishioners to rediscover the meaning and beauty of the Sacrament of Penance, presenting it as an inherent demand of the Eucharistic presence. He thus created a ‘virtuous’ circle.”
The Cure’s advice
Fr. Vianney earned a reputation for kindness in the confessional. He did not avoid gentle confrontation, when needed, to help someone squarely face his or her own need for mercy, or to correct errors of faith or morals. But He kept in mind that, at the altar and in the confessional, the priest is merely the human instrument that Christ Himself uses to heal sinners and to restore hope.
When it was helpful, the Cure of Ars offered advice to penitents. He tended to be brief in his remarks, drawing no attention to himself but saying only what would draw people closer to the love and truth of Christ, or help them to live out their Christian vocation. For example, to a bishop who knelt at his feet and sought God’s mercy, Fr. Vianney gave just five words of advice, “Be kind to your priests.”
Ironically, when Fr. Vianney was first ordained, the diocesan authorities advised the bishop that he should not be given faculties for confessions, probably fearing that his poor academic showing during priestly formation signaled an abysmal lack of priestly prudence. The bishop followed this advice for only a few months and then granted him the faculties.
When sent to Ars, a diocesan official told this new pastor, “There is not much love in that parish — you will instill some into it.” More prophetic words were never spoken. He instilled that love, above all, at the Altar of Sacrifice and in the confessional. Still today, these are the primary places where a priest is a channel of the rich love and mercy of God.
Person to person
When Jesus began His public ministry great crowds flocked to hear Him, so many that, on one occasion they had to tear the roof off a house to be able to be near Him. He looked upon the multitude with compassion, even multiplying bread for them to eat and teaching them in parables about the Kingdom of God.
When Jesus healed, however, He did so individually. Not infrequently, He would lead a person in need of healing aside from the crowd so that the person-to-person encounter could be preserved. Recall the time that a crowd brought to Jesus a deaf man who had a speech impediment. St. Mark tells us (Mk 7:33), “He took him off by himself away from the crowd.” There, in a deeply personal way, Jesus healed the man and led him to know the merciful love of God.
St. John Vianney recognized that the Sacrament of Penance is the most personal of all the Sacraments. This is because it is through this sacrament, along with baptism, that we are reconciled with God after we have seriously sinned. In this Sacrament, the words of St. Paul to the Colossians are fulfilled (Col 1:13-14), “God rescued us from the power of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of His beloved Son. Through Him we have redemption, the forgiveness of our sins.” On many occasions, Fr. Vianney helped persons discover the full meaning of these words.
In the next article of this series, we shall look at another dimension of God’s mercy, namely beauty, and how the Cure of Ars’ keen sense of beauty was evident in his pastoral ministry.
