The Saint of Ars: Holiness in Simplicity

by Fr. John Granato  |  08/03/2025  |  Words from Fr. John

My Dear Friends,

Tomorrow we celebrate the feast day of St. John Vianney, the Cure of Ars. St. John Vianney is the patron saint of parish priests. When his neighboring priests of the diocese became jealous of him, they passed around a petition accusing St. John Vianney of many things and asked people to sign it so that they could send it to the bishop and have St. John Vianney removed from the parish in Ars. Somehow the petition arrived at Ars, and when St. John Vianney saw it, he immediately signed the letter.

In fact, he tried several times to leave the parish church only to have his parishioners track him down and bring him back. He famously would sit in the confessional for up to eighteen hours a day, and he would do the penances that he gave for each penitent. His Latin was poor, and he almost did not get ordained because of that. (Latin of course was required by the priests during that time on the church).

He had to work extra hard because of his simple educational skills, but he is an example of how a priest only needs holiness to be an effective pastor; that education and degrees are not required to bring Christ to people. He lived a very simple life, but he made sure that the parish church had the best of whatever he could get his hands on for the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Hundreds of thousands of people flocked to the little village of Ars in order to hear him preach and to listen to their confessions. Holiness is attractive and the love of the Blessed Sacrament is essential to growing in that holiness and virtue. The Saint of Ars loved our Lord present in the Holy Eucharist immensely. And it showed and bore results.

Let us pray, especially through his intercession, that the Lord will rise up more priests after his own heart and that they would become faithful and holy priests.

God bless!