St. John Marie Vianney - Feast Day August 4

Feast Day: August 4 

Born: May 8, 1768 :: Died: 1859

John Mary Vianney was born in Lyons, in France. As a child he took care of his father's sheep. He loved to pray but he also loved to play horseshoes. When John was eighteen, he asked his father if he could become a priest. His father was worried because John had become a big help on the family farm but two years later his father agreed.

When he was twenty years old, John studied under Father Balley. The priest was very patient but John became sad when he found it difficult to learn Latin. He then decided to walk sixty miles, which was a very long walk, to the shrine of St. John Francis Regis whose feast we celebrate on June 16. John prayed to St. John Francis for help. After the pilgrimage, he still found his lessons difficult but now he was not sad. He just decided to study harder.

John was finally able to enter the seminary to become a priest. No matter how much he tried, he found his studies quite hard. In the final exams, which were spoken, not written, John had to face a group of teachers and answer their questions. He was very worried and could not complete the test. 

Yet, because John was a holy man, he was full of common sense and understood what the Church taught about the subjects. He knew the right answers when asked what should be done in this case or that. He just couldn't say those answers in the difficult way they were taught in the Latin text books. John was ordained and became a priest anyway. He understood what his job was as a priest and everyone knew he was a good man.

After he became a priest, he was sent to a little parish called Ars. Father Vianney fasted, prayed and did hard penance so that God would save the people of his parish from sin. The people of his parish were not all good. They drank too much liquor, used bad language, worked even on Sundays and never went to Church.

Then God heard Fr. Vianney's prayer and one by one the liquor shops closed down. People slowly started going to Church for Mass and began worshipping God.

God gave John the power to see into people's minds and to know the future. Because of this gift, he converted many sinners and helped people make the right choices in life. 

Hundreds of pilgrims began to come to Ars and St. John Vianney spent twelve to sixteen hours everyday hearing confessions. He really wanted to spend the rest of his life in a monastery as a monk; instead, he stayed forty-two years at Ars and died there in 1859 at the age of seventy-three.

May 18 - Mother Magdalen Damen

May 18 - “Mother Magdalen Damen” © icon by Br. Robert Lentz, OFM.

This foundress of the Franciscan Sisters of Penance and Christian Charity of Nonnenwerth was born in 1787 at Laek, in Dutch Limburg. She received the habit of the Third Order of St. Francis in 1817, and gathered a few other women around her to teach children and care for the sick. There were no institutions to provide these services.

The local priest profited from their help, but opposed their efforts to form a religious community. Once they had become a community, however, he stepped in and replaced Mother Magdalen with another superior who was better educated. Mother Magdalen went back to the kitchen and garden.

Mother Magdalen grew deaf as she became older. She ended her life as she had begun it, a contemplative wrapped in silence and prayer. She died on August 7, 1858, having just said, “Yes, I shall pray for you all!”

St. Julie Billiart (1751-1816)

She was born on July 12, 1751 in Cuvilly, France. Her family was large, she was the sixth child, but her parents were prosperous farmers. She was a religious and holy child and could recite the entire catechism by the age of seven. Many of her childhood friend would come and listen to her to learn it. She impressed the parish priest and was confirmed at an early age. 

 

During her twenties someone tried to shoot her father. Shocked, she became partially paralyzed. She could not walk, but she could still teach and did so from her bed. Many were attracted to her holiness. 

The French Revolution put her in danger for helping priests. She was forced to leave her home and was carried from place to place in her bed. During this time she had a vision of a group of religious women standing at Calvary. 

Soon after she met Francoise Blin de Bourdon. They shared an interest in teaching the faith which led to the founding of the Institute of the Sisters Notre Dame. Its focus was to teach girls, both rich and poor and to train catechists. 

Vows were taken and soon after, she made a special novena. Her paralysis was cured. She continued her holy work focusing on charity for the poor, education of girls, building the religious strength of her sisters and founding 15 convents. Many miracles were attributed to her after her death in 1816 . She was canonized in 1969.

This week pray a Rosary in her honor, her feast day is April 8th.