The Curé d'Ars: Part II - Chapter 7 - Great Trials of the First Years: Calumnies and Temptations

- No good work ever succeeds unless it be accompanied by suffering. "Without shedding of blood there is no remission." (Heb 9:22). Sacrifice is the groundwork of every achievement of God's saints. The pastor of Ars knew the secret of the saints, hence the cruel scourgings and severe fasts which he
undertook in order to obtain the conversion of his beloved flock. God was now about to permit sufferings that were to cut even deeper into the quick of his soul, wounds that were to be inflicted by the malice, more or less conscious, of men.
- "If a priest is determined not to lose his soul," he exclaimed, "so soon as any disorder arises in the parish he must trample underfoot all human considerations as well as the fear of the contempt and hatred of his people."
- M. Vianney had no wish to be the cause of his own damnation...During several months those of their number who attended church had poured over them from the pulpit an almost uninterrupted stream of reproaches, adjurations and threats.
- "Did M. le Curé preach long sermons?" Mgr. Convert one day asked Père Drémieux. "Yes, long ones, and always on Hell."
- "I want you to understand," he explained, "that there is such a thing as a holy anger that springs from the zeal that we have for the interests of God."
- He was never harsh when a meek and conciliatory spirit was required, and he never hesitated when strong measures were needed.
- His methods, to be sure, were not quite those of his predecessors: murmurs arose in many a household. M. le Curé was too strict...Was not this new parish priest far too hard on those who profaned Sunday, on the patrons of the tavern, on those who haunted the dance hall?
- Catherine Lassagne, who ended by becoming one of his most ardent admirers, experienced towards his person feelings in which fear had as large a share as reverence...M. Vianney wanted her to become perfect; for that reason he would not condone the slightest fault in her conduct.
- "If a villager has a misunderstanding with his pastor because, for the good of his soul, the latter has admonished him, the man at once conceives a hatred for the priest: he speaks ill of him; he loves to hear him criticized; he will distort everything that is said to him."
- They were shameless enough to attribute his pallor and emaciation not to his terrible macerations, but to a life of secret debauchery...anonymous letters, full of the basest insinuations, were sent to him...At times God allows the purest souls to become the victimes of the vilest calumnies.
- [His approach toward those who persecuted him was that] he forgave the guilty ones; nay, he went so far as to bestow on them marks of friendship. Had he been in a position to shower benefits upon them he would have done so..."We must pray for them," he kept repeating. "Do as I did; I let them say all they wished, and in this way the ended by holding their tongues." A holy soul "turns all bitterness into sweetness," says St. Thérèse of Lisieux...
- [On one level] he would have wished that the Bishop, believing him guilty, would remove him from his parish, so that he might have time to weep over his "poor life" in quiet retirement. [And yet] the Curé d'Ars had reached the highest degree of heroic humility. He was not merely detached from worldly honors, he despised honor and reputation.
- Assuredly, M. Vianney might have defended himself, and that publicly, since he was publicly attacked. More than one he was advised to do so - he preferred to weep in silence under the eye of God. (Mt. 5:9 - Turn the other cheek)
-  However great may have been his trust in God, the sight of what he called his profound wretchedness and the duties of his ministry, filled him with an exceeding fear of the judgments of God. He experienced something that was closely akin to despair. "My God," he groaned, "make me suffer whatsoever you wish to inflict on me, but grant that I may not fall into Hell."
- He had to go through those awful crises, when the soul receives no comfort from the world to which it no longer belongs, nor from Heaven from which it is as yet banished...It was at times such as these that he longed to hide himself in some lonely corner there to weep over his "poor life." Truly the cross that weighed on him was proportioned to his destiny. But when once he began to love it, how much lighter it felt! "To suffer lovingly," he exclaimed, "is to suffer no longer. To flee from the cross is to be crushed beneath its weight. We should pray for a love of the cross - then it will become sweet. I started praying for a love of crosses and I felt happy. I said to myself: 'verily, there is no happiness but in the cross.'" Thus though the tempest raged round his soul, it did not disturb that highest point where hope and peace reside.
- Expecting neither recognition nor reward from men, he went on working solely for the glory of God. "Far more is done for God," he said, "when we do things without pleasure or relish."
- The good doctor's prescription [in response to his extreme fasts] was that he should take meat or milk, soups, chicken, veal, beer, raw or stewed fruit, together with fresh bread, toast with fresh butter and honey, tea with milk and sugar, and plenty of very ripe grapes." But the only thing he consented was to accept a packet of tea. M. Vianney had only reached his fortieth year, yet he felt utterly exhausted. The fever never left him.
- [During his ministry he was offered the choice to leave to go to a much larger parish which had been overrun by Jansenists. He later commented on his fear of that parish], "Pagans are more quickly converted than Jansenists."