MIRACLES WROUGHT BY THE CURÉ OF ARS.
INNUMERABLE were the miracles worked by the holy man whose history we are relating. They resemble in their marvellous scope and variety, those of the Divine Master, who foretold the accomplishment of wonders greater than His own in the ministry of His faithful servants. The account of the upbuilding of the House of Providence has given us an insight into the power of the holy man who reproduced the scriptural story of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. We have there seen that often many persons were fed when the larder and the granary were empty. Another phase of the miraculous power of blessed Vianney's prayer to obtain help in time of need, the results of which often gave proof of supernatural intervention, is seen in a good work very dear to him, familiarly known in France as "Fondements." These "Fondements" referred to the establishment of a fund for the perpetual offering of the Holy Sacrifice for some desired end. Blessed Vianney established one thousand annual Masses. The "Fondements" represented a capital of 40,000 francs. Not only did it effect a spiritual good, but going out to needy priests it created in itself a continuous and generous contribution to charity. Some of the miraculous interventions of Providence that touched his heart most deeply are found in his efforts in this direction.
We shall cite but one. A member of the household of Providence relates it: "Once when Father Vianney desired to make a "Fondement" in his church in honor of the heart of Mary, he prayed: O, my mother! if this work is agreeable to thee, procure for me the funds to do it. That same day, after the catechism, he said to us: "I have found 200 francs in my drawer. How good God is!" "Well," exclaimed Jeanne Marie Chaney, "since it is miraculous silver, we must keep some of it." "Yes!" replied the curé, "it is celestial money." Jeanne Marie kept four of the five franc pieces, replacing them by others. She regretted she had not done the same with all the pieces. When, a little later, he wished to increase this "Fondement" Father Vianney prayed again in the same vein, adding, however, the request that the 200 francs must be given to him that evening, or the gift would not be considered an answer to his petition. It was but a little while later, when a benefactor approached him with an offering of 300 francs. His prayer was answered. He took only the sum which he had prayed for." It was in the unceasing war that he waged against the desecration of the Lord's day that his people beheld frequently their saintly pastor's power over the elements. We shall cite an instance:
One Sunday in July there was a full harvest, the wheat bending to the earth. During the High Mass a violent wind arose and threatening clouds gathered; a destructive tempest was apparently about to break. The holy priest entered the pulpit, forbade his people to touch their crops that day, and promised them a continuation of good weather sufficient for the gathering in of the harvest. His prediction was verified; the storm passed over and no rain fell for twelve days.
In the depths of human souls miracles abounded in Ars. For the conversion of sinners the holy curé lived; for them he entered upon his thorny way of heroic penance. His whole life was characterized by prayer, penance and self-abnegation. All counted as nothing if he could win the conversion of his parish, dreaming not of a world to be won from beyond its borders.
His first great conversion was that of a woman prominent in the Jansenist sect for her attachment to error and the indiscreet ardor of her proselytism. She was present during Vespers, in the church of Ars, on a feast of the Blessed Virgin, in the early days of the curé's pastorate. To the surprise of all, she entered the confessional after the service. The words of the holy confessor in the sacred tribunal finished the work that his very aspect alone had begun. Her conversion was thorough and lasting. She withdrew from her former associates and took up her abode in the little village of Ars.
Another miracle of grace, chosen from many, is the following, briefly told:
A learned geologist was led to visit Ars. As a boy he had made his First Communion during the reign of terror. Left an orphan at the age of twelve years he was adopted by an army officer, whom he accompanied to Egypt. His religious experiences had been varied, for he had tested Mohamedanism, Judaism, Protestantism and had been a disciple of Chanel, Père Enfantine and Cabet. On his first visit to Ars he sat facing the door through which the curé would come to say Mass. His own words tell the result:
"His eyes met mine. It was but a look, yet it penetrated to the depths of my heart, I felt myself crushed under his gaze." After the Mass this man was drawn by an invisible and irresistible force into the sacristy, where stood the confessional. The grace of a return to the faith of his youth was given to him. He died in holy sentiments two years afterwards.
Such spiritual marvels, worked by the Blessed Vianney, were of frequent occurrence. He wept when sinners refused to weep, and they left his feet like other Augustines, to comfort the mother bowed down with sorrow because of their sins. One young man, long lost to his God, had been induced to go to Ars, before leaving for the army. The holy priest singled him, out among the crowd, and beckoned to the young man, who was seized with a sudden trembling. The sacristy door closed upon them and a miracle was wrought there and then on one who had lost his faith, his honor and his home. He came out in tears, remained at Ars to make a retreat, and entered an austere religious order to end his days in heroic penance.
Such are the types of miracles of the spiritual order, the dearest to him, worked by the holy pastor of Ars, whose worst reproach to the hardened sinner was: "What a pity it is! At the hour of death God will say to you: "Why have you offended Me. I who have loved you so much.""
The power to lay bare the hidden sins which the curé's unknown penitent concealed from him, stands forth prominently in his life story and wrought many conversions. So, too, that other power, which divined the future misuse of recovery and sent back the pilgrim, helped, not bodily, but with the healing of patience and resignation, under some long borne affliction. Again, the similar power to see the future augmentation of holiness in a soul under physical affliction and God's will that no cure be wrought; and still another, to see some impending cross awaiting at home a pilgrim, of whom humanly speaking, he knew nothing, and to hasten his departure; or to know by interior sight alone, a cure wrought at a distance. Surely miraculous gifts and all were possessed by the holy curé.
BODILY ILLS MIRACULOUSLY CURED.
Through Father Vianney were affected cures of the mentally afflicted, of paralytics from birth or accident, of sufferers from cancer and bronchial affection. There are those whose tongue had never spoken, whose ear had never heard, whose eye had never seen until the holy curé's word had gone forth: "Make a novena to St. Philomena; I will pray with you."
A nervous malady racked the being of Mademoiselle Zoe Pradille and deprived her of the power of walking, of kneeling, of reading and listening to reading and of eating without excruciating pain. Expert medical treatment was secured at home and a thorough test was made of health resorts, all without avail, until at last the pilgrimage was made to Ars and the novena was said, resulting in a complete cure as attested to by a physician who had known the case well for six years out of the eight which the patient had suffered.
A house, during its course of removal, fell and buried under the ruins a little child and her grandmother. The mother of the little one escaped and ran about distracted, while the fruitless search went on. Some one ran to make the accident known to Father Vianney. He knelt first in prayer, then hastened to the spot, blessed the ruins, and stood by encouraging the workmen, who were making the search. The grandmother was rescued unharmed. The child was found after a longer imprisonment in the ruins. She showed not the slightest sign of injury.
A member of the curé's household gave an old cap that the curé had worn to a poor woman, as an alms. The beautiful thought came to her: "The holy curé is a saint. If I have faith, my child will be cured." The boy had an abscess on the head. She put the cap on him. That evening, when she uncovered him to dress the wound, she found that the sore had disappeared. The child had been cured.
"To-day," one wrote from Ars, "we have had a very remarkable cure. It is of a young nun from the Alps whose tongue had been completely paralyzed for three years, after her recovery from typhoid fever. She could converse only by writing on a slate. The day on which she finished her novena, just as she was about to make her thanksgiving after Holy Communion, she felt that her tongue was articulating the acts. She now can speak. I have seen and heard her." The curé of her home parish and the physician who attended her in her convent, testified to her recovery.
One of the remarkable cures, instantly and publicly effected in presence of all the pilgrims, was that of a young man from Pud de Dome who could walk only with difficulty and with the aid of crutches.
"My Father, do you think I will leave my crutches here?" was his oft-repeated question during the novena. On the feast of the assumption he intercepted the holy priest as he came from the sacristy into the crowded church for the evening exercises and again put the question.
"Yes, my friend, if you have faith," was the reply. Instantly the power was given to the young man to walk unaided, and he hastened to St. Philomena's chapel to leave his crutches there. His gratitude was the life-long consecration of himself to God in the institute of the Brothers of the Holy Family.
Miracles of this kind caused the priest considerable embarrassment. He sought to hide from the public eye the marvelous results of his God-given power manifested daily in his parish, His "dear little St. Philomena," who never failed him in his hour of need, heard many plaints from him in which he charged her with working the marvels that were effected through his ministry. Such was the humility of the "wonder-worker" of our own age.
The gift of a medal of St. Philomena was often the preliminary manifestation of miraculous power. This gift was followed by a request that a novena be made to the saint, Father Vianney promising to pray also. The result was frequently the desired miracle, which was in reality the outcome of the curé's powerful pleading with God. Nevertheless, it could easily be laid at the door of his "dear little saint." This was especially so on occasions when the sufferers were not brought to the village or when the cures did not take place until the afflicted ones were far distant from the ordinary scene of the miracles.
A noteworthy instance, in which the good God seemed, as it were, to play into Vianney's hands at times, by allowing St. Philomena to have the full credit of the miracle, was that of the poor wandering musician. He came to the holy curé begging the latter to heal his lame child. After persuading this man to go to confession he blessed him and sent him home, making him promise to mend his evil ways and to cease carrying on an abuse against which the priest waged a relentless war, namely, the village dances, which were held on Sundays and festivals.
When the musician entered his home, he broke his violin and cast the pieces into the fire, to the great dismay of his wife, who saw their family means of sustenance consumed. But his lame child, crying out with joy, leaped across the room to welcome his father. The child was completely cured.
Father Vianney's tenderness was once deeply stirred at the sight of a mother bearing on her back a paralyzed boy of eight years, a cripple from birth. The curé was apparently turning a deaf ear to the mother's repeated appeals for the cure of her child, content with giving them a glance of pity and sympathy and a blessing. Yet, as the result seems to show, his soul must have spoken some word to the soul of the child, audible to none other. At night the mother left the church with a disappointed heart.
While undressing her little son, in a lodging near by, the boy told her she must go out early in the morning to buy him a pair of new shoes. "For," said he, "Father Vianney promised that I would walk to- morrow." Not a word had been spoken to the child, but his mother did his bidding, and put the new shoes on him. The miracle, delayed in the crowded church, was wrought at the moment in the lowly lodging room. The child, crippled from birth, ran to the church, crying: "I am cured, I am cured."
The miraculous power of the curé's sanctity which, during thirty years, attracted considerable attention, could have been welcomed by him for one reason alone, that it helped so much in the aim of his life—the conversion of sinners. That it was the reward not only of his simple faith but of the heroic and unceasing penance which he performed in order to secure the salvation of souls, seems implied in words of his own.
A friend in the priesthood once said to him, when a much needed sum of money had come in an astonishing way: "Tell me, Father Vianney, the way to work miracles." The holy man, with a serious air, replied: "My friend, there is nothing which disconcerts the devil so much, and attracts the graces of God, more than fasting and prayerful watchings." His life, it may be truly said, was one incessant prayer and vigil. A simple peasant has beautifully said: "It is not astonishing that he works miracles. He is a servant of God. God obeys his servants." "They tell us of marvelous things that took place here," said a pilgrim who but echoed the words of many, "but the grand miracle of Ars is the life, so penitent and laborious, of the curé." No miracles showed more clearly his extraordinary gifts and graces than the power which his spirit possessed over his poor emaciated body; and no miracle was greater than his absolute control over his physical state when he seemed on the verge of dissolution, a control that enabled him to bear the over-powering burden of his incessant labors for souls, without sinking under the load. A miracle alone can explain this extraordinary existence.
