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.
