Weep

“My friend, I weep because you do not weep.” (Saint John Vianney).

Saint John Vianney (Prayer Card)

Saint John Vianney is the Patron Saint of Priests.  He was a French priest who lived during the French Revolution when the Catholic Church was banned in France.  He received the Sacraments in secret in the home of a neighbour and grew up secretly practicing his faith.  When he felt the calling to become a priest, he experienced a great number of limitations and trials in the process.  Not only was he not very academically capable, but he was not well-liked in the seminary by his superiors.  He continued and persevered and was eventually anointed a priest and sent to a small village of Ares to become the Parish Priest there…  When he arrived in the village he promised God that he would offer everything necessary for the salvation of all the souls in Ares.  And his life reflected that promise.  He ate very little in his life.  He restricted his diet to potato and some herbs.  He abstained form meat and vegetables and sweets.  And he practiced other mortifications.  For example, if an insect landed on his skin and was annoying him, he would refuse to shoo it away and would instead offer the discomfort for the salvation of souls.  And he was tormented by the Evil One.  He was constantly berated for remaining in Ares as the Evil One was losing souls through the intercessions of the Saint…

Saint John Vianney would administer the Sacrament of Reconciliation for up to three hundred people each day.  He would easily spend more than fifteen hours in the confessional in a day, performing the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  By the time of his death, a railroad had been built to Ares to allow the faithful to flock to the Parish in Ares and receive the sacraments from the Cure of Ares, Saint John Vianney…

One day, when the Cure of Ares was hearing confessions, one man confessed his sins.  The man heard crying from the other side of the Confessional.  And he asked, “Why are you crying, Father?”  Saint John Vianney replied, “My friend, I weep because you do not weep.”

And this was because he knew what Christ had suffered on account of that man’s sins – and on account of mine also…  “As they were saying this, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, ‘Peace to you’...  And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet... Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.’” (Luke 24:35-48).

Saint Josemaria says, “Turn to Our Lady and ask her - as a token of her love for you - for the gift of contrition. Ask that you may be sorry, with the sorrow of Love, for all your sins and for the sins of all men and women throughout the ages... ‘Acts of contrition, the more the better!’”

And that is what I pray today – for the Grace to undertake any act of contrition…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.