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Before the question was settled, death had removed the pastor of the little village of Ars who had only recently taken charge. Thereupon, the vicar-general of the archdiocese sent Father Vianney there, saying, as he wished him Godspeed: "My friend, you are going to a small parish where very little of the love of God can be seen. You are now to enkindle the flame of Divine charity there!"
Now the preliminaries to the canonization of Father Vianney were begun in July, 1914, but abandoned because of the war. I now come to the Sonrel prediction. I will summarize it as briefly as possible from the admirable article which M. de Vesme devoted to it in the Annales des sciences psychiques. On the 3rd of June, 1914 observe the date Professor Charles Richet handed M. de Vesme, from Dr.
He devoted the afternoons to visiting the sick and spent the rest of the day in the church, where, to the edification of all, he held evening devotions in public. What could the Lord refuse to such self-sacrificing love? Vianney himself used to say: "I obtained from Him everything that I wanted!"
Astonished and confused the unbeliever followed the priest. There Father Vianney sought to bring him to his knees. The latter declared that he had no idea of going to confession, and that he did not believe in it. Father Vianney looked him squarely in the eyes, and under that piercing glance the freethinker sank upon his knees.
In the course of a few years this noble character ceased to have any enemies among the clergy. Laymen likewise stopped their calumnies, even if they did not cease their ridicule altogether. But God had prepared a new trial for His servant. We have already told how Father Vianney had founded and under great difficulties had carried on the home for neglected children called the "The Providence."
They agreed to ask Father Vianney's advice and to follow it. This was in the year 1858, a few months before the death of the blessed cure. Father Vianney listened with his accustomed kindness to the young girl's recital, reflected a moment and then exclaimed to the surprised young lady: "My dear child, you ought to marry!"
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."
Presently Father Vianney found himself face to face with the curious sportsman pushing through the crowd. After a hasty glance at the dog running at his side, the cure, without further ceremony, said to its owner: "Sir, it were to be desired that your soul were as beautiful as your hound!"
Father Vianney dismissed him with the words; "Dear friend, hold yourself prepared; the good God will call you to Himself very soon!" And so it was. Two years later a stroke of apoplexy brought to a sudden end the convert's life.
Father Vianney actually kept for himself only what was barely sufficient to ward off starvation. Even this modicum was frequently given away, when a poor man came and asked for food. One evening when Mr. Mandy, the Maire of Ars, came to visit the cure, he found him pale as death and apparently exhausted. Greatly alarmed, he exclaimed: "Are you ill, Father Vianney?"
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