Customer Reviews

The Cure D'Ars : St. Jean-Marie-Baptiste Vianney

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The definitive life, based on the official "Process of Beatification and Canonization," and thus totally factual and documented. Of humble education and assigned to a forgotten farmers' village, he attracted the whole world to Ars and was proclaimed "Patron Saint of Parish Priests" in 1929. Ate one meal a day, slept only a few hours a night, heard confessions up to 17 hours a day, converted thousands. His body remains incorrupt. A grace-filled story of total love of God!

"In the span of nearly 50 years of priesthood, what is still the most important and most sacred moment for me is the celebration of the Eucharist. My awareness of celebrating in persona Christi at the altar prevails. Never in the course of these years have I failed to celebrate the Most Holy Sacrifice. If this has occurred, it has been due entirely to reasons independent of my will. Holy Mass is the absolute center of my life and of every day of my life. It is at the heart of the theology of the priesthood, a theology I learned not so much from text books as from living examples of holy priests. First and foremost, from the holy Cure of Ars, Jean Marie Vianney. Still today I remember his biography written by Fr. Trochu, which literally overwhelmed me."  (English text of the address given at the International Symposium on the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Promulgation of the Conciliar Decree Presbyterorum Ordinis on Friday, October 27, 1995. Text acquired from L'Osservatore Romano, Weekly English Edition.) Text can also be viewed at the Vatican web site.

St. John Vianney captured my mind, heart, and soul, as a person who struggled life long to bring goodness to the people of Ars. His simplicity of life, acceptance of his limited natural knowledge, drew people all over France to his confessional. He was a seer of souls, and a guide for the down trodden, neglected, broken people of God. His simplicity of life, child like faith, won over the generosity of the rich so as to provide for the ragged, neglected, and impoverished children of Ars and the surrounding villages.

Often books about saints are so full of fanciful musings and imaginings that it is difficult to decode fact from fiction. This book is based on the research proceedings and interviews of witnesses for the canonization of St. Jean-Marie-Baptiste Vianney. The book examines the life of the saint through the eyes of those who lived and interacted with him on a daily basis and recounts stories based on theirs shared experiences of the man. The author presents the reader with documented accounts much like what one would hear from witnesses recounting events that had taken place in a court of law. This gives the book a certain authenticity. Clearly, the author has a tremendous amount of respect for the Cure d'Ars but I think that it is the result of what he has uncovered in the collected documents of the saint's life rather than the musings of a man who out of an admiration for a saint, whose life is documented only through fanciful stories based on hearsay or legends, has written a text that is difficult to accept because of the lack of evidence for what is being presented. I would recommend this book because it is well written, balanced and accessible to most readers. I also find that you will get of fairly clear picture of who the Cure of Ars was, how he lived and what he accomplished over the course of his relatively long life. He was truly a remarkable man!

This is the best biography of Vianney I have read. It is tough going at times, partly due to its length and partly due to its tendency to be repetitious, but it is well worth the time in order to learn more about the personality and life of this exemplary priest.

What makes this such an amazing and enthralling book is not just the unbelievable life of this humble priest---but the quotes and thoughts of those around him; many impressions from those who knew and worked with him, etc...It also documents extremely well the historical backdrop of France in the eighteenth century; what was going on at the time; how the Church was persecuted, innocent priests guillotined by the savage Revolution; how the Church had to go underground. It was forbidden to say Mass and any priest doing so was punished; families harboring priests were likewise punished. It is a well-documented thorough portrait of a most remarkable saint placed in a historical context. It is engrossing, fascinating and inspiring.

I first read this many years ago and it was a favorite book of mine. The Cure d'ars was such a saintly man-and this book was wonderfully inspiring to read. A treasure.

Abbe' Francis Trochu has presented in words printed in pages of a book, the life of a "man of faith in God" - Jean-Marie-Baptiste Vianney, or better known as Saint John Vianney, the Cure of Ars.

Father John Vianney was an unpretentious spiritual man and priest, pastoring the small village patish of Ars, in France. Yet, people flocked to be in his presence and listen to his words and share in his celebration of the Holy Mass. Saint John Vianney's ministry became the catalyst to numerous "life conversions" . . . to repentences . . . to acts of contrition and sorrow for sins . . . to confessions and penance . . . he is known as the patron saint of confession.

Reading, Abbe' Trochu's recounting of the life of Saint John brings "us" into his spiritual presence where he beomes that very same catalyst inspiring and moving us to "convert and repent and reconsider our lives . . . to redirect our attention to God and His ways rather than those of "man". We will be impressed with the phenomena which accompanied and plagued this humble pius priest, but those, as dramatic as they are and were, only serve to underscore the more important and real spiritual reality of Jesus' proclamation of the presence of the Kingdom of God and His call to repentance (one of Pope John Paul II's Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary meditation points). Saint John didn't just "preach" repentance, but he lived a life of penance.

In our times, so many have looked for and found reasons and causes to devalue respect for "the priesthood" (some based on real human faults and failings and sins of some priests, many merely used as an excuse to ignore the teachings of "The Priest -- Jesus Christ" and to follow the social engineerings/manipulations/manueverings of a confused directionless society - as the late George Harrison once pointed out and described it: "when you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there"). But the Church, and so "the world" will always have examples of true priestly charisms in souls such as Saint John Vianney (we could add a myriad number more such as Saint John Of Kronstadt, Saint Seraphim Of Sarov,and Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, to mention just a few). And priests such as these are not to be easily nor lightly dismissed, escept at one's own risk of failing their own souls and spiritual life . . .and eternal life.

Reading Abbe' Trochu's biography of Father John Vianney is a spiritual blessing and encounter with a priest who calls us to God, to Jesus, not only by words, but by how he lived and prayed his entire life . . . and still lives and prays in heaven. This is a book you will not regret nor forget reading. These days we hear so much about the need for "change" . . . and making "the change" that counts is what Saint John Vianney and this book is about.

A real biography, well documentated and inspiring about God. How a simple man can focus his love to God the rest of the people, offering his life for the cominity. He has teached by his own life , praying and sacrifiyng how to reach heaven.

A magnificent book. Very well written and with very solid historical sources. I recommend it to every christian interested in the significance of priesthood.