Saint John Mary Vianney, PriestOffice of Readings | Morning Prayer | Evening Prayer | Night Prayer | MassSt Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney, Curé of Ars (1786 - 1859)

He was the son of a peasant farmer, and a slow and unpromising candidate for the priesthood: he was eventually ordained on account of his devoutness rather than any achievement or promise.In 1818 he was sent to be the parish priest of Ars-en-Dombes, an isolated village some distance from Lyon, and remained there for the rest of his life because his parishioners would not let him leave. He was a noted preacher, and a celebrated confessor: such was his fame, and his reputation for insight into his penitents’ souls and their futures, that he had to spend up to eighteen hours a day in the confessional, so great was the demand. The tens of thousands of people who came to visit this obscure parish priest turned Ars into a place of pilgrimage.“The Curé refused to sit for a portrait. When the sculptor Cabuchet surreptitiously tried to capture his features in a ball of wax during the catechism, Vianney sternly bounced him out of the church.” (The Curé d’Ars Today, by G.W. Rutler, 1988).The Emperor Napoleon III recognised his eminence by awarding him the medal of the Légion d’Honneur in 1855. On learning that no emoluments accompanied the award, the Curé remarked “Then the poor will have nothing that benefits them,” and did not send to Paris the small fee demanded for postage and packing of the decoration. When it arrived anyway, the Curé was delighted at having won this small battle; but in fact someone had secretly sent the fee on his behalf. Some sources put the award in 1848, but the official documents show that they are wrong. In addition, some sources say that he sold the decoration at once and gave the money to the poor, while others say that it was put in a drawer, then taken out and attached to his coffin after he died. History is difficult. Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney, Curé of Ars, died on 4 August 1859. He was beatified by Pope Pius X in 1905, and canonised by Pope Pius XI in 1925

Tuesday of week 18 in Ordinary Time, or Dedication of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major

Office of Readings | Morning Prayer | Evening Prayer | Night Prayer | Mass(The Dedication of the Basilica of St Mary Major)

The Transfiguration of the LordOffice of Readings | Morning Prayer | Evening Prayer | Night Prayer | MassThe Transfiguration of the Lord

The Transfiguration of the Lord can sound embarrassingly magical. Jesus goes up onto a mountain and his clothes become dazzlingly white. Prophets appear and talk to him. And then it is all over and Jesus tells his disciples to say nothing.We should hold on to the absurdity of the incident. There is simply no reason for all this to have happened. In particular, there is no reason to put it into a gospel – the evangelist makes no capital out of it, it is simply there.And this is the strength of the Transfiguration as an historical incident. There is no reason for anyone to have invented it. It is not central to the Christian case. It is not used to win arguments. There is only one reason to put it into the Gospel, and that is because it happened. It is one of those cases of the evangelists writing things down without knowing why they were important, and their very puzzlement is what makes the story so convincing.Why, then, did it happen? Surely so that we could see and understand that Jesus is at once one of the prophets and the one that was prophesied by them; and that he is God, and lives for all eternity in a blaze of dazzling and unapproachable light.The true miracle of the Transfiguration is not the shining face or the white garments, but the fact that for the rest of the time Jesus hid his glory so well.See the article in the Catholic Encyclopaedia.