Life of St John Vianney.pdf - the Catholic Kingdom!

"Who""108 THE CUR^ OF ARSchanging tone or look, whatever might befall him ;following every movement of that Divine Master, withWhose Heart and will his own were inseparably united ;those who knew him in those days admired a workfinished and perfected. But they would have much mistaken had they imagined that the Cure of Ars had becomea saint without the toil and effortby which alone saintsare made.are these, says one of the ancients in theApocalypse, who are around the Throne before the faceof the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and having palms intheir hands ? Who are they, and whence come they?"And he is answered, These are they who are come outof great tribulation. This is the law of sanctity ; andit was not given to our saint to escape it,or to unitehimself by any other means to Him who is the Saint ofsaints.Through how many tribulations, conflicts, and trialsdid he pass before he reached the lofty summit on whichwe have seen him so tranquilly reposing! So true arethe words of St. Catherine, that never from the beginningto the end of the world has our Lord willed, or shall Hewill, that any thing great should be accomplished butthrough much suffering.Sanctity is the fruit of sacrifice. It is a death, anda new birth ; the death of the old man, the birth of thenew. There is no death without its suffering, no childbirth without its pangs."Of the sufferings of our holy cure, some were inflictedby himself, some by the devil, some by good and some byevil men ; some, and those the most intense of all, by thehand of God Himself. And first of those which wereself-imposed. There are few, even among the saints.