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

""""""6 THE CURJJJ OF ARS.months old he had already learned to join his little handsin prayer, and to lisp the names of Jesus and Mary. M.used often to tellVianney how his mother would alwayscome herself every morning to awaken her children, thatshe might see that they offered their hearts to God, andsecure the firstthought and the first action of the day forHim.You are very said some of his friends to happy," him,* to have had so early a love of prayer."After God,"said he,it was the work of my dearmother ;she was so *good. Do you see, myMarie, she would say, * if I were to see youlittle Jeanoffend thegood God, it would give me more pain than if it were oneof my other children. added Virtue," he, passes fromthe heart of a mother to the hearts of her children, whodo willingly what they see her do."At three years old Jean Marie already began to retireinto solitary places to pray. When he could yet hardlyspeak, he loved to join in all the devotions of the family.He was the first to kneel down at midday or sunset to recite the Angelus with infantine gravity. The first presentwhich he received from his mother was a little statueof the Blessed Virgin. He prized it,not as a child s toy,but as an object of pious veneration. It was the surestremedy for all his childish troubles.Oh, how I have loved that !"image said he, morethan sixty years afterwards; I could not bear to partwith itday or night ; and I could not have slept quietly,if I had not had it beside me in little bed."myOn the rare occasions when some of the troubles whichto childhood seem irremediable, drew tears from his eyes,it was quite enough to give him an image or a rosary, andbe was consoled at once.