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

"""VISIT OP THE BISHOP OP BIRMINGHAM. 213!>ii t he spoke truth in this sense, that the life of the Curof Ars, as the lives of all the Saints, was but the continuntionof the life of our Lord. Bethlehem was theircradle ;there it was that sanctity had its birth ;and fromthence has itadvanced, from age to age, and from land toland, under the impulse of the power of God.A celebrated poet, who wished to see and hear theCure of Ars, was so much overcome by the emotion produced by his presence, that the words escaped him unawares, I have never seen God so near." He wasrecalled to himself by the quiet reply of M. Vianney,who said, pointing to the Blessed Sacrament exposed onthe Altar, True, my friend, God is not far from us ; wehave Him there, in the sanctuary of His love."Another distinguished pilgrim observed of him :"The Cure of Ars is the verywhich Jesus loved, the very impersonationmodel of the childhoodof Christianinfancy and therefore it is that God is with ; him."The pilgrimage of Ars numbered, as we have said,names from almost every country in Europe, and even fromthe far banks of the Mississippi and La Plata. It was notonly laymen, priests, and religious who came to visit andconsult the holy cure, but Bishops and princes of theChurch. M. Monnin enumerates no less than twelve ofthe hierarchy of France alone ; among them Mgr. Dupanloup,who came to impart to him the fears Avhich filled hissoul on receiving the burden of the episcopal office."Thereare many Bishops in the Martyrology," said M. Vianneyto him ;there are hardly any cures.Judge, Monseigneur,whether you have so much cause to tremble as I."In May 1854 Ars was visited by an English Bishop.In his Pilgrimage to La Salette the Bishop of Birmingham thus describes his interview with the holy cur6 :