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

"ins SELF-DENIAL. 68following lines, addressed by a good priest, after his death,to the Bishop of Belley:I must go back forty years to retrace myfirst recollection of this venerable man. It was in the year 1820,when I was about ten years old. We were practising, inthe court of the college where I was studying, to strewthe flowers for the procession of Corpus Christi, when Isaw a priest come in of a very simple, poor, and humbleexterior. One of my companions whispered to me *That:is the Cure of Ars ;he is a saint; he lives upon nothingbut boiled potatoes. I looked at him with amazement.As some of us addressed him in a few courteous words,he stopped for a moment, and said with a kind smile,Myfriends, when you are strewing flowers before the BlessedSacrament, hide your hearts in your baskets, and sendthem amid your roses to Jesus Christ. Then, withoutpaying any other visit, he went straight across the courtto the chapel, to pay his homage to the Master of thehouse in His tabernacle. I have forgotten nearly all thenames of my fellow-students, and almost all other circumstances of that time ; but the words of that priest, hisvisit to the Blessed Sacrament, and the speech of mycompanion, have never been effaced from my memory.I was especially struck (forI was a greedy boy) with theidea of a man who lived on potatoes. I felt, withoutexactly knowing why, that this implied something greatand wonderful, and it was probably this which kept theother circumstances in my mind."Tenyears afterwards, bya combination of circumstances which belong to the history of the loving providence of God towards me, I found myself in an ecclesiasticalseminary. Then the thought of the mortified priest, whowas so devout to the Blessed Sacrament, recurred to my