Madison Bishop Donald Hying celebrated the feast day of St. John Vianney recently, taking some time to reflect on a visit he made to the saint’s childhood town.

“I was blessed to visit Ars, the little town where he spent the vast majority of his life, living as a parish priest in rural France,” Hying said in a Facebook post. “He … grew up in the Terror of the French Revolution. His family remained loyal to the Catholic Church despite the persecution of the people running the revolution who wanted to destroy religion in general, and so John Vianney made his First Communion in the kitchen of a neighbor's house, where loyal, faithful priests would still secretly say Mass. So his vocation to the priesthood was formed in this fire of revolution and of anti-religious violence, and it led him to the goodness of God, and the power of the sacraments, and the beauty of the priesthood...Today we pray for all parish priests on this feast day of John Vianney, and we ask that the Lord stir in every priestly heart his zeal.” 

St. John Vianney's family would often spend time caring for the poor in their community, a report on Catholic.org said. Because priests and religious figures were executed or forced to work in secret during the French Revolution, Vianney viewed priests as heroes. He continued his religious education, taught by nuns whose convents had been taken away from them. 

"So his vocation to the priesthood was formed in this fire of revolution and of anti-religious violence, and it led him to the goodness of God, and the power of the sacraments, and the beauty of the priesthood,” Hying said. “Today we pray for all parish priests on this feast day of John Vianney, and we ask that the Lord stir in every priestly heart his zeal.”

Vianney, born in 1786, deeply desired to join the priesthood, but he had received little formal education so he struggled with seminary studies, especially the Latin lectures, Franciscan Media said. Although he almost gave up, Vianney sought private tutoring and eventually achieved his dream of being an ordained priest. 

As a priest, Vianney was known for his devotion to the Virgin Mary as well as St. Philomena, and he was passionate about the Sacrament of Reconciliation, a report from Britannica said. He was renowned as a confessor and would spend 12 to 15 hours each day hearing confessions. From 1845 until his death in 1859, as many as 20,000 people would travel each year to Ars to meet Vianney and confess to him. 

St. John Vianney is the patron saint of parish priests, and his feast day is celebrated on Aug. 4.