Model of the month!
Jean Marie Vianney
Jean Vianney born in France, he grew to be a shepherd of his father's sheep. When he was eighteen he wanted to become a priest but could not leave home because they were poor and he was needed on the farm.
Two years later when he got his father's permission to leave he had to overcome another stumbling black. To become a priest at that time you had to know Latin.
When he finally enter the seminary he kept working hard but never did well in his studies. When the final exam came, he was so upset that he broke down in the middle of it! Jean believed that God always grants our wishes if they are for our best, ' a pure soul can ask everything from God, even miracles, and he will refuse them nothing'.
He was ordained at the age of 29. In his parish of Ars, a little out-of-the-way village, he was a man of common sense, great prayer and penance. he had great devotion to Mary, explaining that, 'the great the sinner we are, the more tenderness and compassion she has for us'Jean witnessed to that compassion in his ministry. Word spread about this priest and people came from near and far to talk to him, ask his advice and confess their sins to him. Some days as many as three hundred people waited at his confessional, sometimes into the night! In spite of his fame he remained a humble, simple 'shepherd' until he died in Ars in 1859.
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