WORCESTER – St. Jean Vianney’s incorrupt heart drew more than 250 people to St. Paul Cathedral Wednesday for Mass and/or veneration.
St. Paul’s was one stop in a U.S. pilgrimage the Knights of Columbus organized for this relic of the patron of parish priests. St. Jean Vianney, pastor – or curé – of a small church in Ars, France, in the 19th-century, was especially known for hearing confessions.
A couple dozen priests and about 12 seminarians and prospective seminarians stopped at St. Paul’s for a veneration hour specifically for them, according to Msgr. James P. Moroney, rector. Twelve priests concelebrated the Mass.
Afterwards, people filled the center aisle waiting for a turn to kneel before the relic. Though the line shortened during the two-hour public veneration, there were still a few people there when Msgr. Moroney led a closing prayer and blessed them with the relic.
“I lived in France and visited Ars several times,” said Annamaria Nickle, of St. Mary Parish in Shrewsbury. “I saw the relic. I saw the confessional that he used. … I feel actually devoted to him – the simplicity of his life and the penance that he took (on). I often pray to him for our priests. … When he comes to Worcester, of course we come.” She came with her husband, Richard, and daughter, Anne-Claire, 12, who hadn’t seen the relic.
Anne-Claire said it was “cool” to see an incorrupt heart, and the fact that it is incorrupt told her: “We’re obviously seeing the relic of a really holy saint.”
“It was a very, very moving experience to see the heart of a saint and a holy priest,” retired Bishop Reilly said. He said he had been to Ars many times, sat in St. Jean Vianney’s confessional, stood in his pulpit, but had never seen this relic.
“And then to have his heart come to our
cathedral in Worcester,” he marveled. “I prayed … that we get more priests … that follow his example.”
Rosemary McKeever, of St. John, Guardian of Our Lady Parish in Clinton, brought her children – Lauren, 11; Tristan, 8 and Edmund, 4.
“We’ve never seen the heart of St. Jean Vianney,” Mrs. McKeever said.
“He looks like a bat,” (the flying animal), Tristan observed. “It was a very long time to wait” in line to see the relic.
“I hope to get a few good confessions out of this – and the children,” his mother said. She said she touched her wedding ring to the reliquary – “for the conversion of the family.” She and her husband once touched St. John Paul II’s grave with their wedding rings, she said.
“I wanted to, like, see him because he gives me his love,” Edmund said of St. John Vianney.
“This relic is entrusted to us from the shrine in Ars,” said Brian V. Caulfield, one of five Knights who work at the headquarters in New Haven, Connecticut, who are responsible for the relic during its U.S. pilgrimage.
“We had it at our convention in August … in Baltimore,” he said of the relic. “At that time, our Supreme Knight asked the priest in charge of the shrine in Ars if the Knights could oversee a nationwide pilgrimage … especially in view of the need today of prayers for priests and the sanctity of priests.
“The Knights of Columbus has a motto: ‘In solidarity with our priests.’ And what better way to show that solidarity than to bring the heart of the patron of parish priests to as many parishes as we can?
“Our goal is 48 … states by June. … We’ve estimated that we’ve had about 120,000 people come out to see the relic. …
“The rector of Ars told us this will be the most extensive tour it’s ever taken.”
He said the Knights have had the relic since November, except for a week when it went back to Ars for a pre-planned event.
“We take it out of the reliquary when we travel,” Mr. Caulfield said. “The heart itself is in a round, airtight, glass-enclosed smaller relic holder. It never comes out of that.
“I consider it a great privilege and an honor to be able to travel with the heart of a holy priest, most of all to be able to offer it for veneration to the faithful and to priests. The gratitude that we have received is overwhelming.”
Preaching at the Mass, Msgr. James P. Moroney, cathedral rector, challenged priests with the words and life of St. Jean Vianney. “‘How great is the priest!’ the Curé once wrote. ‘If (the priest) but realized what he was, he would die.’” Priests feed souls and prepare them to appear before God.
But sometimes, Msgr. Moroney said, they seek approval of the masses.
“Sometimes, unfaithful or neglectful of the flock, they abuse the very ones they have been called to nurture and protect.”
Sometimes a priest’s heart becomes “calcified by the refusal to find the Lord in prayer, in the Mass or in the poor,” and “life becomes no longer about the giving…but compensation for past sacrifices and rewarding himself for how good he is.”
So God raises up men like St. Jean Vianney, who told priests to sacrifice, teach Christ by being Christ for others, and never take the credit.
“Souls have been won at the price of Jesus’ own blood, and a priest cannot devote himself to their salvation if he refuses to share personally in the precious cost of redemption,” Msgr. Moroney said, quoting St. Jean Vianney.
He used the recently departed Bishop Rueger as an example of how St. Jean Vianney called priests to live, and told of priests who died performing their ministries.
“That’s why the priest who first inspired you, probably a lot like the Curé of Ars … takes the assignment no one else wants … (and) loves (people) so much that he continues to patiently speak the truth, even while they scream in his face,” Msgr. Moroney said. “It’s why when others look forward to retirement at the beach, his only ambition is to give his final breath in service to the Lord …
“And that’s why we pray before an old priest’s heart tonight, a heart that looks a lot like the Sacred Heart, which is our only hope and our only salvation.”