The paths of the saints sometimes cross
What link can there be between Saint Benoît-Joseph Labre and the Curé d’Ars, when the latter was born three years after the former’s death? In July 1770, the Vianney family was marked by the visit to their farm in Dardilly of the man nicknamed “God’s Wanderer”. While there is no historical doubt about the event, it is impossible that it was Jean-Marie’s grandfather who welcomed him, as is sometimes reported, since he had died two years earlier… Rather, it was his father, Mathieu Vianney.
This episode is a reminder that the paths of the saints sometimes cross, and that divine Providence certainly favors this as a way of spreading its graces! Who knows,” analyzes Catherine Lassagne, “if this holy man didn’t obtain from Heaven this child of blessing, who would one day lead thousands of souls to heaven! Brother Jérôme reports that “Blessed Labre was so well received in the Vianney house that he wrote a letter of gratitude. The Curé d’Ars often spoke of this letter. He later gave it to someone who had asked him for it. So the saintly Curé decorated his presbytery with a painting of the future saint. But who is this wandering saint?
Trust in God
Benoît-Joseph was born on March 26, 1748 in Amettes (Artois), the eldest of fifteen children. Discreet and modest, he was imbued from an early age with a deep faith that predestined him, his family thought, for the priesthood. But at the age of eighteen, after six years of study with his uncle, a parish priest, he expressed his desire to enter a monastery.
This marked the beginning of a period of numerous attempts at monastic life in the Chartreuse and La Trappe monasteries. But none of them succeeded: his frail health, his anxieties and his great austerity dissuaded his superiors. In the face of all these difficulties, he remained confident: “The Good Lord will assist me and lead me in the enterprise that He Himself inspired (…). I will always have the fear of God before my eyes and His love in my heart”, he wrote to his parents at the age of twenty-one.
Its reputation extends
Rejected everywhere, he took to the road as a beggar and pilgrim, helping the needy. He wants to “know how to love those who are lost, and to love them in their very perdition”. His reputation for holiness soon spread. Like the later Curé d’Ars, he became a member of the Franciscan Third Order, and was animated by a profound life of prayer and contemplation. Among his many journeys on foot, he visited Rome twice and Santiago de Compostela and Loreto once. From 1778, he settled in Rome, where he died at the age of 35 on Holy Wednesday, April 16, 1783.
He was beatified on May 20, 1860 by Pope Pius IX in front of 40,000 people, and canonized on December 8, 1881 on the feast of the Immaculate Conception by Pope Leo XIII.
He is the patron saint of bachelors, beggars, pilgrims and itinerants. The Church celebrates him on April 16.
Article taken from Annales d’Ars n° 339 [juillet-août 2012].
