With his words, Jean-Marie Vianney knew how to touch hearts and guide them towards God.
These words are taken from catechisms, homilies, interviews…
“If we understood well what it is to be a child of God, we could not do evil… to be a child of God, oh, the beautiful dignity!”
“God’s mercy is like an overflowing torrent. It sweeps hearts along in its path.”
“It’s not the sinner who comes back to God to ask forgiveness, but it’s God who runs after the sinner and makes him come back to Him.”
“So let us give this joy to this good Father: let us return to him… and we will be happy.”
“The good Lord is always ready to receive us. His patience awaits us!”
“There are some who give the Eternal Father a hard heart. Oh, how wrong they are! The Eternal Father, to disarm his justice, gave his Son an excessively good heart: you don’t give what you don’t have…”
“There are some who say, ‘I’ve done too much wrong, the Good Lord can’t forgive me’. This is blasphemy. It’s putting a limit on God’s mercy, which has none: it’s infinite.”
“Our faults are grains of sand beside the great mountain of God’s mercies.”
“When the priest gives absolution, we must only think of one thing: that the blood of the good Lord flows over our soul to wash it, purify it and make it as beautiful as it was after baptism.”
“The good Lord, at the moment of absolution, throws our sins behind his shoulders, that is to say, he forgets them, he annihilates them: they will never appear again.
“There will be no more talk of forgiven sins. They have been erased, they no longer exist!”
“All good works put together do not equal the sacrifice of the Mass, because they are the works of men, and the Holy Mass is the work of God.
“There is nothing so great as the Eucharist.”
“Oh, my children, what is Our Lord doing in the Sacrament of his love? He took his good heart to love us. Out of that heart comes a perspiration of tenderness and mercy to drown the sins of the world.”
“There he is, the one who loves us so much! Why shouldn’t we love him?
“The food of the soul is the body and blood of a God. If you thought about it, you could lose yourself for eternity in this abyss of love!…”
“Come to communion, come to Jesus, come to live from him, that you may live for him.”
“The good God wanting to give Himself to us, in the sacrament of His love, has given us a vast and great desire that He alone can satisfy.”
“Communion does to the soul as a blow to a fire that is beginning to die out, but where there are still many embers!”
“When we took communion, if someone said to us, ‘What are you taking home with you?”, we could reply, ‘I’m taking heaven with me'”
“Don’t say you’re not worthy. It’s true: you’re not worthy, but you need it.”
” Prayer is nothing other than union with God. “
” Prayer is a sweet friendship, an amazing familiarity… It’s a child’s sweet conversation with his Father. “
” The more we pray, the more we want to pray. “
” You have a small heart, but prayer enlarges it and makes it capable of loving God. “
” It is neither the long nor the beautiful prayers that the good Lord looks upon, but those that are made from the bottom of the heart, with great respect and a true desire to please God. “
” How much a little quarter of an hour that we steal from our occupations, from some inutility, to pray, is pleasing to him. “
” Particular prayer is like straw scattered here and there in a field. If you set fire to it, the flame has little ardor, but if you gather this scattered straw, the flame is abundant and rises high to heaven : so it is with public prayer. “
” Man is a poor man who needs to ask God for everything. “
” Man has a beautiful function, that of praying and loving… This is man’s happiness on earth. “
” Come on, my soul, you’re going to converse with the good Lord, work with him, walk with him, fight and suffer with him. You will work, but he will bless your labor ; you will walk, but he will bless your steps ; you will suffer, but he will bless your tears. How great, how noble, how consoling it is to do everything and in the company and under the eyes of the good Lord, to think that he sees everything, that he counts everything !… “
“Order: it’s a sacrament that doesn’t seem to concern anyone among you, and it’s a sacrament that concerns everyone.”
“It is the priest who continues the work of Redemption on earth.”
“When you see the priest, think of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”
“The priest is not a priest to himself, he is a priest to you.”
“Go and confess to the Blessed Virgin or to an angel. Will they absolve you? Will they give you the body and blood of our Lord? No, the Blessed Virgin cannot make her divine Son descend into the host. If you had two hundred angels there, they couldn’t absolve you. A priest, however simple, can. He can say to you: “Go in peace, I forgive you”.
“Oh, what a great thing a priest is!
“A good shepherd, a shepherd after God’s own heart, is the greatest treasure God can bestow on a parish, and one of the most precious gifts of divine mercy.
“Priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus.”
“Leave a parish for twenty years without a priest: we’ll worship the beasts there.”
“The Blessed Virgin is that beautiful creature who has never displeased the good Lord.”
“The Father delights in looking upon the heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary as the masterpiece of his hands.”
“Jesus Christ, after having given us all that he could give us, still wants to make us heirs of what he has most precious, that is, his Blessed Mother.
“The Blessed Virgin has begotten us twice, in the Incarnation and at the foot of the Cross: she is therefore twice our Mother.
“You can’t enter a house without talking to the doorman! Well, the Blessed Virgin is the doorman of Heaven!
“The Ave Maria is a prayer that never tires.
“Whatever the Son asks of the Father is granted. Whatever the Mother asks of the Son is likewise granted.”
“The surest way to know God’s will is to pray to our good Mother.”
“When our hands have touched spices, they scent everything they touch. Let us pass our prayers through the hands of the Blessed Virgin, she will embalm them.”
“I think that at the end of the world, the Blessed Virgin will be quite quiet, but as long as the world lasts, she’s being pulled from all sides…”
