Mr. Vianney first met Pauline Jaricot around 1816, when he was vicar in \u00c9cully. Born in Lyon on July 22, 1799, she was the daughter of a Lyon merchant.
At age 17, she experienced a \u201csecond conversion\u201d following an illness and a sermon heard at St. Nizier. She then lived simply and devoted herself to the sick and the poor; his joy was to remain worshiping the Lord.
Living near Lyon, his father often invited neighboring priests, and this is how the priest of \u00c9cully brought his young vicar. During this meeting, Pauline told Mr. Vianney of the recent visit to their home of brothers of Saint John of God who had come to beg for their sick. They had spoken of a young martyr, whose bones had just been discovered in Rome: she attracted many people, performed miracles and was called Philomena…<\/p>\n
When Mr. Vianney was appointed to Ars, he did not break his ties with the Jaricot family nor with Pauline, not fearing to ask them for financial support… In 1819, at the age of 20, Pauline felt pushed to help the missions by the world ; she implemented prayer chains and fundraising to support the proclamation of the Gospel; the Work of the Propagation of the Faith was born. A few years later, she founded the Living Rosary, a prayer chain to intercede for Christianity.<\/p>\n
During his visits to Ars, Mr. Vianney encouraged him in his charitable works. Having a true devotion to the martyrs of the first centuries, he received one day from Pauline a gift which filled him with joy, a relic of Saint Philomena.
The number of pilgrims then began to increase in Ars, several healings or extraordinary events attracted the curious: Mr. Vianney did not know what to do. He exhibited the relic in his church and quickly attributed to it everything extraordinary that happened. In 1834, returning from a pilgrimage to Mugnano (Italy), Pauline gave him a small shrine containing a statue of Saint Philomena which he placed in his room. During the fire which ravaged it in 1857, the flames stopped at the edge of the reliquary…<\/p>\n
In March 1859, Pauline Jaricot, then aged 59, passed through Ars one last time. Suffering from the cold, she was taken up to Mr. Vianney’s room and the latter rushed to light a fire.
Faced with his inability to do so, Pauline said to him: \u201cMonsieur le Cur\u00e9, do not try to remedy the cold; I’m used to it. Instead, warm my poor soul with a few sparks of faith and hope.\u201d
He comforted her by telling her of the goodness of the Lord. As he was leaving, he gave her a small wooden cross to meditate on the painful mysteries, then he blessed her; it was their last interview. Pauline Jaricot died on January 9, 1862, at age 62. His missionary work continues to spread throughout the world.<\/p>\n
Article taken from the Annales d\u2019Ars n\u00b0 315[septembre-octobre 2008] .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":3091,"template":"","class_list":["post-30897","grands-temoins-dars","type-grands-temoins-dars","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arsnet.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/grands-temoins-dars\/30897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arsnet.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/grands-temoins-dars"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arsnet.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/grands-temoins-dars"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arsnet.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arsnet.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}