Born in Lyon in 1826 (the Cur\u00e9 d’Ars was then 40 years old), Antoine Chevrier came from a family of modest means. He entered the Saint Ir\u00e9n\u00e9e seminary and was ordained priest for the diocese of Lyon in 1850. Sent then as vicar to the parish of S. Andr\u00e9 de la Guilloti\u00e8re, in a poor and working-class district of Lyon, he discovered poverty there, in all its forms. He will remain forever marked by it.<\/p>\n
During Christmas night 1856, while praying in front of the nativity scene, he felt called to follow Jesus as closely as possible in his love for men, through poverty, humility and renunciation. He then decided to leave everything and live as poorly as possible. He felt the need to be reinforced in this particular vocation, and he went to see Jean-Marie Vianney in Ars at the beginning of 1857.
He strongly encouraged him and will always have a strong memory of him: \u201cGod wants your work,\u201d the Holy Cur\u00e9 told him, \u201cbut first, many difficulties.\u201d The Cur\u00e9 of Ars will not hesitate to send penitents or people seeking to give more of themselves to him.
In 1857, he joined C. Rambaud who had just founded a workers’ town to accommodate the victims of the catastrophic floods of 1856. Father Chevrier then devoted himself to the religious education of children and young people in this city.<\/p>\n
In 1860, he bought a huge dance hall, called \u201cle Prado\u201d at La Guilloti\u00e8re, in which he already built a chapel. He welcomed poor young adolescents from the neighborhood there to teach them and, above all, to catechize them; thus was born the work of the Prado. For him: \u201cevangelizing the poor was the great mission of Jesus Christ on earth\u201d. As he refused to let children work, it was mainly poor people who helped him run this institution; workers from the Croix Rousse in Lyon, put a little money aside each week for the children of Father Chevrier.<\/p>\n
In 1866, he founded a \u201cclerical school\u201d at the Prado to train priests who \u201cunderstand and know the poor\u201d. This gave rise to the Association of Prado Priests which, after his death, experienced great growth. He wrote for them, shortly before his death, \u201cThe true disciple or the priest according to the Gospel\u201d, where he brings together his thoughts on the priesthood and the training of priests. \u201cThe priest is a stripped man, the priest is a crucified man, the priest is an eaten man,\u201d he remarks.<\/p>\n
He died of exhaustion and illness on October 6, 1879 (20 years after the Cur\u00e9 d’Ars). Thousands of poor people and workers from La Guilloti\u00e8re accompanied him to his final resting place. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1986 in Lyon, two days before his visit to Ars.<\/p>\n
Extract from the Annales d’Ars n\u00b0 328[septembre-octobre 2010] .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":3157,"template":"","class_list":["post-7230","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\/7230","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\/3157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arsnet.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}