Charles Balley is the youngest of a family of 16 children; they live in Lyon. Charles was born on September 30, 1751. Educated deeply in the Catholic faith, this family gave the Church 5 children: two daughters became nuns; three boys will become priests, including Charles Balley, priest of the Congregation of G\u00e9nov\u00e9fains.<\/p>\n
This congregation aimed to form priests who unite in themselves both the benefit of a religious life inspired by the rule of Saint Augustine, and the functions of parish ministry.<\/p>\n
In the constitutions of the congregation we find the pastoral program which is aimed at by all G\u00e9nov\u00e9fains.<\/p>\n
This is a magnificent program for a pastor of souls: through Charles Balley, it will become that of Saint Jean-Marie Vianney.<\/p>\n
The ministries will be diverse for Charles Balley, taking care of youth, then master of novices, then country priest in 1785. In this parish, we see an example that the Cur\u00e9 of Ars would later take up, rebuilding the parish church into a worthy place of worship.<\/p>\n
It was in this parish, named Choue in the diocese of Blois, that he experienced the beginning of the Revolution, but very quickly he was expelled for having preached Christ in fidelity to the Church. Then came a time of clandestine apostolate for him (as a so-called \u201crefractory\u201d priest) which took him to the surroundings of Lyon, and where he remained, after the restoration, as parish priest of \u00c9cully.<\/p>\n
In 1805, under the influence of Cardinal Fesch, Abbot Balley established a priestly school for beginner Latinists who should prepare young people for the priestly ministry. Jean-Marie Vianney was one of his students from 1807.<\/p>\n
The influence of Abbot Balley on the young Jean-Marie Vianney will be very great and he will speak of him as \u201chis master\u201d. After his training, the future Cur\u00e9 of Ars lived for a little over 2 years with his priest as vicar in \u00c9cully, before coming to Ars after the death of Charles Balley in December 1817.<\/p>\n
The example of austerity, of pastoral concern, … everything that Abbot Balley did, we also see in the life of Saint Jean-Marie Vianney. Both wanted to make their lives one filled with the message of the Gospel, a life following Christ through complete self-giving. Someone remarked: \u201cthe holiness of the Cur\u00e9 of Ars has its source in the holiness of the Cur\u00e9 of \u00c9cully\u2026 In the manner of the priests of the first centuries, the Cur\u00e9 of Ars will imitate his spiritual father. He did at Ars what he saw done at \u00c9cully. \u00bb<\/p>\n
Extract from the Annales d’Ars n\u00b0 325[mars-avril 2010] .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":3133,"template":"","class_list":["post-7233","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\/7233","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\/3133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arsnet.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}