No matter what anyone says, most of us are afraid of the unknown. Isn’t that why we save for the future and buy all sorts of insurance policies? One for our life, another for the car (besides, the state requires it), a third one for the house (our mortgage lender demands it!); we even purchase service contracts to avoid the cost of replacing or repairing our appliances. Then, when the world around us seems to be spinning out of control, we really start to worry that even after all our preparations we will not be ready for … the unknown. I tend to be one of those folks. When fear of the future strikes, I pray; I tell myself that I am silly to worry; that God is in charge; that I should have more faith. Finally, I grab one of my favorites lives of Saints books, and I settle down.

Has anyone read, really read, the life of a Saint? Invariably, they lived in troubled times (isn’t that when God raises up His heroes?), they had difficult lives and if they had any money at all, they gave it all away after their conversion. The characters may vary, but the pattern is the same. For instance, let’s take a look at two saints, St. John Vianney and St. Pio of Pietralcina, who lived about one hundred years apart, in different countries, but whose lives could almost be mirror images of one another: God’s images.

St. Jean-Marie Vianney
He is also known as the Cure’ of the village of Ars, a wide spot on one of the many roads in France. You blinked, you missed it. When young Jean-Marie was a child, the French revolution was claiming victims by the thousand, thanks to Madame Guillotine. The priests who did not take an “oath of obedience” to the new regime were persecuted and killed, and those who helped them were punished by deportation. According to the Saint’s best-known biographer, the Abbe’ Francis Trochu, the Vianneys were simple farmers whose faith was strong and deep. They went to early Mass every day before starting their long day in the fields. They attended Vespers in the evening, and the poor, who our Lord said “will always be with you,” always found a bowl of soup in their kitchen and a bed of straw in their hayloft.

When the new government demanded that priests take an oath of obedience to the regime (shades of Russia, of China, and of every other dictatorship), their little church was deserted. For several years, the Vianneys could only attend the Holy Mass when a heroic priest, traveling throughout France to tend the Lord’s scattered sheep, stopped by a neighboring village to celebrate the Holy Eucharist in someone’s barn, in the dark. Talk about tough times!

Despite the difficulties, the faith of the Vianneys grew stronger, nourished by prayer, works of charity and sacrifice. In this difficult climate, it was many years before Jean-Marie was able to fulfill his vocation to become a priest. But he persevered: Latin was almost impossible for him; preaching was not his forte but in the end his teachers, moved by Jean-Marie’s great love for the Lord, decided that he deserved to be ordained to the priesthood. Now he would be the bishop’s headache! “What can I do with him?” thought the bishop. Certainly not to a fancy city parish, or even a prosperous village! Finally, his Excellency found a solution: a tiny village with a poor church and a handful of families whose faith was indifferent at best. Surely this awkward young priest could do no harm there.

Hah! Little did the bishop know. Fr. Jean-Marie, obedient to his vows, took up residence in the poor rooms by the church. He made the rounds of the houses in his parish but never at meal times, for fear of being a burden on families that had barely enough to eat. The rest of his day and most of the night, he spent in front of the Blessed Sacrament, in adoration. The folks began coming to Mass, then to confession. What’s so extraordinary about that? Just the usual life of the priest, right? But… there was something different about Fr. Jean-Marie. His love for God shone like a beacon: pretty soon, the folks in the more prosperous villages walked all the way to Ars, to hear the awkward little priest’s sermons and confess their sins to him.

As the fame of his holiness spread, folks arrived from all over France. The roads to the village were so congested that the railway built a station in Ars. Important people lined up for days, just to kneel at Fr. Jean-Marie’s confession box and beg for forgiveness of their sins. Our saint became almost a prisoner of his confessional, often sitting in the tight, cramped space for up to 16 hours a day. And the people kept coming, and he listened to their confession even on the day of his death, burning with fever and barely able to speak.

Fr. Jean-Marie, better known to us as St. John Vianney, did not live in “good” times: he lived in “God’s” time. He did not have insurance, a pension or a comfortable home, and he did not worry. He had to do God’s work, and he was in God’s hands: that’s all that mattered. So, when I become discouraged, I pick up the life story of a saint and remember the words that a good friend, another great priest, told me when I was whining about “tough times.” “Nicoletta, in tough times it’s easier to be saints. So, rejoice!”

Next week: St. Padre Pio of Pietralcina