Humility of M. Vianney

Those who did not know the Curé of Ars, and who heard of the wonders worked around him and of the ovations of the multitude, naturally supposed that in this atmosphere of praise and honour, pride would be at least a temptation to him, if not a snare. What a difficulty indeed to remain humble amid the loudest and most striking expressions of public veneration! This idea was alluded to one day in his presence; he raised his eyes to heaven with an expression of profound sadness and almost of despondency, and said, “Ah! if only I were not tempted to despair!”

One day he received a letter full of insults, and soon after, another, expressing nothing but affection and confidence, and calling him a saint. He showed them to his dear daughters of the Providence. “See,” said he, “the danger of trusting to human feelings. This morning I should have lost the peace of my soul if I had paid attention to the insults that were addressed to me; and this evening I should have been greatly tempted to pride if I had listened to all those compliments. Oh, how prudent it is not to dwell upon the vain opinions and discourse of men, nor to take any account of them!”

He said also on another occasion, “I received two letters by the same post; one said that I was a great saint, and the other that I was a hypocrite and an impostor. … The first added nothing to me, and the second took nothing from me. We are what we are before God, and nothing more!” …

Another time he said, “The good God has chosen me to be the instrument of the graces He bestows on sinners, because I am the most ignorant and the most miserable of priests. If there had been in the diocese a priest more ignorant and more miserable than me, God would have chosen him in preference.”

This sentence often recurred in his conversation: “When people speak ill of you, they say what is true; when they pay you compliments, they are laughing at you. … Which is best, that you should be warned, or that you should be misled? that you should be treated seriously, or in joke?”

M. Vianney never spoke of himself of his own accord. If he was questioned he answered modestly and shortly, and turned the conversation. But on such occasions he was ingenious in finding phrases of contempt for himself. He was praising a priest whom he esteemed, and said, in his figurative language, that he had the qualities of the swallow and of the eagle.

“And you, M. le Curé,—what have you?”

“Oh! what have I? The Curé of Ars is made up of a goose, a turkey, and a crab.”

“How good you are,” said the holy man to a missionary lately arrived at Ars, “to come to help us!”

“M. le Curé, to say nothing of the pleasure of living with you, we are only doing our duty.”

“Oh, no! it is a charity.”

“M. le Curé, do not suppose that. There is no charity on our part.”

“Oh, yes! You see plainly that all goes well when you are here; but when I am quite alone I am good for nothing. I am like ciphers, which have no value but by the side of other figures. … I am too old—I am worth nothing.”

“M. le Curé, you are still young in heart and mind.”

“Yes, my friend; I may say, like that saint who was asked how old he was, I have not yet lived one day.”

To satisfy his desire of lowering and vilifying himself, he continually employed the word poor. He spoke of his poor soul, his poor body, his poor misery, his poor sins. He was always ready to publish his faults, and according to himself, his whole life would not have sufficed to weep for them. He was always accusing himself.

The humility of his heart made him shed tears over his weakness and ignorance, and these tears could be dried only by his generous courage, which led him to throw himself with all his failings into the arms of God. He so reproached himself, that one would have thought he had grown old in evil-doing, and that he was the vilest and most wretched of sinners. “How good is God,” he often said, “to bear with my immense miseries!”

“God has granted me this great mercy, that He has given me nothing in which I could trust, neither talent, nor science, nor strength, nor virtue. … When I reflect upon myself, I can discover nothing but my poor sins. And the good God does not allow me to see them all, or to know myself thoroughly. The sight would drive me to despair. I have no other resource against that temptation to despair but to throw myself at the foot of the tabernacle, like a little dog at its master’s feet.” …

The servant of God was one of the few who speak humbly of humility. “M. le Curé, what am I to do to be good?” some one asked him.

“My friend, you must love the good God.”

“And what am I to do in order to love God?”

“Ah! my friend, humility! humility! it is our pride that prevents us from becoming saints. Pride is the chain of the chaplet of all the vices, and humility the chain of the chaplet of all the virtues. Alas! it is inconceivable how, and of what, such little creatures as we are can be proud! … The devil appeared one day to St. Macarius, armed with a whip, as if to beat him, and said, ‘All that thou dost, I do; thou fastest, I never eat; thou watchest, I never sleep. There is only one thing that thou dost, and I cannot do.’ ‘What is it, then?’ ‘To humble myself,’ answered the devil, and he disappeared. Ah! my friend, there were saints who put the devil to flight by saying, ‘How miserable I am!’”

These are some of his thoughts on this subject:

“Humility is like a pair of scales; the more we lower ourselves on one side, the more we rise on the other.”

“Those who humble us are our friends, and not those who praise us.”

“A saint was asked what was the first virtue? He answered, ‘Humility.’ And the second? ‘Humility.’ And the third? ‘Humility.’”

“We never understand our poor misery. It makes one shudder to think of it! God gives us only a little glimpse of it.”

“If we knew ourselves as He knows us, we could not live; we should die of fear.”

“The saints knew themselves better than others, and that is why they were humble. They were covered with confusion when they found that God made use of them to work miracles. St. Martin was a great saint, and thought himself a great sinner. He attributed all the evils that happened in his time to his own sins.”