The 4 steps of the Holy Curé of Ars to ignite love for the Eucharist

On the eve of the Feast of Saint John Mary Vianney, we remember four important steps taken by the Holy Curé of Ars to rekindle his people’s love for the Eucharist, compiled by Catholic priest Roger Landry.

Every August 4, the Catholic Church celebrates the liturgical feast of Saint John Mary Vianney, the Holy Curé of Ars, priest of the Third Franciscan Order and patron of priests and parish priests, who assured his mother that he would dedicate his ministry to “conquer many souls.”

In an article of National Catholic RegisterFather Roger Landry revealed the successful pastoral strategy that Saint John Mary Vianney applied in the 19th century so that Eucharistic fervor resurfaced in his parish of Ars (France).

According to P. Landry’s account, the Holy Curé of Ars arrived at the church of Saint Sixtus in 1818, and most of the 230 residents of the place went to Mass on Sunday to meet him. However, the saint observed that fewer and fewer faithful were taking communion or attending the Eucharist.

“The lack of love for God, and the almost total lack of awareness of the gift of God in the Holy Eucharist, disconcerted Father Vianney,” because for the Catholics of his time, attending Mass, adoring the Blessed Sacrament and taking communion were “the important enough to die,” he wrote.

Father Landry explained that when the saint was a child he traveled at night and secretly with his parents to attend Mass in barns.

This was so because during the French Revolution, the Eucharists were celebrated clandestinely and the priests took care that Catholics were not discovered; Otherwise, the clergy and faithful were condemned to be beheaded.

Thus, the saint developed the following four-step strategy to rekindle the love of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and renew the Eucharistic life of his people:

1. Remember the importance of attending Sunday Mass

Father Landry points out that the first thing the Holy Curé of Ars did “was help his people recover the sense of the importance of sanctifying the Lord’s Day.”

Since the beginning of Christianity, Sunday has been considered a “little Easter,” so the saint always remembered that Sunday was “a divine gift to help us be who we should be,” he indicates. The saint used to go for a walk to town before Mass to take people from the countryside, and even “he did not hesitate to use fire and sulfur when necessary,” he adds.

The Holy Curé of Ars used to point out that man “not only has material needs and basic appetites, but also needs of the soul and appetites of the heart. He lives not only on bread, but on prayer, faith, adoration and love.”

Over time, most villagers returned to Sunday Mass, and that allowed him to begin “the real work of forming them to live Eucharistic lives,” notes Father Landry.

2. Teach the true meaning of the Mass

Later, the Holy Curé of Ars helped his people regain their amazement at what happens in the Eucharist. He taught them to “recognize that in the sacrifice of the Mass we participate in the sacrifice of Christ (…) which made salvation possible; and that in the consecration, the bread and wine are totally transformed into Jesus Christ, really, truly and substantially,” points out Father Landry.

He used to tell the faithful that “attending Mass is the greatest action we can do,” because during the Eucharist “the priest’s tongue and a piece of bread make God! That is more than creating the world!” , emphasizes Father Landry quoting the saint.

Furthermore, Saint John Mary Vianney recalled that “all the good works in the world together are not equivalent to the sacrifice of the Mass, since they are works of men, and the Holy Mass is the work of God.”

“The martyr is nothing in comparison, because martyrdom is the sacrifice that man makes of his life to God; the Mass is the sacrifice that God makes of his Body and Blood for man,” the saint highlighted.

3. Promote reverence for the Eucharist at Mass

Father Landry reveals that the saint later helped his people “grow in the practical appreciation of the real presence of the Lord in the Eucharist”, and this through his example of life: the saint used to reverence the Eucharist in Mass and prayed before the Blessed Sacrament.

The Holy Curé of Ars said that people would never have thought of asking God “for his Son to die for us, to give us his body to eat, his blood to drink”, but that “God in his love has said it, conceived and acted,” recalls Father Landry.

The saint “used to preach through tears, reminding his people that God himself was among them at the altar and in the tabernacle”; and he specifies that the Curé of Ars told them: “He is here!” and he encouraged them to dedicate more time to Eucharistic adoration and to visit him as if he were our friend.

Jesus “waits for us night and day” to “tell him our needs and to receive him,” and accommodates “our weakness: if he appeared in glory before us, we would never have dared to approach him,” the saint used to teach.

4. Encourage frequent reception of Communion

The last step was to help prepare the souls of his people and all of France with the sacrament of Confession so that they would receive Jesus worthily, “not only every Sunday, but as often as possible, even every day.”

The Holy Curé of Ars confessed to many people in shifts of between 12 and 18 hours a day for 31 years, and explained to them that if they prayed and received the Holy Eucharist more often and with more love, “they would be saints.”

The saint proclaimed that in Communion “God gives himself to you! He becomes one with you!”, and that if they truly understood their happiness, “they could not live” but would “die of love.” “Come to communion, come to Jesus, come to live from Him, to live for Him!”, recalls Father Landry.

The Holy Curé of Ars worked patiently and prayed for the conversion of his people until he managed to get the faithful to fill the church every Sunday at the 7:00 am Mass.

This article was originally published in 2023 and has been adapted for republication.