St John Vianney
Feast Day August 4
Patron of Parish Priests and Those Who Join Together in Prayer

When you have prayed rosary after rosary, week after week, year after year, for your loved ones, you are bound to have those times when you are tired and weary of interceding for them.  At such times, don't give up.  Don't stop.  Think of St John enduring long hours hearing confessions.  Then remember his words about praying together.  Call a friend and ask them to pray with you.  Join a prayer group--or start a group in your area and focus on praying for loved ones who are no longer practicing Catholics.  Then say a prayer for vocations and for all our good priests who serve God's people so faithfully.

Who was Saint John Vianney?
 

 Known also as , the Cure' of Ars, St. John Vianney is the only diocesan priest ever to be canonized. By his perseverance and struggle with his seminary studies, he was living proof of the angle Gabriel's words to Mary, "All things are possible with God."

As a parish priest he often spent 12,  sometimes up to 16, hours in the confessional.  His love for the Lord and for God's people kept him faithful to his calling.

On Praying Together

Private prayer is like straw scattered here and there: If you set it on fire it makes a lot of little flames. But gather these straws into a bundle and light them, and you get a mighty fire, rising like a column into the sky.
~Saint John Vianney

 Prayer of St John Vianney

I love You, O my God, and my only desire is to love You until the last breath of my life.  

I love You, O my infinitely lovable God, and I would rather die loving You, than live without loving You.

I love You, Lord and the only grace I ask is to love You eternally.

My God, if my tongue cannot say in every moment that I love You, I want my heart to repeat it to You as often as I draw breath.