„ Do you know what the devil's first temptation is for a person who began to serve God better? ” – asked the priest from Ars his parishioners. The holy priest told them about his „ adventures ” with the forces of evil.
From 1824 – for almost 35 years – priest. Jan Maria Vianney fought one of the most difficult fights: the fight against devil. The evil spirit did everything to discourage him from praying, raw life and loyalty to the priesthood. He mocked his pastoral efforts, mocked mortifications and posts, and laughed at the lack of education. He beat, threatened and harassed.
Although in tiny Ars – there were 270 inhabitants – the priest led a modest life, did not catch his eye, did not write newspapers about him and did not make a career, the devil took him in his crosshairs. He was nobody in the eyes of the world. And who did the devil see in the priest of Ars?
St. Jan Maria Vianney and assaults of the devil
The devil's attacks began in the winter of 1824. Ks. Jan was thirty-eight years old at the time, he lived and worked in Ars for six years. It was evening, around nine o'clock. The priest went to sleep, but he heard three strong blows to the gate.
It wasn't knocking on a cold wanderer. The sound was deaf, growing as if someone wanted to break down the gate. The priest opened the window, called, but saw no one. He gave himself to God's protection again and went to bed. But he did not fall asleep when the pounding repeated, but this time to the door of the apartment.
Because a few days earlier, the golden monstrance was stolen, the next day the priest asked two men for help. For fear of thieves, men watched the presbytery from the belfry, others slept in the priest's apartment. Although the noise repeated, they saw no one.
One of the men witnessed a tug of door handles and a latch in the door and trembling of the whole house, but when they searched all the rooms and found no one, they decided that the priest's house was attacked by unclean forces.
Dangerous for the devil
Shortly afterwards, when there was a lot of snow and Ars was sinking in silence and white, loud blows to the gate woke the priest in the middle of the night. He jumped up quickly and fled to the bottom, being sure that the bandits had left traces in the snow that would allow them to be found. He looked out, but around the fence the snow lay even and intact. The whole square was sinking in the moonlight. The priest saw no one.
In his heart, however, he felt unpleasant cold. He understood that they were not people they want to hurt him with bad intentions, but that the one who renounced good and knows how to do only evil has come, he is evil – the devil himself. Soon the priest discovered the extraordinary relationship – the devil attacked particularly severely every night that preceded the confession of the great sinner.
It looked as if wild rage was bursting hell when a man wanted to convert in the morning. Father Jan as a confessor was extremely dangerous for the devil. There were days that he spent seventeen hours in the confessional during the day.
Sources say that since 1830. annually about 30,000 people. Could such a priest be someone for the devil who he would not pay attention to? „ The devil is like pirates who only attack ships carrying rich cargo ”.
„ I haven't seen him but ... ”
„ Satan – said Fr. Vianney – does little to discipline and other penitential tools. He is forced to escape by mortification in drinking, eating and sleeping. Satan is not afraid of anything more ... ”.
During the years of tormenting, the devil's ingenuity knew no bounds. He rumbled, screamed, thundered, moved objects, threw a priest out of bed, gave him the feeling of walking rats on his face, made bats fly in the room, and an irritating patter was heard in the attic, which resembled the rumble of a flock of sheep on a concrete floor. In the rooms above the dining room, Fr. Jan heard the rumble of horse hooves.
„ I did not see him – confided in parishioners on October 8, 1825 – but he caught me and pushed me out of bed several times”. He asked for help in widening the straw mattress so that it would be more difficult to get him out of the lair.
„ The devil paid me a visit today ”
In December he said: „ The devil paid me a visit today, panting as hard as if he wanted to swallow me. I thought he was vomiting gravel or something. I told him: I will go to Providence and reveal all your intrigues so that you will be hated. The devil fell silent immediately ”.
Another time, when asked by Bishop Devie how he knew that the devil was harassing him, he replied: „ I thought it was the devil because I felt fear. God never scares you”.
From 1855, the devil attacked the priest's body. Vianney was coughing so much that he was shaking. In September 1857, curtains above the bed lit up the room caught fire. The priest was in the church at the time and commented on the event as follows: „ The devil could not capture the bird, he set fire to his cage ”.
The first temptation of the devil
No one knows the effectiveness of persistent prayer and the importance of conversion like the devil. He knows that every confession reduces the number of inhabitants of hell ... „ Do you know what the devil's first temptation is for a person who began to serve God better? It is for other people” – said Fr. Jan in one of his sermons.
One of the women who came to the priest for help turned out to have the characteristics of possession. During the prayer, in the presence of witnesses, she shouted: „ How much suffering you make me endure! If there were three on earth, my kingdom would be destroyed. You took more than eighty thousand souls from me! ”.
Build an Eucharistic community
The devil looked at John and saw perfectly that his zeal and constant prayer pose a threat to dormant consciences, frigid faith and the decay prevailing in Ars. First – with his old, proven method – hit the shepherd.
However, Vianney continued in prayer, served from dawn to night, fasted for parishioners, walked to them, talked and confessed. In the spiritual dimension, the devil did not find access to the priest's soul – decided to scare him effectively. Everything he did was to prevent parishioners from converting. He hoped that the scared, sleepless, tormented by devilish attacks and a priest full of fear for his own life would stop ripping his prey out of hell.
But underestimated the power of the community. The priest decided not to act alone. He talked about evil attacks and invited all residents to pray. He established the constant adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, then appointed a brotherhood of men who were to remain in prayer.
The idea was to build an Eucharistic community, so that everyone, for a moment, would look into the church and expose themselves to the radiation of the presence of the living God.
I look at God and God is looking at me
The fruit came quickly. In one of his sermons he told the church: „ There was a man here in the parish who had been dead for many years. When he arrived at church in the morning to say the prayer before going to the field, he left a hoe at the church door and remembered himself completely in the face of God.
A neighbor who worked nearby and used to see him at work, his absence was astonishing now. Returning home, he thought of joining the church. And there he found him indeed.
What have you been doing here for so long? – asked. And when asked, he said to him with simplicity: I look at God and God looks at me ... – Yes, my children. These simple words contain all the content of communing with God” – said the priest.
God's greatest friends know the devil best
„ God's greatest friends know the devil best ” – claimed the holy priest of Ars. „ Demon tempts only those souls who want to renounce sin and those who are in a state of grace. Others still belong to him, so there is no need to tempt them ” – explained and reminded – first with his life – that for a baptized man the most important task is to follow the path to holiness.
It is a heroic path that requires work, self-denial and sacrifice. There is nothing of a calm, safe journey, it is risky, often winds, narrows, disappears in the thicket of temptations and leads with a steep ridge. This path is a challenge. Once a person decides that he wants to go – trouble begins.
Making fun, discouraging, discrediting sense, throwing logs under your feet. When it doesn't help – bad launches heavier calibers, it attacks more fancy, more brutal. Does man have any chance to deal with him? Not to get pushed off this road into the abyss? Sam has none, he has no chance.
The only person who won in this confrontation forever is God Himself. Persistence in Him allows you to survive the devilish assault. „ The more the soul increases, the stronger the opponents ”, „The devil prefers saints” – wrote Jacquelin Kelen.
He is delicious, likes challenges and hates those who try to disentangle people from the trap in which he caught them. Especially when he went to so much trouble to make snares invisible, and hide his existence and deny it…
Roman Brandstaetter's poem
About devilish attacks on Fr. Vianney Roman Brandstaetter wrote a poem. He pointed to anguish, but also to the fact that the priest drove Satan out of those people who carried ... the absence of God.
You eat some cold and moldy potatoes
And deadly tired
You pound on a pallet,
And Satan shakes your home,
Growls in the attic
And the room is breaking,
Moves the chair and table,
Rustles in curtains like a rat,
And even sits on the edge of your straw mattress
And mocking the Voice of Invisibility,
He calls: „ You can't escape me, Jan, you can't escape! ”
And you fight with him more and more
– Oh, immeasurable torment of fighting the Evil! –
And unlearned faith
You drive him out of people.
Carrying God's absence,
Perverse and uncompromising.
I used books:
J. Kelen, „The devil prefers saints ”;
J.M. „Vianney, Sermons”;
R. Brandstaetter, „Poems and poems ”.