This great priest of the confessional spent forty-two years in the parish of Ars, in France. Gifted in the reading of souls, he is much venerated even today.

On the Eucharist, he said: ‘Jesus our food, incomparable glory of the Christian soul. What the Angels behold only with awe, the radiant splendour of which they cannot sustain, we make our food, we receive it into us, we become with Jesus Christ one Body, one Flesh.’

In these days when we have suffered so much from the deprivation of the Sacraments, may St John Vianney’s prayers strengthen and assist us. May God bless you this day.