In The Confessional
Even in the months between November and March, the Cure spent eleven or twelve hours a day in the confessional; when the fine weather returned it would be fifteen, sixteen, or even eighteen hours. It has been calculated that from 1830-when the Ars pilgrimage was already drawing crowds that were never to stop arriving, to 1859, the date of his death, the time spent by the Abbey Vianney hearing confessions must have reached a total of eighteen years. It might be irreverent, but it would be strictly accurate to use of him the sporting phrase - and say that the Cure d' Ars as a confessor beat all the records. In the course of his life, he accomplished single-handed what five or six priests together would not have been able to do, and as Abbe Raymond, who was for eight years his assistant, observed, his labor in the sacred tribunal alone was sufficient to win him canonization. It is, indeed, impossible to weigh up the sum of sacrifices and the degree of heroism that this voluntary imprisonment in a confessional must have demanded from a weak human nature which, even in a saint, has its moments of rebellion and its dreams of freedom and of rest.
Source: A Biography of St. Jean-Marie Vianney
