SPEAKER_00: Today's one of my favorite feast days because we celebrate the patron saint of parish priest, Saint John Bieni, the cure of ours.
SPEAKER_00: Most people know him as a saint who spent countless hours hearing confessions, but that's not where his story begins.
SPEAKER_00: His story begins with failure.
SPEAKER_00: John Bieni was not considered bright.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he struggled terribly in school, especially with Latin, which every seminarian had to master before ordination.
SPEAKER_00: More than once people wondered whether he would ever become a priest at all.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine that.
SPEAKER_00: The man who would one day become the patron saint of all parish priests almost never became one.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because the world measures people by talent.
SPEAKER_00: God measures people by surrender.
SPEAKER_00: There's a beautiful sentence often attributed to him.
SPEAKER_00: God does not ask us to do extraordinary things, but to do ordinary things with extraordinary love.
SPEAKER_00: That was his life.
SPEAKER_00: When he was finally ordained, his bishop didn't send him to a great cathedral, he sent him to Ours, a tiny, forgotten village of about two hundred thirty people.
SPEAKER_00: There wasn't much faith there.
SPEAKER_00: Many people had stopped practicing their faith after the French Revolution.
SPEAKER_00: Some thought of Ours as a dead parish.
SPEAKER_00: John Bianni thought of it as fertile ground for grace.
SPEAKER_00: He once said, There is one person in the parish who needs conversion, and that person is me.
SPEAKER_00: What humility.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't arrive thinking he was going to fix everyone else.
SPEAKER_00: He began by allowing God to keep changing him.
SPEAKER_00: That's where renewal begins.
SPEAKER_00: Whether it's a parish, a marriage, a family, or even our own hearts.
SPEAKER_00: The saints never started by changing the world.
SPEAKER_00: They started by letting God change them.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if we turn to the first reading, Jeremiah hears these painful words from the Lord Incurable is your wound.
SPEAKER_00: At first that sounds hopeless, but then God immediately makes a promise I will restore.
SPEAKER_00: That's God's pattern throughout the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: He reveals the wound, not to shame us, but to heal us.
SPEAKER_00: John Bieni understood that better than anyone.
SPEAKER_00: Why did thousands of people travel for days to see an obscure priest in a tiny French village?
SPEAKER_00: Well, not because he was famous, not because he was entertaining, not because he was charismatic.
SPEAKER_00: They came because when they met him, they encountered someone who believed that no sinner was beyond God's mercy.
SPEAKER_00: He would spend twelve, fourteen, sometimes sixteen hours a day in the confessional.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because he knew every person who walked into that confessional was carrying some kind of wound, and he believed Christ was the only one that could heal it.
SPEAKER_00: Then we hear today's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Peter begins walking on water, then he notices the wind, he begins to sink, and he cries out, Lord, save me.
SPEAKER_00: I've always loved what happens next.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel says immediately Jesus stretched out his hand.
SPEAKER_00: Immediately.
SPEAKER_00: Not after Peter proved himself, not after Peter agonized or apologized, immediately.
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what John Vienni spent his entire priesthood doing, pointing people to the hands of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He knew that priests don't save people.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus does.
SPEAKER_00: A priest simply points to the Savior.
SPEAKER_00: There's one more thing about John Vienni that I think is especially important today.
SPEAKER_00: He never tried to be someone else.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't a great scholar like Thomas Aquinas.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't brilliant preacher like Augustine.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't a missionary like Francis Xavier.
SPEAKER_00: He simply became the saint God created him to be.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we spend our lives comparing ourselves to everyone else.
SPEAKER_00: If I only had those gifts, I can only be like that person or this person.
SPEAKER_00: I wish I had his talent.
SPEAKER_00: I wish I was more like them.
SPEAKER_00: I wish I had what they have.
SPEAKER_00: God has blessed them with this, why not me?
SPEAKER_00: But God has never asked that of you.
SPEAKER_00: He's only asked you to become the saint he created you to be.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's why John Bieni speaks to us.
SPEAKER_00: Because if God could transform a struggling seminarian into the greatest priest in the history of the church, imagine what he can do with your heart, a heart that says, Lord, save me.
SPEAKER_00: Whether you're a priest, a parent, a student, retired, young, or old, that's where holiness begins.
SPEAKER_00: Not by pretending we're strong, but by admitting we need the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And every time we do, he does exactly what he did for Peter.
SPEAKER_00: He immediately stretches out his hand.
SPEAKER_00: May Saint John be any pray for all priests, that we may never rely on our own talents, but always on the grace of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And may he pray for, may we pray for each one of us, that we may never underestimate what God can do through one humble heart completely surrendered to him.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.