27 Raising a Nation from the Dead The people listened For hours they listened. They heard the great elemental truths of the Christian faith, that God is holy, and man a sinner, and Christ came to suffer and to die for us, worthless as we are, because we are dearer to him than is all the rest of creation. Father John’s devotion to the Blessed Sacrament was extraordinary. Helvetius and Diderot and all the others who mocked were dead and buried, but the Eucharist was still the one truly living thing in the world, because the Lord of life made himself present in it—God with us till the end of time. And when Father John Vianney raised the Host at the consecration, it seemed to the people—who now crowded the church so that there was hardly a spot left to kneel—that there never had been any moment but this, here. Miracles came too, though John, overcome by the greater wonder, seemed never to be surprised by the lesser. Why should God not work healings to stun a philosophe into stony silence? Why should the Bread of heaven not provide a miraculous bounty in the granary during a famine? Why should God who searches our inmost hearts not whisper something of them to a poor confessor? And God did that; and a mighty river of visitors came to Ars, curious, despondent, zealous, guilty. And Father John Vianney heard their sins day and
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