"Shrewd as serpents and simple as doves"
Unflagging zeal for prayer with a continual exercise of virtue had led the man of God to such serenity of mind that although he had no expertise in Sacred Scripture through his intellect, nevertheless enlightened by the splendor of etemal light, he probed the depths of Scripture with remarkable incisiveness. For his genius, pure and unstained, penetrated hidden mysteries, and where the knowledge of teachers stands outside, the passion of the lover entered.
Once, when the brothers asked him whether he was pleased that the learned men, who by that time, had been received into the Order, were devoting themselves to the study of Sacred Scripture, he replied: "I am indeed pleased, as long as, after the example Christ, of whom we read that he prayed more than he read, they do not neglect zeal for prayer; and, as long as they study, not to know what they should say, but to practice what they have heard and, once they have put it into practice, propose it to others. I want my brothers," he said, "to be Gospel disciples and so progress in knowledge of the truth that they increase in pure simplicity without separating the simplicity of the dove from the wisdom of the serpent which our eminent Teacher joined together in a statement from his own blessed lips."
St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, the Cure of Ars