Publication date: 28 September 2024
Introduction: Saint John Eudes, missionary priest and mystic (1601 - 1680)
Lecture given at Notre-Dame du Chêne in Viroflay
By Mgr Luc Crépy, Bishop of Versailles
Jean Eudes was born in Normandy, at Ri near Argentan in the Orne department, in 1601, into a relatively well-off farming family. In 1615, he entered the Jesuit College in Caen. Jean Eudes wanted to be a priest. Despite some reluctance on the part of his father, he prepared for the priesthood in a new community of priests in Caen, the Oratoire, founded by the future Cardinal Pierre de Bérulle. He continued his studies in Paris and was ordained a priest in 1625. Two years later, he returned to Caen to join the Oratorian community. Among his many apostolates, he devoted himself entirely to the plague victims in 1627 and 1631.
His life was made up of itinerant preaching with other priests. These missions could last several weeks. The aim was to rekindle the fervour of Christian life. John Eudes was a gifted preacher. They speak of him as a lion in the pulpit and a lamb in the confessional. During his missions, John Eudes spoke to ordinary Christians, often far from the faith, but also to priests. God wants to renew our hearts by giving us a new heart. For Father Eudes, the Christian life is a living relationship with the Lord.
Jean Eudes sees human misery and that of the clergy. In 1641, John Eudes founds Notre Dame du Refuge in Caen (which later became the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd) with a group of women in charge of taking in women and young girls wounded by life: prostitutes, abandoned women.
Other religious congregations would later follow in Father Eudes' footsteps, such as the Little Sisters of the Poor, a congregation founded by Jeanne Jugan, a Eudist tertiary. Human misery, but also the misery of the clergy: at that time, priests were not prepared to exercise their ministry. How to have holy ChristiansIf priests themselves have no ideal of holiness? So that missions are bearing fruit that remainsThe local clergy must be well prepared to exercise their ministry. In the previous century, the Council of Trent had emphasised the importance of the priest's ministry. With this in mind, he founded the Congregation of Jesus and Mary in 1643, later known as the "Eudists" for seminaries and missions. During John Eudes' lifetime, other seminary foundations followed, despite numerous obstacles.
Saint John Eudes combines the qualities of a missionary and a mystic. He was responsible for a number of books and manuals designed to help people live as Christians. His first work - which has been reprinted many times - " Life and Kingdom of Jesus in Christian souls "published in 1636, provides the essence of his missionary preaching. In addition, as part of the great spiritual movement of the French School of Spirituality - initiated by Pierre de Bérulle - he opened up a new and wide-ranging reflection on the Marian faith, centred on the "Holy Spirit". Heart of MaryShe was the one who formed Christ in her womb, but even more so in her heart (Saint Augustine). Mary is the first of the disciples, who said yes to God, leading us to his Son: "To Jesus through Mary". From the Heart of Mary, John Eudes leads us to the Heart of Jesus. For the Heart of MaryIt is first and foremost the Heart of her Son. In this way, Mary enlightens the Christian life, which is to form Jesus in us. Saint John Eudes died on 19 August 1680, was beatified in 1909 and canonised by Pius XI in 1925, at the same time as the Curé d'Ars. At present, the process is under way for Saint John Eudes to become a "saint of the Church". Doctor of the Church ".
Making a treasure available to all: from the Heart of Mary to the Heart of Jesus
One of the most significant developments in the spirituality of Saint John Eudes is his spiritual doctrine concerning the Heart. The question of the Heart in John EudesIt is a treasure that marks its place in the patrimony of the universal Church, and the best of his spiritual journey. Saint John Eudes was not the first to speak of the Heart, but what is striking is the liturgical, solemn, public, confessional, festive and celebratory way in which this intuition, this devotion and this concept of the "heart" is given expression. It is not the good of one man, it is not the good of one group, it is, from the outset, the good of the whole Church. John Eudes wanted to make this spiritual treasure available to all Christians. The liturgy is the place par excellence in Christian life where everyone can receive God's gift. So, to give substance to this beautiful pastoral intuition, John Eudes was the first to celebrate liturgically the feast of the Heart of Mary and then the feast of the Heart of Jesus.
One of the most significant developments in the spirituality of Saint John Eudes is his spiritual doctrine concerning the Heart.
This spiritual journey is rooted in the great perspective in which the Christian life is understood as a continuation and fulfilment of the life of Jesus.. To arrive at a way of thinking built on the Heart, John Eudes highlighted the essential and primary motive for God's action: love. And throughout his life, he experienced this love, not only for himself - he never ceased to give thanks for everything he experienced - but also for those he met on his missions. God's love is the source of all things God's love for man and the love that man has the grace to be able to show Him. He wants to celebrate this love of God manifested in the person of Jesus. The Incarnation is a work of love without limit and without parallelJohn Eudes sees Jesus as the embodiment of God's own mercy:
" This is why the eternal Father is called the Father of mercies, because he is the Father of the incarnate Word, who is mercy itself.1 ".
And yet, Marie is the one who bore the Son of God, through her the Son of God entered the world. John Eudes, following in the footsteps of his teacher Pierre de Bérulle, contemplated Jesus living in Mary, Jesus filling all of Mary's life and reigning in her Heart. Mary is all availability, gratitude and welcome. She was the first to live the Christian life as a participation in and fulfilment of the life of Jesus. John Eudes' devotion to Mary took a major turn when he decided to celebrate publicly, during the mission in Autun on 8 February 1648, the feast of the Heart of Mary, or more precisely, the feast of Jesus, Heart of Mary. John Eudes' missionary preoccupation with the celebration of this feast is still relevant today,
is clearly present: Mary becomes, in the words of all his works, the "prototype", the "exemplar", the "model", the "living rule" that every baptised person can contemplate and pray to.
Nevertheless, John Eudes' thinking continued to deepen. He was subjected to the painful events of a long period of slander, John Eudes knows where his support lies: Christ and his unfailing love.. Once again, he gives liturgical form to that which has sustained him throughout his life and which sustains the world until the consummation of the ages: the Heart of Jesus. charity furnace ". The first liturgical feast of the Heart of Jesus was celebrated on 20 October 1672 in Caen. So after having offered the cult of the Heart of Mary to the liturgy of the Church in 1648, 24 years later he offered the liturgical cult of the Heart of Jesus to the whole Church2. He never ceased to remind us how much Mary leads us to her Son and how much the hearts of Jesus and Mary are one. Treasure of the Church given to all :
" The Heart of Jesus is yours because the eternal Father, in giving you his Son, gave you the Heart of his Son; because this same Son gave it to you by giving himself to you, and because he wanted to be your head... The Heart of Mary is yours because Jesus gave her to you to be your Mother, and what belongs to the mother belongs to the children... "
The overflowing love of the Heart of Jesus is offered to all as an inexhaustible sourceThis Heart is given to believers who can use it as their own property. And this Heart is given to believers, who can use it as their own property; it calls us to love with the very Heart of Jesus:
"Do not be content, therefore, to love an infinitely lovable God with the whole extent of this little human heart, whether corporeal or spiritual, which is in your body and in your soul; that is too little, it is nothing. But love him 'Corde magno et animo volenti', with all your great Heart. [...] If you love your neighbour and have some act of charity to do, love him and do for him all that you must, in the charity of your great Heart.i"
John Eudes was therefore proclaimed a saint by the Church with the title of "Saint". father, doctor, apostle of the liturgical cult of the Holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary "In the liturgy of the Church, he offered the treasure of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary to all the people of God.
The Heart of Jesus, a furnace of love
In the encyclical Haurietis Aquas, Pius XII clearly defined devotion to the Sacred Heart as a "cult" within the very broad horizon of God's own love:
"The cult of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in its intimate nature, is the cult of the love with which God has loved us through Jesus, at the same time as it is the exercise of the love that we ourselves bear for God and for other men; it consists, in other words, in honouring God's love for us and has this God as its object in order to adore him, to give him thanks, to live in his imitation; and it tends to bring to absolute perfection the love that unites us to God and to other men, by making us better practise day by day the new commandment that the Divine Master left as a sacred heritage to his disciples with these words: "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you... This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.i " (§ 60)
Saint John Eudes, from a very similar perspective, speaks of the Heart of Jesus as "the Heart of Jesus". furnace of love ". By instituting the liturgical cult of the Heart of Jesus - after that of the Heart of Mary - the Norman pastor and missionary sought to bring the Christian people more deeply into the liturgical celebration of Christ's love.
Celebrating the Sacred Heart of Jesus is both a very simple and a very powerful way of expressing the love of God manifested by Christ Jesus, Son of God made man, revealing by the gift of his life that God is love. As Saint John says "This is how God's love has been made manifest among us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him." (1 Jn 4:9). To celebrate, to celebrate, to honour the Heart of Jesus is to celebrate, to celebrate, to honour, in thanksgiving, the love of God that has manifested itself and is manifesting itself for each one of us and for all of humanity. This is why Saint John Eudes, a tireless missionary, placed the heart of Jesus at the heart of his preaching, the heart of Jesus whose path passes through the Heart of Mary.
Celebrating the Sacred Heart of Jesus is both a very simple and a very powerful way of expressing the love of God manifested by Christ Jesus, Son of God made man, revealing by the gift of his life that God is love.
For the Mass of the Heart of Jesus, John Eudes chose three great biblical texts: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will remove the stony heart from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. (Ez 36, 26) "God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us". (Romans 5:5) "My commandment is this: Love one another as I have loved you". (Jn 15:12). Paul Milcent, the great biographer of Saint John Eudes, writes that through these three texts of Scripture chosen by Saint John Eudes, he celebrates a new heart, an immense heart, a pierced heart.i
"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will remove the stony heart from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. (Ez 36, 26) To celebrate the Heart of Jesus is to recognise and welcome the newness of Christian life. Saint John Eudes was well aware of how difficult it is for us to love in truth, of the sin that distances us from God and from others, of everything that distances us from love in the different areas of our lives. The words of the prophet Ezekiel made a deep impression on him: Only God can renew our hearts by giving us the ability, strength and joy to love. Only God can replace our heart of stone, which finds it so hard to love, hardened in a thousand ways, with a heart of flesh, that is, a truly human heart, created in the image and likeness of the heart of God... a heart created to love. To celebrate the new heart that is given to us is to accept this call to conversion, day after day, so that God may transform our view of others, increase our concern for the poorest and the smallest, and teach us to love without counting the cost. The newness of our heart means that our heart becomes one with the heart of Jesus, that is, that we learn to have the same feelings, the same compassion, the same benevolence as Christ in our ordinary lives.
"O my God, how excessive is your goodness, how admirable is your love for us! You are infinitely worthy of being loved, praised and glorified; we have an infinite number of obligations to love and glorify you; but because we have no heart or mind that is either worthy or capable of fulfilling these obligations, your incomprehensible wisdom has found us, and your immense goodness has given us an admirable means of fulfilling them fully and perfectly: You have given us the Spirit and the Heart of your Son, who is your own Spirit and your own Heart, and you have given him to us to be our own spirit and our own heart, according to the promise you made to us by the mouth of your Prophet, in these words: "I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you" (Ez 36:26). i"
"God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us". (Rom 5:5) A new heart, but also a huge heart. Saint John Eudes speaks of the "Great Heart" of Jesus. He wrote to one of the Daughters of Charity: "My daughter, do you know that you have two hearts, a large one and a small one? This one is yours, but the big one is that of our good Saviour, who is also yours, since the eternal Father gave him to you and he gave himself to you. And it is through this adorable Heart that you must love God, for what can you do with your little heart? From now on, therefore, say: 'My God, I love you, but with and with all my great Heart...".i An immense heart because, as Saint Paul says, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, God's love has been poured into our hearts. The new spirit of which Ezekiel speaks is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, given to us through our baptism and confirmation. An immense heart, because God's love is immense and without end. Learning to love ever more, ever better.
"My commandment is this: Love one another as I have loved you". (Jn 15:12) A new heart, an immense heart, a pierced heart... To love as Christ has loved us is, for the disciples that we are, to be called to follow our Master on the path where he gives his life for all: "There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends. In our lives, the path of love crosses, in one way or another, the path of the Cross, through which we must learn to renounce ourselves, to give ourselves, to forgive. It is in the heart open to the Cross that love is victorious over evil, violence and hatred. It is in the heart opened on the cross that the Church is born, called to live and bear witness to the love of God manifested in the human heart of his Son, that heart pierced by the spear of man.
"The Heart of Jesus is not only the temple, but also the altar of divine Love. It is on this altar that the sacred fire of this same love is lit night and day. It is on this altar that the High Priest Jesus continually offers several kinds of sacrifice to the Most Holy Trinity. He offers and sacrifices himself as a victim of love, as the holiest and most precious victim that ever was or could be; and he sacrifices entirely his body, his soul, his blood, all his life, all his thoughts, all his words, all his deeds, and all that he has suffered on earth; and he makes this sacrifice perpetually and with immense and infinite love."i
A new heart, an immense heart, a pierced heart: we can reflect on the whole Gospel with this image of the loving heart of Jesus: Jesus with the hungry crowds, Jesus attentive to the sick and excluded, Jesus close to his disciples, Jesus a friend of Martha, Mary and Lazarus, Jesus who on the cross does not forget his mother Mary and entrusts her to his disciple John. Saint John Eudes depicts the heart of Jesus as a furnace of love - a heart from which flames rise - expressing love as a fire that enlightens, purifies, burns and transforms. In contemplating the Heart of Christ, Saint John Eudes affirms that nothing escapes the heat of his love.
Conclusion: the path of the Heart, the path of union with Christ, offered to every baptised person.
John Eudes, priest and missionary, preached the passionate love of God all his life. The cult he left to the Church resonates perfectly with his tireless activity as a minister of the Word.
It is a question of announcing the Good News to every baptised person by proclaiming God's love through the figure of the Heart:
"The Heart of Jesus is yours because the eternal Father, in giving you his Son, gave you the Heart of his Son; because this same Son gave it to you by giving himself to you and because he wanted to be your head... The Heart of Mary is yours because Jesus gave her to you to be your Mother and what belongs to the mother belongs to the children.... The hearts of the Angels and Saints are yours because... the eternal Father, in giving you his Son, gave you all things with him... and you have the right to appropriate them as your own... O Christian, how rich you are! If only you knew how to use them... Si scires donum Dei!i
Love is indeed the object of the cult of the Heart of Jesus. Pastorally (pedagogically), John Eudes shows how Jesus possesses the hearts of all those he loves, in the immensity of his Heart. He wants to give it to us as a gift, so that it becomes our "Great Heart", thus broadening our capacity to love. He then enables us to love the Father and the Spirit in truth, and to love one another as he has loved us. The cult of the Heart of Jesus is thus a path of sanctification offered to all the baptised, a path that everyone can follow with Mary, so much so that for Saint John Eudes the cult of the Heart of Jesus is linked with that of the Heart of Mary, as witnessed by one of the best-known prayers - Ave Cor - that he composed in honour of the two Hearts.i
We salute you, Most Holy Heart,
We salute you, sweetest heart,
We salute you, most humble Heart.
We salute you, Most Pure Heart,
We salute you, Heart given without reserve,
We salute you, most wise heart,
We salute you, Most Patient Heart,
We salute you, most obedient Heart.
We salute you, most watchful heart,
We salute you, most faithful Heart,
We salute you, Blessed Heart,
We salute you, merciful Heart,
We salute you, most loving Heart of Jesus and Mary,
We adore you,
We praise you,
We glorify you,
We give you thanks,
We love you,
With all our soul,
And with all our might,
We offer you our hearts,
We'll give it to you,
We dedicate it to you,
We sacrifice him to you,
Receive it, possess it in its entirety,
Purify it,
Enlighten him, Sanctify him,
In him, live and reign, now, always and forever.
Amen.
1 Saint John Eudes, Œuvres Complètes VIII, p. 53.
2 At the beatification and canonisation of John Eudes, the Church declared him "father, doctor and apostle of the liturgical cult of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary".
3O. C. VI, pp. 261-262
4O. C. VI, p. 264.
5Haurietis Aquas §60
6Paul Milcent, Saint Jean Eudes, un artisan du renouveau chrétien au XVII° siècle, Paris, Cerf, 1992, pp.449 ff.
7 O.C. VI, pp. 261
8Paul Milcent, Idem, quoted on p. 452.
9O.C. 8, pp. 337-339.
10O. C. VI, pp. 261-262
11O.C. III, p. 268-269
