France experienced a great spiritual revival in the 17th century. A major figure in that revival was the outstanding home missionary St. John Eudes. John was the first-born of Isaac Eudes, a farmer of Normandy. The family was very devout and John showed a precocious spirituality; yet his parents wanted him to marry and carry on the family farm. By 1620, however, he had made a private vow of celibacy, so he declined their proposal.
In 1621 he began to study theology, with a view to becoming a diocesan priest. Then he changed his mind and joined the Congregation of the Oratory of France. He had the good fortune to be trained there by Pierre de Berulle and Charles de Condren. From them he inherited the idea that the priest, of all people, should strive most for perfection.
France at that time needed to be shaken up spiritually. One of the means undertaken was the parish mission, which had just been “invented.” Father Eudes was to become the country’s ablest domestic missionary. The mission plan involved two emphases in particular: sermons preached to large crowds, in church or in the open, and sacramental confession. As Eudes himself described this procedure, “The preacher beats the bushes and the confessors catch the bird!” As he went around from city to city, hamlet to hamlet, John kept his eyes open for other needs of the spirit. One thing he observed was that there was no special provision for women who had converted from a wayward life. Therefore, in 1641 he himself opened a house of refuge for these penitent women, with some Visitation nuns of Caen in charge. In 1650 this group of Visitandines decided to separate from their community and found another order devoted entirely to this sort of work. They called it the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge. (These sisters established a convent home in Buffalo in 1855, from which, in 1930, another convent was set up in Rochester. The Rochester convent, Holy Angels Home, closed several years ago).
St. John also decided that, given the importance of the priesthood for renewing spirituality, the training of priests should be a priority. Since the Congregation of the Oratory did not want to take on seminary work, Eudes set up, in 1643, a new community of priests without vows to specialize in seminary education. He called them the Congregation of Jesus and Mary. By the time of his death, these “Eudist Fathers” had charge of six French seminaries.
Another of John’s responses was to those stricken by the plague. He insisted on caring for them with his own hands. So as not to risk carrying their disease to others during the epidemic of 1631, he lived for a while in a huge barrel in the middle of a field, eating food brought to him from a nearby convent. (Thus he became a model for today’s nurses of the victims of AIDS).
St. John’s great devotion was to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. He did not originate these devotions; it was St. Margaret Mary, from 1675 on, who was the chief promoter of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. But it was he who got the church to accept liturgical offices in honor of the Sacred Heart of Mary (1642) and the Sacred Heart of Jesus (1672). So he was one of the leading advocates of both of these devotions. His congregation adopted as their badge the symbol of the two hearts joined together.
Meanwhile, St. John continued his tireless work for the home missions. It was these efforts that eventually brought about his failure in health. In 1675 he preached a nine-week mission in the open air at Saint Lo. As a result, he fell ill from overexertion and was unable to give any missions thereafter. Eudes had converted souls not only by his preaching but by his example of personal devotion. He was especially reverent in the celebration of Mass. One of his most famous remarks was that to offer Mass properly one needs three eternities: the first, to prepare for it; the second, to celebrate it; the third, to give thanks for it. --Father Robert F. McNamara
Scripture(Eph 3:14-19)
I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you, in accord with the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Writings
(Year B).THE hearts of all the angels and saints of Heaven constitute, according to the different degrees of love possessed by those same hearts, as many diverse sanctuaries of divine Love, where Almighty God is adored, glorified and loved forever. The divine Heart of our most amiable Saviour, however, is the Sanctuary of sanctuaries and the Love of loves. As from all eternity, ever shall it adore, glorify and love God in a manner infinitely worthy of divine grandeur and sublime goodness.
The most holy Heart of the peerless Mother of our Saviour is the second sanctuary of divine love, a sanctuary fashioned by the Holy Ghost Himself, Who is love essential and uncreated, a sanctuary never defiled by sin, but always adorned with the highest degree of every virtue. Mary's Heart always was, and shall forever remain, the glorious abode of the Saint of saints. In it there always existed and ever shall exist greater honor, glory and love for the Most Holy Trinity than in all material and spiritual sanctuaries that ever were, are or shall be in Heaven and on earth.
This adorable sanctuary comprises several features that we shall now have to consider. The first is its perpetual sacrifice ceaselessly offered to God, a sacrifice of love and praise. Mary offered the sacrifice of love, for during her pilgrimage. on earth, and still much more since her Assumption into Heaven, her virginal Heart constantly made a perpetual exercise and sacrifice of love towards God, a love never surpassed, except by the love of the deified Heart of Jesus. She also offered the sacrifice of praise, for her Heart is a perpetual host of praise and adoration, of glorification, of thanksgiving to the Most Holy Trinity, which is more worthily praised, more perfectly adored and more highly glorified by Our Lady than by all human and angelic minds and hearts in heaven and on earth.
Mary's is the Heart represented by the golden censer held in the hand of the Angel mentioned at the beginning of the eighth Chapter of the Apocalypse. It is a golden censer, to show that Mary’s immaculate Heart is unmixed love as typified by pure gold. The Angel in whose hand it is held is the Angel of the great counsel, namely, our Blessed Saviour Himself, to show that the holy Heart of Mary always belonged to God alone, and that it was ever possessed and guided by the Angel of the great counsel. If the heart of an earthly Sovereign is in the Lord's hand, to be ruled as He wills, how much more truly the Heart of the Queen of Heaven? The Angel of the great counsel fills the censer with fire from the altar, adding great quantities of incense, which are the prayers of the saints, to signify that the Son of God filled His holy Mother's Heart with the sacred fire He had come to bring upon earth, and that all the adoration, praise and prayers of her virginal Heart proceed from the adorable Heart of Jesus.
The prayers of the Saints are placed in Mary's Heart, represented by the golden censer, to make us understand that the Saints place their prayers, and all their praise and adoration rendered to God, in the admirable Heart of the incomparable Mother of their Saviour, that being united to her prayers, their own may become more acceptable and efficacious in the sight of the Divine Majesty.(The Admirable Heart of Mary)
Musical Selection(Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles)
O Heart of Mary, pure and fair, There is no stain in thee. In Adam's fall thou hadst no share, From every sin thou’rt free. O Heart of Mary, pure and fair, No beauty can compare!
From every stain of sin thou’rt free, O make us pure like thee. As some fair lily ‘midst the thorns, Thou ‘mongst Eve’s daughters art: Celestial purity adorns thy chaste and loving Heart.
O chaste abode of fairest love, In thee the King reposed. Thou art the spouse, the mystic dove, The font, the garden closed. Dear Heart, within thy holy realm, We'll dwell and ne'er depart, Till thou hast deeply placed our souls In Jesus' Sacred Heart.
Collect
O God,
who chose the holy priest John Eudes
to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ,
grant through his example and teaching
that we may grow in knowledge of you
and live faithfully by the light of the gospel.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit
