Saint John Eudes

He was born on a farm in northern France on November 14, 1601, joined the Oratorians and was ordained on December 20, 1625, at twenty-four. ¹² The encyclopedia says he "began his sacerdotal life with heroic labours for the victims of the plague, then ravaging the country." ¹

Franciscan Media gives the detail that makes it concrete. During the plagues of 1627 and 1631 "he volunteered to care for the stricken in his own diocese. Lest he infect his fellow religious, during the plague he lived in a huge cask in the middle of a field." ²

He was a young priest, newly ordained, who worked all day among the dying and then went and slept in a barrel rather than risk bringing it back to the men he lived with.

As a missionary he became famous. "Since the time of St. Vincent Ferrer, France had probably not seen a greater", and Olier called him "the prodigy of his age." ¹ Over his life he preached "not less than one hundred and ten missions" - three in Paris, one at Versailles, one at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the rest scattered across France, with Normandy as the main theater. ¹ Some ran for months. ²

In 1641 he founded the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Refuge, "to provide a refuge for women of ill-fame who wished to do penance." ¹ It was approved by Alexander VII in January 1666. ¹

The second cost him more. He had concluded that what the Church most needed was seminaries, and had permission from his general superior, his bishop and Cardinal Richelieu to start the work - and then, Franciscan Media records, "the succeeding general superior disapproved." ² A change of leadership reversed him.

"After prayer and counsel, John decided it was best to leave the religious community." ² He severed his connection with the Oratory and founded the Congregation of Jesus and Mary at Caen on March 25, 1643, for the education of priests and for missionary work. ¹ The encyclopedia calls it "a most important and urgent work." ¹ They are the Eudists.

The devotion to the Sacred Heart is usually told as beginning with Margaret Mary Alacoque in 1675. The encyclopedia is clear that the liturgy came first and came from Eudes.

"The feast of the Holy Heart of Mary was celebrated for the first time in 1648, and that of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1672, each as a double of the first class with an octave. The Mass and Office proper to these were composed by Father Eudes, who thus had the honour of preceding the Blessed Margaret Mary in establishing the devotion to the Sacred Hearts." ¹

He dedicated the seminary chapels at Caen and Coutances to the Sacred Hearts, and in 1674 obtained six bulls of indulgence from Clement X for the Confraternities of the Sacred Heart in seminaries. ¹ His "Le Coeur Admirable de la Tres Sainte Mere de Dieu" was "the first book ever written on the devotion to the Sacred Hearts." ¹

Leo XIII, declaring his virtues heroic in 1903, gave him the title that records it: "Author of the Liturgical Worship of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Holy Heart of Mary". ¹

He belongs to seminaries and to the formation of priests, which is what the Eudists exist to do. ¹² The encyclopedia gives no formal list. ¹

Through Our Lady of Charity he belongs to women the world had written off and who wanted to begin again - the congregation was founded for exactly that, and the wording of 1641 is blunter than ours would be. ¹

The feast of Saint John Eudes is August 19, the day he died in 1680 at seventy-eight. ¹² New Advent's editorial note to the 1909 article states it: he "was beatified April 25, 1909 and canonized in 1925. His feast day is August 19." ¹

The article itself calls him Blessed throughout, because it was written in the year of his beatification and sixteen years before his canonization. ¹

Start with the barrel, because it is the least pious-sounding thing in his life and the most instructive. ² He wanted to nurse the dying. He also did not want to kill his brothers. Both were real, and instead of choosing he found a third answer that was uncomfortable, undignified and entirely effective.

Then the reversal over the seminaries. He had every permission he needed, a new superior arrived, and the permission evaporated. ² Franciscan Media says only that he prayed and took counsel and then left. There is no complaint recorded and no campaign to overturn the decision. He judged the work more important than his place in the community and went and did it elsewhere.

The Sacred Heart is the part where he loses the credit. He wrote the Mass and the Office, he celebrated the feasts, he published the first book on the devotion - and the story as most people know it begins three years later with a visionary nun in Burgundy. ¹ He is not a rival to Margaret Mary and the encyclopedia is not making him one. He simply got there first and is not who anybody remembers.

A hundred and ten missions. ¹ Some of them months long. He was seventy-eight when he died, in the next department over from the farm he was born on. ² Franciscan Media's first line is the right one to end on: "How little we know where God's grace will lead." ²