John Eudes (1601-1680) was a French priest, a Norman missionary, founder of the Congregation of Jesus and Mary — the Eudists — and of the Order of Our Lady of Charity. A major figure of the French Catholic Reformation and of the French school of spirituality, he was at once a tireless preacher, a hero of charity in the time of plague, a reformer of the clergy and a great spiritual writer.[1][2]
But the Church remembers him above all as the apostle of the Holy Hearts. Long before the apparitions of Paray-le-Monial, John Eudes was the first to give the Hearts of Jesus and Mary a public liturgical cult: he composed and had celebrated a Mass and Office of the Heart of Mary as early as 1648, then of the Heart of Jesus as early as 1672. Leo XIII hailed him as the "author of the liturgical cult" of the Sacred Hearts; Pius XI, in canonizing him, called him "father, doctor and apostle" of this devotion.[3][4]
His whole life rests on a single conviction, which he summed up in his most famous work, The Life and Kingdom of Jesus in Christian Souls: the Christian life is nothing but the continuation of the life of Jesus in each of His members. Honouring the Heart of Christ and of His Mother, forming holy priests, raising up lost souls: everything led there.[5]
Born at Ri, in Normandy, on 14 November 1601, he died at Caen on 19 August 1680. John Eudes was beatified in 1909 by Saint Pius X and canonized in 1925 by Pius XI, on the same day as the Curé of Ars. His feast is fixed on 19 August.[6][7]
The child of Ri, son of Normandy (1601-1623)
A birth consecrated to the Virgin
John Eudes was born on 14 November 1601 at Ri, a small village in the Norman bocage, near Argentan, in what is now the department of Orne.[8][9] He was the eldest child of Isaac Eudes, a well-to-do husbandman who had first studied medicine, and of Marthe Corbin. Tradition records a detail that would mark his whole life: his parents, having remained childless for some time, had invoked the Virgin Mary to obtain a child, and had consecrated him to her even before his birth.[10][11] This initial Marian consecration is no mere pious anecdote: it announces the man who would make the Heart of Mary the centre of his devotion.
The household had several children. The best known after John is his younger brother François Eudes de Mézeray (1610-1683), who would become historiographer to the king and one of the great French historians of the Grand Siècle — proof of the intellectual quality of this Norman farming family.[12]
The Jesuit college of Caen
Very young, the child showed precocious piety and a marked attraction to the things of God. At about fourteen, he was sent to the Jesuit college of Caen — the famous Collège du Mont — where he received a solid classical and spiritual formation.[13][14] There, he very early made a vow of chastity and drew close to sacramental life.
It was also at Caen, at the faculty of theology, that he pursued his first studies between 1621 and 1623. His parents at first thought of marrying him off; but John, resolved to give himself entirely to God, set the plan aside and sought the path of his priestly vocation.[15][16]
The choice of the French Oratory
The young man could have joined the Jesuits who had formed him. Yet he chose a quite recent congregation: the Oratory of Jesus, founded in 1611 by Cardinal Pierre de Bérulle, which was profoundly renewing the spirituality of the French clergy.[17] John Eudes was admitted to the Oratory of Paris on 25 March 1623 — the feast of the Annunciation, a day that would return several times at the great turning points of his life.[18]
There he found the spirit that would remain his: an ardent Christocentrism, a sense of the greatness of Jesus and Mary, the "adherence" of the soul to the states of the Incarnate Word. The Bérullian school gave him the doctrinal matrix from which all his works would flow.
The Oratorian missionary priest (1623-1643)
Ordination and first years
After his novitiate and studies completed in the Oratorian houses of Marines and Aubervilliers, John Eudes was ordained priest on 20 December 1625.[19][20] He was twenty-four. Very quickly, his superiors discerned in him an exceptional gift for preaching and the direction of souls. His whole first priestly career unfolded under the Oratorian habit, which he would wear for twenty years, until 1643.
The hero of the plague-stricken (1627 and 1631)
Twice, the plague ravaged Normandy, and twice John Eudes offered himself to serve the dying. In 1627, the epidemic struck his region; in 1631, it was Caen that was devastated.[21][22] Instead of fleeing, the young priest volunteered to care for the plague-stricken, to bring them the sacraments and to see that the dead received Christian burial.
The most famous detail of this episode says everything about his heroic delicacy: so as not to risk contaminating his brethren in community, he kept apart and lived, tradition says, in a huge cask in the middle of a field, leaving it only to succour the sick.[23] This trait — a saint lodged in a cask in order to love without harming — sums up better than any long speech what his whole life would be: a total gift in the service of souls.
The great missionary of Normandy
From 1632 onwards, John Eudes devoted himself to what would be the work of his whole existence: the parish missions. He tirelessly travelled Normandy and beyond — as far as Paris and Versailles — preaching to reawaken the faith of the people, bring back sinners, and instruct Christians who were often left abandoned.[24][25] He is credited with more than a hundred missions preached over half a century, some lasting several weeks and drawing considerable crowds.[26]
His preaching was ardent, concrete, directed towards conversion and general confession. Everywhere, he observed the same wound: a poorly formed clergy, unable to teach and to hear confessions worthily. This observation would lead him to the two great foundations of his life.
"The earth is full of holy books […]. But I find no books written on His most lovable Heart. And yet, it is what is most worthy, most noble and most admirable in this divine Virgin." — Saint John Eudes, preface to the Admirable Heart of the Most Sacred Mother of God[27]
Marie des Vallées, the mystic of Coutances
In August 1641, John Eudes met a figure who would lastingly mark his thought: Marie des Vallées (1590-1656), a Norman mystic from the Coutances region, long tormented by dreadful interior trials and regarded by some as possessed.[28] Eudes, after examination, discerned on the contrary the work of God in her and became her spiritual director. He would later write her biography, The Admirable Life of Marie des Vallées (1655).
This mystic of expiatory offering confirmed and nourished his intuition of the Holy Hearts. Marie des Vallées is today recognized as one of the sources of French spirituality of reparation; her story is treated separately in the Ignispedia dossier on victim souls.
The two foundations (1641-1643)
Our Lady of Charity: raising up lost souls (1641)
The first foundation was born of charity. In the course of his missions, John Eudes met women fallen into prostitution or debauchery who, touched by grace, wished to change their lives but had no place to do so. With the help of a few benefactresses, he founded at Caen, in 1641, the refuge of Our Lady of Charity, erected as a contemplative religious order devoted to welcoming, protecting and raising them up.[29][30]
This intuition would have an immense posterity: in the 19th century, it was from Our Lady of Charity that there would come, through Saint Mary Euphrasia Pelletier, the great congregation of the Good Shepherd, spread throughout the world in the service of women and girls in distress.[31]
The break with the Oratory
The second foundation would cost him dearly. Convinced that the reform of the clergy required seminaries entrusted to a society of priests entirely devoted to this task, John Eudes failed to bring his Oratorian superiors to share this plan.[32][33] After long discernment, he took the painful decision to leave the Oratory, where he had lived twenty years, in order to found this society himself.
This separation, made without bitterness but not without suffering, earned him opposition and lawsuits for much of his life. He bore them in the same spirit of abandonment that he preached to others.
The Congregation of Jesus and Mary: the Eudists (1643)
On 25 March 1643, once again on the day of the Annunciation, John Eudes founded at Caen, with a few priests and the approval of the Bishop of Bayeux, the Congregation of Jesus and Mary, today known as the Eudists.[34][35] Its twofold purpose sums up his whole apostolate: the formation of priests in seminaries and the preaching of missions to the people.[36]
The same year saw the opening of the seminary of Caen, the first of a series. Unlike other institutes of the time, the Congregation of Jesus and Mary is not a community under solemn vows but a society of secular priests living in common — a flexible formula, suited to its mission.
The seminaries: answering the Council of Trent
The seminary is the weapon by which the Church finally applied the decree of the Council of Trent (1563) ordering the creation of houses of formation for the clergy. In France, this effort was carried by a whole generation: Saint Vincent de Paul, Jean-Jacques Olier, Adrien Bourdoise — and John Eudes.[37] In the founder's lifetime, the Eudists opened the seminaries of Caen (1643), Coutances, Lisieux, Rouen, Évreux and Rennes.[38]
The table below places John Eudes among the artisans of this reform of the French clergy:
| Founder | Society / seminary | Date | Place |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adrien Bourdoise | Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet | 1612 | Paris |
| Saint Vincent de Paul | Lazarists (Saint-Lazare) | 1632 | Paris |
| Jean-Jacques Olier | Saint-Sulpice | 1641 | Paris |
| Saint John Eudes | Eudists (Caen seminary) | 1643 | Caen |
The apostle of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary
A devotion born in childhood
The love of the Holy Hearts was in John Eudes no late invention: it went back to his tenderest childhood. From childhood, he writes, he had "consecrated" to the Heart of Mary "his heart, his body, his soul" and his whole being.[39] All his life, he contemplated in the Heart — the seat of love — the most intimate and most worthy place of the holiness of Jesus and Mary.
His central intuition is that the two Hearts are but one in love: one cannot honour one without the other. He even forged a greeting, the "Ave Cor", addressed not to the Mother's Heart alone but to the two united Hearts of Jesus and Mary, which he had recited every day in his Congregation.[40]
The Mass and Office of the Heart of Mary (1648)
It is with the Heart of Mary that everything begins, on the liturgical level. After several years of reflection, John Eudes composed a Mass and Office of the Heart of Mary, which he submitted to the Bishop of Autun, Mgr Claude de la Madeleine de Ragny.[41] On 8 February 1648, during a great mission at Autun, he had this Mass celebrated for the first time — an unheard-of act for the time, for no public liturgical cult had yet been rendered to this mystery.
The feast spread rapidly through dioceses and communities. Approved in 1668 by the Cardinal de Vendôme, confirmed by Pope Clement IX, by 1672 it was celebrated "throughout France", in the saint's own testimony.[42]
The Mass and Office of the Heart of Jesus (1672)
Twenty-four years after the Heart of Mary, John Eudes took the decisive step. In 1672, he composed a proper Mass and Office of the Heart of Jesus, and on 29 July 1672 sent a circular to all the houses of his Institute, ordering them to celebrate this feast on 20 October, with the greatest possible solemnity.[43][44]
The date is of capital importance for the history of the devotion: this liturgical cult of the Heart of Jesus was instituted one year before the Sacred Heart revealed itself to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque at Paray-le-Monial (1673). John Eudes therefore does not depend on Paray: he had prepared its ways in advance. When the apparitions of Paray gave the devotion its great popular and reparatory impetus, they found already in place the liturgical framework forged by the Norman missionary.[45]
For John Eudes, to honour the Heart of Jesus is to answer with love the outrages and the ingratitude of which this Heart is the object: such is the reparatory note of the Eudist devotion to the Holy Hearts[46].
"The Admirable Heart": the Marian summa
The work crowning this devotion is The Admirable Heart of the Most Sacred Mother of God, a vast treatise in twelve books which John Eudes completed a few days before his death and which appeared in 1681.[47] It is, by his editors' own admission, the most considerable of his works, the one in which he expounds most fully the devotion to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
In the preface, he explains why he wished to write it: faced with the immense library of books composed in praise of Mary, he was astonished that none had yet been devoted to her Heart, "the source and origin of all her greatness".[48] For Eudes, to contemplate the Heart of Mary is to go back to the hidden root of all her holiness.
From the very first chapter, he presents the Heart of the Mother of God as a world and an abyss of wonders, the source and principle of all the virtues we admire in Mary[49].
Eudes, Paray-le-Monial and the Sacred Heart
The Church clearly recognized John Eudes' anteriority. To honour the Heart of Jesus in answer to the ingratitude of men: such is, already in him, the reparatory note that would burst forth at Paray. The great devotion to the Sacred Heart, today universal, thus has two complementary hearths: the liturgy of John Eudes and the apparitions of Margaret Mary. This is what the Ignispedia dossier on what the saints say about reparation sums up.
The spiritual doctrine: letting Jesus live and reign
Heir of the French school of spirituality
John Eudes belongs to the great 17th-century French school of spirituality, born of Bérulle and continued by Charles de Condren, Jean-Jacques Olier, Saint Vincent de Paul and, later, Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort.[50] All share the same centre: contemplation of the Incarnate Word, adherence to the states of Jesus, the eminent place of Mary in the mystery of salvation.
Eudes is one of its warmest and most pastoral representatives. Where Bérulle is the metaphysician, Eudes is the missionary: he translates lofty doctrine into a practice of holiness for the Christian people.
"The Christian life, a continuation of the life of Jesus"
The heart of his doctrine is set out as early as 1637 in his master book, The Life and Kingdom of Jesus in Christian Souls — one of the great classics of French spirituality, which nourished generations of Christians.[51] His thesis rests on a single formula: the Christian life is a continuation and fulfilment of the life of Jesus.
"As I am in my Father, living by the life of my Father which He communicates to me, so you are in me, living by my life, and I am in you, communicating this life to you." — Saint John Eudes, The Life and Kingdom of Jesus[52]
The baptized person is not merely a disciple who imitates Jesus from without: he is a member in whom Jesus wills to continue living, praying, loving and acting. The whole spiritual life therefore consists in "forming, making live and making Jesus reign in our souls".[53]
"We must be animated by the spirit of Jesus, live by His life, walk in His ways." — Saint John Eudes, The Life and Kingdom of Jesus[54]
The baptismal contract
From this doctrine flows a very concrete intuition, which he develops in The Contract of Man with God through Holy Baptism (1654): baptism is a mutual engagement, a contract in which God gives Himself to man and man gives himself to God.[55] To be a Christian is to keep one's word in this contract — to renounce sin, to belong to Christ, to let Him live in oneself. This insistence on the promises of baptism moreover anticipates the spirituality of consecration that Montfort would develop.
The great works
A fruitful author, John Eudes left a spiritual library, several titles of which have remained classics. The table below sums up the principal ones, in the order of their publication:
| Work | Date | Subject |
|---|---|---|
| The Life and Kingdom of Jesus in Christian Souls | 1637 | Living and making Jesus reign in oneself |
| The Mission Catechism | 1642 | Instructing the people on mission |
| The Admirable Life of Marie des Vallées | 1655 | Biography of the Norman mystic |
| The Contract of Man with God through Holy Baptism | 1654 | The baptismal promises |
| The Good Confessor | 1666 | Manual for priest confessors |
| The Memorial of Ecclesiastical Life | 1681 | The priest's ideal of life |
| The Admirable Heart of the Most Sacred Mother of God | 1681 | Summa on the Holy Hearts (12 books) |
Death and glorification
Caen, 19 August 1680
John Eudes died at Caen on 19 August 1680, at seventy-eight, after a life of unbroken labour and long trials borne in peace.[56][57] He left a still fragile congregation, active seminaries, an order of charity, and a written work that would survive every storm — including the French Revolution, which scattered the Eudists for a time before they were reborn in the 19th century.
Beatification (1909) and canonization (1925)
John Eudes' reputation for holiness was great, but his cause was long. He was finally beatified on 25 April 1909 by Saint Pius X, after the recognition of two miracles, then canonized on 31 May 1925 by Pius XI — on the same day as Saint John Mary Vianney, the Curé of Ars.[58][59] Two holy priests, two figures of the priesthood and of mercy, raised together to the altars.
"Father, doctor and apostle": the titles of the Church
The Church solemnly recognized John Eudes' unique place in the history of the devotion to the Holy Hearts. As early as 1903, in proclaiming the heroicity of his virtues, Leo XIII had hailed him as the "author of the liturgical cult of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary".[60] At the canonization, Pius XI went further still, naming him "father, doctor and apostle" of this liturgical cult — a rare formula, making him a true initiator in the Church.[61]
The table below sums up the great stages of his life and glorification:
| Stage | Date | Place / actor |
|---|---|---|
| Birth | 14 November 1601 | Ri (Orne) |
| Priestly ordination | 20 December 1625 | Oratory |
| Our Lady of Charity | 1641 | Caen |
| Foundation of the Eudists | 25 March 1643 | Caen |
| Mass of the Heart of Mary | 8 February 1648 | Autun |
| Mass of the Heart of Jesus | 1672 | Eudist houses |
| Death | 19 August 1680 | Caen |
| Beatification | 25 April 1909 | Pius X |
| Canonization | 31 May 1925 | Pius XI |
Legacy: Eudists, Good Shepherd, Holy Hearts
John Eudes' legacy is threefold. His Congregation of Jesus and Mary continues, today present on several continents, faithful to its twofold vocation of forming the clergy and mission. From his Order of Our Lady of Charity came the great family of the Good Shepherd, serving women and young people in distress throughout the world.[62]
But his most universal legacy is spiritual: the devotion to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, which he was the first to inscribe in the liturgy, is today the possession of the whole Church. At bottom, the life of John Eudes delivers a simple message: the whole of Christianity rests on those words he loved to repeat — letting Jesus live and reign in us, after the image of His Heart and of His Mother's.
To go further
- Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690) — the Visitandine of Paray-le-Monial to whom the Sacred Heart revealed itself, one year after the Mass of the Heart of Jesus composed by John Eudes.
- The infinite love of God in the Sacred Heart and Divine Mercy — the great devotion to the Heart of Christ of which John Eudes was the liturgical pioneer.
- Saint Vincent de Paul (1581-1660) — his contemporary, another great reformer of the clergy and apostle of charity in the 17th century.
- Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622) — master of the spirituality of the Heart and of gentleness, whose spirit irrigates John Eudes' whole century.
- Victim souls — French spirituality of reparation, in which Marie des Vallées, directed by John Eudes, holds a decisive place.
- The Catholic Counter-Reformation (1517-1648) — the great movement of regeneration of the Church of which John Eudes' missions and seminaries are fruits.
- The Council of Trent (1545-1563) — which ordered the creation of the seminaries that the Eudists put into practice in Normandy.
- What the saints say about reparation — an anthology in which John Eudes figures among the great witnesses of the Heart of Jesus.
Notes and References
French Wikipedia, "Saint Jean Eudes": fr.wikipedia.org. Reference biographical notice: John Eudes born 14 November 1601 at Ri (Orne), near Argentan; son of Isaac Eudes, a husbandman who had studied medicine, and of Marthe Corbin; younger brother François Eudes de Mézeray (1610-1683), historiographer to the king; studies with the Jesuits of Caen then at the faculty of theology (1621-1623); admitted to the Oratory of Paris on 25 March 1623; ordained priest on 20 December 1625; founder of the Order of Our Lady of Charity (1641) and of the Congregation of Jesus and Mary, known as the Eudists (25 March 1643, Caen, approval of the Bishop of Bayeux); seminaries of Caen, Coutances, Lisieux, Rouen, Évreux and Rennes; meeting with Marie des Vallées in August 1641, whose Life he would write (1655); died at Caen on 19 August 1680; beatified on 25 April 1909, canonized on 31 May 1925 by Pius XI; feast on 19 August. List of works: La Vie et le Royaume de Jésus (1637), Le Catéchisme de la mission (1642), Le Contrat de l'homme avec Dieu par le saint Baptême (1654), La Vie admirable de Marie des Vallées (1655), Le Bon Confesseur (1666), Le Mémorial de la vie ecclésiastique (1681), Le Cœur admirable de la Très Sacrée Mère de Dieu (1681, posthumous).
1 8 12 15 18 19 28 32 34 38 55 56English Wikipedia, "John Eudes": en.wikipedia.org. Detailed cross-check of the facts: born 14 November 1601 at Ri, near Argentan, Normandy; parents consecrated him to the Virgin Mary before his birth, having invoked her to obtain a child; educated by the Jesuits at Caen; admitted to the Oratory of Paris (25 March 1623), studied at Marines and Aubervilliers, ordained priest 20 December 1625; member of the Oratory until 1643; during the plagues of 1627 and 1631 volunteered to care for the stricken, living in a huge cask in the middle of a field to avoid infecting his colleagues; great missionary preacher across France, including Paris and Versailles; founded the Order of Our Lady of Charity (1641), from which St Mary Euphrasia Pelletier later derived the Good Shepherd Sisters (1835); founded the Congregation of Jesus and Mary (Eudists) on 25 March 1643, opening the seminary of Caen; great promoter of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary; composed the Mass and Office of the Heart of Mary and later of the Heart of Jesus; died at Caen 19 August 1680; beatified 25 April 1909 by Pius X; canonized 31 May 1925 by Pius XI, the same day as John Vianney.
2 6 9 13 16 20 21 23 24 29 31 35 57 58 62Official site of the Eudists (Congregation of Jesus and Mary): eudistes.fr. Pages "Saint Jean Eudes" and "Textes de saint Jean Eudes". Liturgical details: Mass of the Heart of Mary composed after several years of reflection and submitted to Mgr Claude de la Madeleine de Ragny, Bishop of Autun; first celebration on 8 February 1648 during a mission at Autun; feast approved in 1668 by the Cardinal de Vendôme and confirmed by Clement IX; in 1672 the feast is said to be celebrated "throughout France". Office and Mass of the Heart of Jesus composed in 1672, twenty-four years after those of the Heart of Mary; circular of 29 July 1672 to all the houses of the Institute ordering the celebration on 20 October, one year before the first apparition of the Sacred Heart to Margaret Mary at Paray-le-Monial. Greeting "Ave Cor" addressed to the two united Hearts of Jesus and Mary, recited each day in the Congregation.
3 40 41 42 43See the Ignispedia dossier "What the saints say about reparation", section "Saint John Eudes: giving the Heart of Jesus a cult of reparation". Liturgical and magisterial facts: John Eudes, the first to give the Hearts of Jesus and Mary a public liturgical cult (Mass and Office of the Heart of Mary from 1648, of the Heart of Jesus from 1672, i.e. before Paray-le-Monial); title of "author of the liturgical cult of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary" given by Leo XIII in proclaiming the heroicity of his virtues (1903), taken up by Pius X; at the moment of the canonization (31 May 1925), Pius XI calls him "father, doctor and apostle" of the liturgical cult of the Holy Hearts; his devotion is reparatory from the outset: honouring the Heart of Jesus in answer to the outrages and the ingratitude of which this Heart is the object. Principal work on the subject: Le Cœur admirable de la très sacrée Mère de Dieu (1681).
4 37 44 45 46 60 61Saint John Eudes, La Vie et le Royaume de Jésus dans les âmes chrétiennes (1637), 2nd part, meditation 2; Œuvres complètes, vol. I, p. 161-166. Quotations reproduced by the Eudists' official site (eudistes.fr, "Textes de saint Jean Eudes" page): "Comme je suis en mon Père, vivant de la vie de mon Père, qu'il me communique, vous êtes aussi en moi, vivant de ma vie, et je suis en vous, vous communiquant cette vie"; "nous devons être animés de l'esprit de Jésus, vivre de sa vie, marcher dans ses voies"; the Christian life defined as "une continuation et un accomplissement de la vie de Jésus". Subtitle of the work: "pour former, sanctifier, faire vivre et régner Jésus dans nos âmes".
5 51 52 53 54Vatican City State, "19 August: Saint John Eudes": vaticanstate.va. Saint-of-the-day notice: French priest, founder of the Order of Our Lady of Charity (1641) and of the Congregation of Jesus and Mary, the Eudists (1643); parents who had consecrated him to the Virgin before his birth; great missionary and apostle of the cult of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary; died at Caen on 19 August 1680; canonized on 31 May 1925 by Pius XI.
7 10 59Diocese of Séez (Orne), "Saint Jean Eudes": orne.catholique.fr. Diocesan notice from his birthplace: John Eudes born at Ri, in the present diocese of Séez; heroic devotion during the plagues of 1627 and 1631; founder of the Eudists and of Our Lady of Charity; apostle of the Holy Hearts; feast on 19 August.
11 22Encyclopædia Universalis, "Jean Eudes (1601-1680)": universalis.fr. Places John Eudes in the French school of spirituality stemming from Bérulle (Oratory); stresses his role as a great missionary of Normandy, reformer of the clergy through seminaries, and propagator of the cult of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary; foundations of Our Lady of Charity (1641) and of the Congregation of Jesus and Mary (1643).
14 17 25 30 33 50Nominis (Conference of the Bishops of France), "Saint Jean Eudes": nominis.cef.fr. French biographical notice: Norman priest, preacher of very many parish missions across 17th-century France; founder of the Congregation of Jesus and Mary (Eudists) for the formation of the clergy and preaching, and of the Order of Our Lady of Charity for women in difficulty; great promoter of the devotion to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary; died at Caen on 19 August 1680; feast on 19 August.
26Saint John Eudes, Le Cœur admirable de la Très Sacrée Mère de Dieu, in the Œuvres complètes du vénérable Jean Eudes (Lafolye, Vannes; OCR text of the edition reproduced on Internet Archive, consulted in Benoît's spiritual library, folder "1680 - Saint Jean Eudes"). Preface: "La terre est pleine de saints livres, qui ont été composés à la louange de la Mère admirable, et en si grande quantité qu'un excellent auteur en rapporte plus de cinq mille… Mais je ne trouve point de livres qu'on ait faits sur son très aimable Cœur. Et cependant, c'est ce qu'il y a de plus digne, de plus noble et de plus admirable en cette divine Vierge ; et même c'est la source et l'origine de toutes ses grandeurs." Editor's introduction: Le Cœur admirable is "the most considerable of Fr Eudes' works", the one in which he most fully explains the devotion to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary; a devotion going back to his tenderest childhood, when he had "consecrated" to the Heart of Mary "his heart, his body, his soul". The work counts twelve books and was completed shortly before the saint's death (1680), published in 1681. The passage on the Heart as a world and abyss of wonders is found in the first part, chapter I (« Des raisons du nom d'Admirable ») ; cf. the English translation The Admirable Heart of Mary : « The heart of the Mother of God is a world of marvels, an abyss of wonders, the source and principle of all the virtues which we admire in our glorious Queen ».
27 39 47 48 49Catholic Encyclopedia (The Catholic Encyclopedia, New York, Robert Appleton Company, 1909), "Blessed John Eudes": newadvent.org. Notice written in his beatification's lifetime (he is called "Blessed" there): born at Ri, Normandy, 14 November 1601; entered the Oratory; heroic service during the plague; celebrated missionary; founder of the Society of Jesus and Mary (Eudists) for the education of priests in seminaries and for missions; founder of the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge; apostle of the devotion to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary; author of Le Cœur admirable and Le Royaume de Jésus; died at Caen, 19 August 1680.
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