St. John Eudes
(1601 - 1680)
French priest
"Give me a soul that is humble and I will tell you it is holy; if it is truly humble it is truly holy; if it is very humble it is very holy and adorned with every virtue." - St. John Eudes.
The following is extracted from Life of Venerable Father Eudes, translated from the French by Rev. Father Collins (a 65-page biography published in 1880):
Early Life & Education
Among those grand and holy personages who adorned the Church of France in the seventeenth century, one not the least admirable was the Venerable John Eudes, the founder of the Order of the Good Shepherd.
When God brings into the world one who is to be a chosen vessel of His grace, He often signalizes his very birth by circumstances that are extraordinary. So it was in the case of the Venerable John Elides. His parents were barren. Desirous of offspring, they vowed a pilgrimage to our Lady of Recovery, and promised, that if she would obtain for them this favour, their first-born should be consecrated to the Lord. God granted their request, and John, their first child, was born November 14th, 1601. He was thus the child of grace as well as nature, a child of benediction. His parents had other children after him: four sisters and two brothers.
John, then, was born at Ri, in Lower Normandy, on November 14th, 1601. His father was a surgeon by profession. His mother, a woman of strong character, nurtured the child in fervent piety, and from his earliest years he gave himself to God; and when a young boy, used to steal away from his companions, to go to the church and pray, where he would hide himself behind a pillar, so as not to be noticed. The teachings of the Holy Scripture sank deep into his mind, and, when but nine years old, being struck on the cheek by one of his companions, he knelt down, and asked the boy to strike him on the other cheek, too.
At the age of twelve years he made his first Communion, and it was about that time that he wished much to be allowed to make a vow of perpetual chastity, but his Director did not permit this, till he had reached his fourteenth year. It was at this time that he went for higher studies to the College of the Jesuit Fathers at Caen; and here his piety became still more pronounced, so that he got the name, amongst his companions, of the “Devout Eudes.”
Refuses Marriage & Becomes Priest
Four years were spent at this College, with such success that his friends pressed him to go through his examination, and take his degree. His humility could not be persuaded to do this, and he returned home. Here he had another trial to undergo. His parents wished him to marry, and had selected a young person of suitable qualities and fortune, as his destined bride. He utterly refused the marriage, and to shelter himself from any future assaults of this kind, he, with the sanction of his Director, presented himself to the Bishop of Seez, in whose diocese he was, and received from him the tonsure and minor Orders.
A few years later, after many refusals, he obtained the consent of his parents to join the Congregation of the Oratory in Paris. He entered the house March 25th, 1623, and was clothed in the habit on 16th of May following. It was in December, 1625, that he was ordained priest, and his first Mass was the midnight Mass of Christmas Day that year. Whilst he was offering the Holy Sacrifice, he seemed quite filled with God. The sweetest consolations, and graces that remained with him all his life, were granted to him on that occasion. The Holy Mass was ever after to him his principal jewel of devotion. He used to say it would require three eternities to say Mass worthily, one to prepare, and a second to celebrate, and a third to make thanksgiving.
Poor Health & Careful Reading of Scripture
But he was not yet to begin his work. His delicate frame had been overtasked by his studies, and perhaps he had not yet learned to exercise that prudence in austerities, which characterized him in after life.
He used to say of his body in a grudging manner: “This miserable carcass will do nothing, unless it is well cared for and often refreshed/’ When he had been ordained priest, his superiors sent him first into Normandy, hoping that his native air might restore his health. But he derived no benefit from it, and was then sent to the seminary of Aubervilliers.
The two years spent by him here were devoted to a profound study of the Scriptures. These Holy Books he esteemed to be the most sacred relic Jesus Christ has left us of Himself. He read them, as far as possible, on his knees, without translation or commentary, for fear, he said, of confounding the thoughts of men with those he hoped to receive from the Spirit of God. Thus, he read the sacred text straight through. When he came to obscure passages, he prayed for God’s light. God vouchsafed him great succor, and especially in the understanding of S. Paul’s Epistles and the Book of Proverbs. During his reading he endeavored to fix the facts and even the very expressions of Holy Scripture deeply in his memory, so that he might thus use them for his own perfection and the instruction of his neighbors.
These two years of study were invaluable to him in after life. The Holy Scriptures were to him an inexhaustible store- house, so that he was never at a loss, but was able to speak often and at length, with great variety, force, and unction, and without preparation, in the press of his apostolic life.
Fr. Eudes Assists the Sick
In the year of our Lord 1627, whilst Father Eudes was at Aubervilliers, the plague broke out in France. This same plague fell upon Savoy, Piedmont, Italy, and indeed the whole world. The ravages it made for three years were most fearful. Towns were forsaken, and for months together became like deserts. The grass grew in the streets, and great bands of wolves ranged through them, attracted by the odor of the unburied corpses. The markets were closed, and even those whom the plague spared ran the danger of perishing by famine. We read in the history of this period that the Monasteries were the only houses in the towns whose inhabitants remained in them, and they were often destitute of food, medicine, and confessors.
On learning that the plague had reached Ecouche, and was drawing near to the place of his birth, but one thought took possession of the young priest’s breast: he longed to brave all dangers that he might bring succor to the sick, and help them at least to a good death. Father de Bernlle, Superior of the Oratory, consented to his departure.
Father Eudes left Paris on foot, his staff in his hand, his only baggage being his Breviary and a portable altar with the requisites for the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice. He passed the entire day in confessing, communicating, and giving Extreme Unction to the sick. Then at night, when his devotions were finished, he threw himself upon a rough mattress, without undressing, to take a little repose, or sometimes he only slept in a chair. When he woke, he said his Office, celebrated Mass, and again recommenced his apostolic charity. For two months he and Father Laurent of S. Christopher’s devoted themselves to this work.
The plague having ceased for a while, Father Eudes was sent to live at the Oratory of Caen. But in 1631 it broke out again in Caen itself, and the blessed man at once offered himself for the perilous task of consoling the dying. He adventured himself into the most infected places. Some sought to turn him from his zeal. But he answered pleasantly that he had no fear, for being full of corruption he was worse than the plague itself. But he had soon to return to the Oratory, for all the Fathers were struck with the plague. Father Repichon, the Superior, and another Father died in his arms. He then again left the house to help the sick in the town, and did not return till the pest had entirely ceased its ravages.
Father Eudes constitution was naturally of a very delicate kind. It cannot then be a matter of wonder that his exertions during the plague brought on so serious an illness, that his life seems to have been saved by prayer rather than by natural means.
Missionary Work
In 1632 he entered on his apostolic career. The diocese of Coutance was the first theatre of his labours, and a brilliant success crowned the efforts of his zeal. He, with the same benediction of heaven, worked in the dioceses of Suez, Bayeux, Lisieux, and Rouen. The Archbishop of Rouen then placed him at the head of the missions in all Normandy. Not content with reforming bad Catholics, he addressed himself to Protestants also, and brought many of them to the faith. This was the first beginning of a life devoted to missionary work. Father Eudes always felt himself to have a special call to the preaching of the Gospel.
When he mounted the pulpit, he knelt down, and humbled himself before God in his own nothingness, crying to our Lord, “Veni, Domine Jesu,” “Come, Lord Jesus;” thus asking that our Lord might speak by his mouth. His voice, round and musical, had a clear ring that enabled very large audiences to hear him distinctly. Sometimes the church could not contain the crowd, and he had to preach in the open air to as many as thirty thousand people.
Establishment of a Religious Order
In his missions, Father Eudes had often the happiness of converting those who were sold to the iniquitios bondage of an impure life. But he found that conversion was not enough. Means must be provided for establishing them firmly in good, and of so training them in industry, as to open to them the way of gaining an honest livelihood. Father Eudes instituted a Religious Order of Christian women, Christian Virgins, whose grand office it should be to spend their lives in reclaiming the fallen, in redeeming them, and nurturing them to a life of chastity.
A house was procured, and some unmarried ladies undertook the charge of watching over the penitents. One of mature age, Mile. Morin, was made the matron, and all had to obey her. The house was opened on December 8th, 1641. Father Eudes lost no time in completing his plan, having already received the bishop’s consent for a Community to be formed at Caen, under the rule of S. Augustine, and by the title of “Our Lady of Charity of the Refuge.” To this infant Community the bishop gave for superioress the Ven. Mother Patin, who came, with two other Nuns, from the Visitation Convent at Caen. It was not, however, till 1651 that the bishop gave to the Convent canonical institution, allowing the Sisters to take vows. But he removed the Community from the direction of Father Eudes, which was a great cross both to them and to him. It was not till 1666 that the new Order, with the particular constitutions drawn up by Father Eudes, received the solemn approval of Borne. Sixteen Sisters then made the Religious vows as sanctioned by the Pope, adding a fourth vow of devoting their life to the care of penitents.
From this time the Order began to spread into the various countries of Europe. But till 1834 the Convents were all independent of each other. At that period the Convent of Angers obtained from Gregory XVI the faculties to exercise a generalate over all Convents it might in future found. Thus two Congregations in the same Order were formed. The new Congregation kept to the constitutions of Father Eudes intact. In the true spirit of the founder, and to carry out more completely his intentions, it added a preservation class for young persons exposed to danger of losing their innocence in the world.
This new Congregation was entitled our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd. There are four classes of persons under their charge: (1) Magdalens, Penitents who follow the Religious Life, observing the Carmelite Rule; (2) Ordinary Penitents; (3) Reformatory Children; (4) Preservation Children.
His Spirituality
For him Jesus was all. Creatures he regarded not, he loved not in themselves, but in Jesus, and Jesus in them. Mystical doctors give us three ways that produce Jesus Christ in the soul, — contemplation, love, and annihilation. We make Him live in us by using ourselves to behold Him in everything through contemplation; or through love, in pouring out our affections to Him, and acting only from love of Him ; or again, through annihilation, by renouncing all that we are in ourselves.
Father Eudes was often filled with surprise to find the life of our Lord so little known by those who laid claim to be His disciples. For himself, he was wont to divide the year, so as to go over in their turn all the mysteries of the life of his Incarnate God. During October and part of November he adored our Lord as God in the bosom of the Eternal Father in His divine life. During the last two weeks of November he considered the life our Lord had in the world, in a sort, by His types and figures, the patriarchs, prophets, and just men. In Advent he adored our Lord as dwelling in the womb of His Mother. From Christmas to the Purification he rendered homage to the mysteries of His Holy Childhood. From the Purification to Lent he thought over the life of our Lord in the shop at Nazareth till He was thirty years old.
Father Eudes required of the members of his new Congregation the very greatest reverence in all that regarded the Church or the worship of God. Even the dust that was swept from the Church was, by his orders, put in a place apart, as in a way sanctified. If ever he found persons talking in the Church, he went up to them, and reproved them, reminding them of the words of Jacob at Bethel: “How dreadful is this place.” He could not suffer that very little children should play or trifle in the Church, for though, through want of sense, it might be no sin in them, yet it gave them an irreverent habit, which would cling to them at a more advanced age. He for the same reason forbade that rosaries should be put into their hands to amuse themselves with.
If he was so exact and so strict in these smaller matters, how much more was he in things of greater moment I Once, when he was saying Mass before Louis XIV., he observed that the courtiers were all standing whilst the king knelt ; so, at the offertory, he turned and said : “ Sire, I am happy to see your majesty assisting at the Mass with such respect and devotion, but I am astonished that your officers and subjects behave with so little reverence.” The words had their effect, and all immediately made haste to put themselves on their knees.
On another occasion, as the procession of the Blessed Sacrament was passing through the marketplace at Saint Lo, at the close of a Mission, Father Eudes observed that a number of people were standing. Moved with indignation, he cried out: “Down on jour knees, worms of the earth, at the sight of your King and every knee was at once bent in adoration.
His Favorite Virtues
There can be no doubt that the favorite virtue of the Venerable Father Eudes was that of chastity.
The poor came next. He regarded them as the Sacraments of our Saviour, for that He is hidden in them, something after the same sort as He is under the species in the Holy Eucharist. He inspired his priests with a great zeal for the confessions of the poor. When the poor were in distress, people had recourse to Father Eudes, knowing that he never pleaded in vain. Wherever Father Eudes preached his Missions, he marked his passage by setting up houses of refuge for the poor and sick. Criminals in the prisons did not escape from the tenderness of his heart. He went down into the dungeon to console them, and he mingled his tears with theirs.
If Father Eudes had such great charity for those outside, much more had he for those of his own household, for charity begins at home. To be sweet to strangers, and austere to those who dwell with us, is not true charity. Father Eudes had the most tender care for his Community, and was as gentle with them as a mother with the children.
His Suffering
The life of Father k Eudes was a life of crosses. In his childhood he had the cross of his delicate health. In his early youth he had the cross of his parents pressing him to marry, forgetful that he was to them a present from heaven, and that they had offered him back to heaven again. Then came the resistance to his vocation to join the Fathers of the Oratory. He encountered difficulties in the establishment of the Order of our Lady of Charity of the Refuge, but the heaviest cross was, that when it had been set up, the direction of the Nuns was taken out of his hands by the bishop, and put into those of another priest.
In his Missions, although successful, there was no want of the cross. He writes to the Abbess of Budos: “Some say I am the forerunner of Antichrist; some say I am Antichrist in person; some call me a seducer; others that I am a devil, and that people ought not to believe me; others again call me a sorcerer.”
Another subject of ridicule and of persecution was Father Endes’ propagation of the devotion to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. This devotion, which is to be found in the writings of S. Gertrude, S. Mechtilde, .and other Saints, was never propagated publicly in the Church till the time of Father Eudes.
The following is extracted from The Life of Blessed John Eudes by Matthew Russel, published in 1905:
Preparation for Death: His Last Will and Testament
Death's visit did not take Father Eudes by surprise; he had seen him from afar. Nine years before he had written down all the arrangements that he wished to be carried out when mortal sickness should seize upon him, and he had drawn up his will and testament which he now read over and ratified. It runs thus:
"In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and in union with the testament which my Jesus made on the last day of His mortal life on earth, I make this testament for the sole glory of my God in the form and manner following:
I give myself with all my heart to my Saviour in order to unite myself to the most perfect faith of His most holy Mother, of His holy Apostles, of His holy Martyrs, and of all the Church ; and, in union with this faith, I protest in the face of heaven and earth that I wish to die a child of the holy Church Catholic, Apostolical and Roman, and in the belief of all the Christian truths that she teaches. And I offer myself to my God to suffer, with the help of His grace, all torments imaginable and all possible deaths for that Faith.
With all my heart I give myself to the infinite love through which my Saviour died on the Cross for me and for all men ; and, in union with this love, I accept and embrace death in the time, place, and manner in which it will please Him to give it to me, in honour and thanks giving for His holy death and that of His glorious Mother, most humbly begging Him, by the Sacred Heart of this Divine Mother, and by His own adorable Heart, broken and bruised for us with love and with grief on the Cross, to give me the grace to die in His love, by His love, and for His love. Prostrate in spirit at the feet of all my brethren and of all the persons to whom I have given any offence or disedification, with all my heart I ask pardon from them, beseeching them to forgive me for the love of our Lord, and to pray to Him for me that He may have mercy on me.
With all my heart I give myself to that immense charity which made our Saviour on the Cross address this prayer to the Eternal Father for those who were crucifying Him : 1 Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do ; and in union with this prayer I say to my Heavenly Father, from the very depths of my heart, for all those who have offended me in any way whatsoever, if indeed anyone can offend a miserable sinner like me, Father, forgive them, for they did not know what they were doing."
Long as this quotation has been already, it has not given half of this dying saint's last will and testament. He goes on to implore his brethren to administer to him the Holy Viaticum and Extreme Unction while he has the use of his faculties; and he now beforehand unites himself to all the holy dispositions with which the saints and holy souls have received those sacraments. If he should happen to be deprived of the use of reason and his exterior senses, he now beforehand consents with his whole heart to all the acts of faith, hope, and charity, of humility, resignation, and contrition that will then be made for him in heaven or in earth. For he knows that others will be at that last moment praying for him besides those that are kneeling round his dying bed. He calls upon them all in general, apostles, martyrs, priests, virgins; but he names only Joseph, Joachim, Anne, Lazarus, Magdalen, Mary, and his two namesakes, the Baptist and the Evangelist.
"But above all my divine Mother, the most holy Virgin, to supply for my defects, to fulfil towards my God all my duties, and to do for me all that will be most agreeable to His Divine Majesty, protesting also that I wish every beating of my heart, every throb of my veins, every breath I draw, to be so many acts of contrition, resignation, praise and love for my Creator and my Saviour. With all my heart I give myself to the infinite love with which Jesus gave His holy soul to His Father, saying, Father, into Thy hands I give my spirit; and in union with this same love I give my soul to this Father of mercies and God of all consolation, saying to Him, Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit. I place it also in the most loveworthy Heart of Jesus and Mary, most ardent furnace of eternal love, humbly beseeching them to burn, consume, and transform it into a most pure flame of divine love."
Fourteen paragraphs follow which do not admit of being applied to ourselves like those I have quoted. But we may all aspire to make our own of the sentiment expressed in the concluding paragraph:
"Finally, with all my heart I give myself to my dear Jesus, in order to unite myself to all the holy dispositions with which He and His most holy Mother and all the saints have died, embracing for love of Him all the pains of body and mind that will happen to me in my last days, protesting to Him that I wish my last sigh to be an act of the purest love for Him, and beseeching Him to accept and to preserve for me against the hour of my death all the sentiments and acts of religion which are set down on this paper.
"This, then, is my will and testament, of which I most humbly beseech my most lovable Redeemer and his good Mother, by their most merciful heart, to be the executors, and to secure that all the articles that are contained in it may be accomplished in the manner that will be most agreeable to the most admirable Will of my God. Amen, amen! Fiat, fiat! Veni, veni, veni, Domine, Jesu!"
Death
When the holy old man saw that the end was really near, his last act before lying down on his death-bed was to visit his dear daughters, in the convent of Our Lady of Refuge, to bid them good-bye and to ask their prayers. With a feeble voice he exhorted them to fervour and perseverance, thanked them for all their good ness towards him, and begged them to help him with their prayers in his last hour, which he knew was at hand. And then he blessed them, and their parting was like the pathetic scene towards the end of the twentieth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, where St. Paul bids farewell to the faithful of Ephesus. "And there was much weeping among them all, being grieved most of all for the word which he had said that they should see his face no more."
A few days nearer the end someone asked him if he were not afraid of death. He responded: "I have good reason to be afraid of it, but I hope in the mercies of my God and in the infinite merits of my good Saviour. I hope in the goodness of His most holy Mother, who is mine also, that she will not abandon me."
His death was not one of those painless deaths that seem to be common. When asked if he suffered, he had to answer, "Terribly." And then he added: "But, O my God, I accept my sufferings with all my heart. You know that I have never had any other will than Yours." In his weak state he insisted on kneeling to receive the last visit of our Blessed Lord in the Holy Eucharist.
Every word and every look gave edification to his sons gathered round his bed, till on the 19th of August, 1680, his soul broke away at last. Surely the word that had just been spoken over him must have been fully verified; surely "Jesus Christ appeared to him with a mild and festive countenance, and placed him among those who are to stand before Him forever." One of his biographers, Father Martine, could very reasonably exclaim: "After having guided so many souls to heaven, after having led so pure and holy a life, after having suffered so many afflictions and persecutions, what a glorious share in the bliss of heaven had he not a right to hope for!"
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