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The Spiritual Teaching of Saint John Eudes

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The Spiritual Teaching of Saint John Eudes THE SPIRITUAL TEACHING OF St. JOHN EUDES BY CHARLES LEBRUN, C.J.M. TRANSLATED BY DOM BASIL WHELAN, O.S.B., M.A. SANDS & CO. 15 KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN LONDON, W.C.2 AND AT EDINBURGH AND GLASGOW [1934] Nihil Obstat: Dom STEPHEN MARRON, O.S.B., Censor for the Congregation. Imprimatur: W. E. KELLY, O.S.B., Ab. Praes. Cong. Angl. Reading, 23 Jan., 1934 Nihil Obstat: GEORGIUS D. SMITH, S.TH.D., PH.D. Censor Deputatus. Imprimatur: JOSEPH BUTT, Vic. Gen. Westmonasterii 1 Martii, 1934. 6- CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE PREFACE 7 I. ST. JOHN EUDES: AND HIS WRITINGS 9 II. DEVOTION TO THE INCARNATE WORD 4 9 III. THE LIFE OF JESUS WITHIN US 8 7 IV. PRAYER 1 3 1 v. THE CHRISTIAN VIRTUES. 1 6 9 vi. THE PRIESTHOOD 2 2 4 CONCLUSION 2 5 9 7- PREFACE FOR a long time past the writing of this study of the spiritual teaching of St. John Eudes has been contemplated, but hitherto other preoccupations have made it impossible for me to accomplish it. Now, thanks be to God, it is concluded, and I am happy to offer it to the priests of the Congregation of Jesus and Mary, to the religious of Our Lady of Charity, to the members of the Society of the Heart of the Admirable Mother, and to the numerous admirers and friends of St. John Eudes. In enabling them to become better acquainted with his doctrine, may it also cause them to be permeated with his spirit and assist them to walk faithfully in his footsteps. In writing this work I have made frequent use of the introductions with which I prefaced the Saint's writings in the Oeuvres complètes and the Oeuvres choisies; and I have also profited by the labours of M. Letourneau, M. Bremond, and M. Pourrat. But the most systematic and the most complete exposition of the teaching of our Saint is to be found in Le Royaume de Jésus, and that book has been my chief guide. I have not, however, neglected the later works of the Saint, in which his doctrine is presented to us in its definitive form. 8- PREFACE In conclusion I would add that this study is but an essay. A definitive synthesis of the teaching of St. John Eudes will not be possible until all its details have been minutely studied. I have only attempted to show the path that must be followed. CH. LEBRUN Versailles, July 8, 1932. 9- CHAPTER I ST. JOHN EUDES: AND HIS WRITINGS ST. JOHN EUDES wrote many books. His Oeuvres Complètes, published some twenty years ago, raw twelve octavo volumes, and yet we are without certain number that were never printed, the manuscripts of which were lost in the Revolution of 1789. Not that the Saint was primarily a writer; he was an indefatigably zealous apostle with no other ambition than that of promoting the glory of God and the salvation of souls, and throughout his long life he occupied himself to that end in numerous ways. Possessing extraordinary aptitude for missions, he did not cease to preach until he was at the end of his strength. Above all, he was convinced that what was chiefly lacking in the Church of France was a supply of virtuous and zealous priests, and it was for that reason that he founded the Congregation of Jesus and Mary, the principal object of which is to labour at the training of the clergy in the greater seminaries; while to assure a shelter for girls and penitent women he founded the Order of Our Lady of Charity, which is vowed to their relief. In addition, from 1643 onwards, he used all his powers for the establishment and propagation of the public cult of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. And finally he instituted for persons 10- THE SPIRITUAL TEACHING OF ST. JOHN EUDES in the world several associations intended to honour these Sacred Hearts and to occupy themselves with good works, especially in coming to the help of the ecclesiastical seminaries. The works written by the Saint were bound up with his apostolic labours, and their only object was to ensure the success of the latter. They were not learned works but popular books intended as propaganda, written to meet the needs of his institutes and to help his priests, pious souls in general, and even ordinary Christians to lead a life conformable to their vocation. Written simply and clearly, without any literary object, they are permeated with his penetrating unction and delicate piety, and therein is the secret of their success. But before studying the teaching that underlies them all, it will not be without value to draw up the list of these works and to show their subject-matter and the work on behalf of which they were respectively composed. A. ST. JOHN EUDES AT THE ORATORY: Le Royaume de Jésus John Eudes was born at Ri, in the diocese of Séez, on November 14, 1601. From his tenderest years he was notable for his piety, and especially for his devotion to the Holy Virgin, so that at the college of Caen, where he studied under the Jesuit Fathers, his fellow-pupils called him "Eudes the Devout." He was admitted into the congregation of the Blessed Virgin in 1618, and therein, as he tells us, received great graces, and when his school days were over he decided to enter the ecclesiastical state, and for two or three years he ST. JOHN EUDES: AND HIS WRITINGS 11- attended the course of the theological faculty at Caen. The Influence of the Oratorians It was in 1623 that he asked for admission to the Oratory, into which he was received the by Père de Bérulle himself on March 25th. Ordained priest on December 20, 1625, he was sent to Aubervilliers, in the solitude of Notre Dame des Vertus, to recuperate his failing health, and remained there two years, during which he spent his time in prayer, spiritual reading and other pious exercises. During his sojourn at Paris and at Aubervilliers he was able to profit by the instructions of both Père de Bérulle and Père de Condren and was so stirred by their teaching that he mastered it completely and made it the very essence of his piety and of his apostolate. There is no need for us here to set out the teachings of those holy men; suffice it to say that they delighted to concentrate their devotion on the Incarnate Word and on His Most Holy Mother, that they looked upon the Christian life as a continuation and an extension of the life of Jesus in each one of us, that they stressed the virtue of religion and the supreme worship of adoration that we owe to God i n union with His Divine Son, and finally that they held an extremely lofty view of the priesthood, being accustomed to Consider it the Order of Jesus Christ and as such the greatest and the holiest of all the orders.(1) We will (1).This school of thought is very dogmatic and is particularly insistent on the dogma of the fall of man by the sin of Adam and his restoration by the Incarnation. The followers of Bérulle delighted i n meditating on these great mysteries in the light of St. John’s Gospel and of St. Paul's Epistles. We look in vain in their work, for those moral studies that attracted Other writers whose doctrine is ordinarily less theocentric. 12 - THE SPIRITUAL TEACHING OF ST. JOHN EUDES constantly find these ideas, so dear to Bérulle and his disciples, in the writings of St. John Eudes, f o r they constituted the basis of his spiritual teaching. It is true that he sets them forth in his own way, and often draws upon the words of St. Francis of Sales, Rodriguez, St. Gertrude, St. Mechtilde, St. Brigid and many other writers of various schools, but in all essentials his teaching is certainly that of Bérulle and Condren. In 1627, after devoting himself for several months to the service of the plague-stricken people in the neighbourhood of Argentan, he was sent to the Oratory at Caen, where he began to preach missions, employing his free time in the direction of souls either at the Oratory or amongst the religious communities of the town, especially the Carmelites and the Benedictines of Holy Trinity. The letters exchanged during this period between him and the Carmelites and the Benedictines, respectively, show that his wisdom and holiness were already held in high esteem; and it is to this period of his life that one of his best works belongs: La Vie et le Royaume de Jésus dans les âmes Chrétiennes. It was published in 1637 and dedicated to Madame de Budos, Abbess of Holy Trinity in Caen, and to her religious. It was also dedicated to all those souls who desire to love Our Lord, and especially to those of whom he had charge. Le Royaume de Jésus At that period books of piety were numerous. Not to mention the works of Grenada, at that time very popular, there were available for the faithful St. Francis of Sales's two works: the Introduction to the Devout Life and the Treatise on the Love of God, which were praised by everyone. But those books, excellent ST. JOHN EUDES: AND HIS WRITINGS 13- though they were, did not completely satisfy our Saint. He did not find in them, at least to the extent he would have desired, St.
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