Meet The Saint Who, Get This, Actually Believed Practicing The Faith Was Important!

Mandeville, LA – In our modern world, so filled with contrivances and conveniences we’ve transferred the work of physical survival to machines. In our catholic lives we’ve transferred our spiritual survival to perfunctory practices of optional weekly Masses and our apostolic efforts!? Most don’t rise Baphomet and boys out of Hell to repulse, they don’t see them as threats to their current reign. We could use some imitation of Saint John Eudes.

“You must never separate what God has so perfectly united. So closely are Jesus and Mary bound up with each other that whoever beholds Jesus sees Mary; whoever loves Jesus, loves Mary; whoever has devotion to Jesus, has devotion to Mary.”

Saint John Eudes was born on Nov 14, 1601, Normandy, Kingdom of France. Saint John had a vibrant and devotional childhood, impressing all who met him with his humility and sweetness. At the tender age of 14, Circa 1615, A time when today’s youth are planning their Sunday afternoon World of Warcraft adventures,  Saint Eudes took a private vow to remain chaste and he made his First Communion on Pentacost Sunday, 26 May 1613.

He joined the Oratorians on 25 March 1623 and He was ordained a priest on 20 December 1625 his first task as a priest was caring for the souls of victims of the plague, which was ravaging the country at that time. To avoid infecting his colleagues he lived in a huge cask in the middle of a field during the plague. He cared for the sick with tenderness and humility never denying the Sacraments to anyone who was infected with the plague. He insisted on giving all the dead last rites if possible and proper, catholic burials sometimes digging the graves himself if there was no family or kin to do so in an imitation of Saint Tobias.

“Tobias daily went among all his kindred, and comforted them, and distributed to every one as he was able, out of his goods: He fed the hungry, and gave clothes to the naked, and was careful to bury the dead, and they that were slain. And when king Sennacherib was come back, fleeing from Judea by reason of the slaughter that God had made about him for his blasphemy, and being angry slew many of the children of Israel, Tobias buried their bodies.”

Saint Eudes encountered the moral depravity of France in the form of prostitution in every town he conducted one of his 106 missions in. He was so disturbed by the plight of these poor souls that he spent his meager means providing temporary shelters for the women who begged for help to escape their sinful trysts. Once, a certain Madeleine Lamy – who had cared for some of those women – came up to him on and challenged Eudes to address the issue.

In 1641 he founded the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of the Refuge, to provide a refuge for prostitutes who wished to do penance. The society was approved by Pope Alexander VII on 2 January 1666. Saint John asked for his ties to the Refuge to be severed so that holy women could take it over. His request was granted and the order grew; 100 years after this event, Mother Mary Euphrasia took over the Refuge and formed the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd to expand this apostolate to wherever needed. Mother Euphrasia was canonized by Pope Pius XII in 1940.

Father Eudes left the refuge to found the Congregation of Jesus and Mary 25 March 1643, he was among the first to start these devotions we still observe today. His devotion to the teachings of Saint Francis de Sales combined with his belief that personal devotions to Mary would always lead one to personal devotions to Jesus, made Father Eudes’s now famous missions, a source of reparation and conversion for thousands. In 1674 he obtained from Pope Clement X six bulls of indulgences for the Confraternities of the Sacred Heart. From one of his 16 books we obtain the character of this tireless promoter of Christ’s Church and the devotions required to nurture the faithful in unity with Her.

“You must never separate what God has so perfectly united. So closely are Jesus and Mary bound up with each other that whoever beholds Jesus sees Mary; whoever loves Jesus, loves Mary; whoever has devotion to Jesus, has devotion to Mary.”

Father Eudes never stopped his missions and preaching and he established the Society of the Heart of the Mother Most Admirable. Saint John Eudes was also among the first to celebrate The feast of the Holy Heart of Mary in 1648, and that of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1672. Pope Leo XIII, in proclaiming his virtues heroic in 1903, gave him the title of “Author of the Liturgical Worship of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Holy Heart of Mary”.

Saint John Eudes died at Caen on 19 August 1680. Saint John Eudes was canonized on 31 May 1925, Saint Peter’s Basilica, Kingdom of Italy by Pope Pius XI.

In his life and deeds, ora et labora, the sweet yet ravaging fire of love for Christ and His Blessed mother’s hearts, an imitation of Saint John Eudes’s life sews the fertile seeds needed to revive and inspire Holy Church from within. “No child of Mary can ever be lost” is not a quote to read from a prayer card, it is a message to be stamped upon our souls because as the Evangelist tells us in Hoy Scripture.

“But as many as received him, he gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in his name.” [emphasis mine-MC]

Saint John Eudes, oremus!

Sources: Le Brun, C. (1909). Blessed Jean Eudes. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05596a.htm

TheKingDude

Host of the Mike Church Show on The Veritas Radio Network's CRUSADE Channel & Founder of the Veritas Radio Network. Formerly, of Sirius/XM's Patriot channel 125. The show began in March of 2003 exclusively on Sirius and remains "the longest running radio talk show in satellite radio history".

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