Saint John Eudes Collection (7 Vols.)

The letters a person writes reveal much about their person. This is no less the case with St. John Eudes’ letters. Here we find him just as he was: his profound wisdom, exquisite tenderness, and his consummate sanctity. Over the course of his life, the Saint wrote hundreds of letters and they demonstrate a profound care for spiritual guidance of those with whom he wrote. The letters of St. John Eudes should not be read superficially or in haste. They are spiritual reading, rather heavy, perhaps, but rich in spiritual thought like the Norman soil from which they are sprung. When the peasant of Ri “turns over the sod, he knows that there “a treasure is hidden inside.” Let us confidently plow the soil of these letters so filled with promise, and realize once more the prophecy of the Kingdom of Heaven; for it “is like a treasure hidden in a field. The man who finds it buries it again; then in his joy he goes forth to sell all his possessions and buys the field.”

This little volume includes seven meditations on the mysteries of Jesus, one for each day of the work, as well as two additional meditations for Sunday.

• Meditation for Sunday: The Divine Life of Jesus in the Bosom of the Heavenly Father
• Meditation for Monday: The Incarnation
• Meditation for Tuesday: The Holy Childhood of Jesus
• Meditation for Wednesday: The Hidden and Laborious Life of Jesus
• Meditation for Thursday: The Public Life of Jesus and His Life in the Blessed Eucharist
• Meditation for Friday: The Passion and Death of Jesus
• Meditation for Saturday: The Life of Jesus in Mary and of Mary in Jesus
• Second Meditation for Sunday: The Glorious Life of Jesus in Heaven
• Another Meditation for Sunday: The Mysteries of Christ’s Life

The book presented here in English translation was written in French by that great servant of God, St. John Eudes, to whose zeal and holiness and learning the Church owes the origins of the public worship of the Sacred Heart. This was the saint’s divinely appointed mission, as Pope Pius X himself declared, to establish for the Church the public worship of the Sacred Heart, that goal could not be accomplished before Eudes first laid the theology foundation for the devotion, defined its purpose and laid out an appropriate liturgical Office and Mass for celebrating the Feast of the Sacred Heart. While the full The Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus does not exist in a completed form, the portion of his writings here represents the substance of his teaching on the Devotion and constitutes the first theological treatise ever written on Devotion to the Sacred Heart.

There is a long history to the ever-budding devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which shall culminate in what many call “The Age of Mary,” the dawn before the Second Coming of Our Lord. St. John Eudes, who so well explains this devotion in his book, The Admirable Heart of Mary, was called by Pope St. Pius X the Immaculate Heart’s Father, Doctor, and Apostle. It was through the prayers and good works of this saint that the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary was initially instituted in 1644, eventually spreading to all French dioceses, and finally established throughout the Church by Pope Pius XII in 1944.

Over three centuries have passed since the saint was called into eternity, and still his writings inspire a greater devotion to Jesus through Mary, St. John Eudes still speaks in a way that penetrate the heart and mind, engaging the reader in a manner the brings devotion and sanctity, so that Jesus Christ might reign within the soul of the believer.

The greatest blessing that God bestows upon a church, the most signal manifestation of divine grace, is to have a saintly shepherd, be he bishop or priest. This is indeed the grace of graces and the most priceless of all gifts for it includes within itself every other blessing and grace. Primarily directed to the priest, this incomparable series of treatises and meditations should also be profitably read by all Catholics and even those non-Catholics who are interested to discover what the Church holds and teaches regarding the priesthood. Nothing but good can come from a wide dissemination and a thorough understanding of the principles and admonitions enunciated here by one of the great French priests of the 17th century, St. John Eudes.

Saint John Eudes: A Spiritual Portrait is a biographer’s analysis of the profound interior life of a great saint as manifested exteriorly by his characteristic devotions and his day-to-day practice of virtue. St. John Eudes, contemporary of St. Vincent de Paul, was an outstanding personality of the Catholic Church in seventeenth-century France. This analysis dates from the early eighteenth century. Its author is Father Peter Herambourg. Although he entered the Eudist Congregation in 1682, two years after the death of its remarkable founder, Herambourg based his work entirely on eye-witness accounts, records, and documents contemporary with St. John Eudes. Father Herambourg’s indefatigable research stemmed from his deep personal devotion to St. John Eudes, but it was carried out with exact and thorough scholarship. The result was an invaluable two volume biography, which reflected the taste of the eighteenth century both in presentation of subject matter and style. Father Herambourg’s work contained a minimum of biographical data confined to the first volume. and a maximum of edification, skillfully worked out in the second, a systematic presentation of virtues and devotions defined and illustrated from the Saint’s spiritual writings and correspondence.

Saint Jude Eudes has had other biographers, from Father Herambourg who lived among those who knew the Saint personally, to Father Emile Georges, but most of these biographies have been in French. Sargent’s contribution builds on their work for the English-speaking audience, so that a wider audience of Christians might learn from his life and receive a portrait of Saint John Eudes for their minds and a story of his audacious ardor for their hearts.