This year, the JUBILEE YEAR OF HOPE, gives us a rare grace and joy of celebrating another jubilee within it, one “nearer home”, a Eudist Jubilee with privileges granted by the Vatican to the Eudist Family and other pilgrims. It is a time of grace when we can take a loving look at what the Church allows us to celebrate, the Centennial of the Canonization of St. John Eudes. What went into SJE’s canonization on May 31, 1925? What does it mean for us?
To help us begin the process of re-discovering the person of this “passionate and creative missionary” and to go more intentionally into the heart of his life and writings, let us turn to that little book in our personal collections or community libraries: Saint John Eudes, Missionary Priest (1601-1680), Worker for the New Evangelization in the XVII Century, by Luc Crepy, CJM and Marie Francoise Le Brizaut, OLC. We will quote directly from one of the final Chapters and let that be our common ground to “See. Discern. Act” or “Listen. Dream. Act.” Let us find our place there. A personal space to transition into a communal choice. In the Church’s call today: To take a Journey. Journey Together. Journey together as Pilgrims of Hope.
THE FRUITFULNESS OF A LIFE FULLY GIVEN: The Legacy of St. John Eudes
“To be a priest, two things are necessary: to love God and to love people… that is enough. To love God and to love the people, a beautiful life program!” John Eudes would have surely made these words of an old priest his own. They sum up his own life. It was indeed a question of loving. For this untiring missioner, even at the evening of his life, his capacity and strength to love did not come from his own strength but from Christ himself. His whole spiritual journey unfolded, throughout the missions, he preached tirelessly. With Christ, we are given to love as He loves us… which John Eudes translated as: Christ has given us his Heart to love.
What the Church first of all recognized as the sanctity of John Eudes, was the missionary priest, the formator of priests and the merciful pastor, who thanks to his powerful image of the heart was capable of leading the Christian people to the liturgical celebration of the love of God. His doctrine and his writings are a constant appeal to Christians to become aware and love the richness and dignity of their baptismal life, as a way of union to Christ so as to have only one Heart with Him.
Mary is the perfect and universal figure of life in Christ. She whose heart was one with that of her Son.
“For evangelization, there is no need of mystical propositions without a strong and missionary commitment or discourses and pastoral or social customs, without a spirituality that transforms the heart. We always need to cultivate an inner space which gives a Christian sense to the commitment and activity.” These recent words of Pope Francis define what was the life and teaching of St. John Eudes. He lived in an inseparable way the service of mercy, the proclamation of the Gospel and the formation of Jesus in hearts.
The small seed thrown into the earth in Normandy 1641 with the opening in Caen of a refuge for women on the margins has become a tree! Fruit of the Heart of Mary and the heart of John Eudes, the Institute of Our Lady of Charity grew little by little. In the 19th century, under the impulse of one of the Sisters – Mary Euphrasia Pelletier (later Saint) – an international Congregation was born: Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd which rapidly became implanted on all the continents. The two congregations, born of the same source and untied in 2014, today continue the mission of mercy and reconciliation with women wounded by life.
John Eudes saw their mission as the imitation of the burning charity of the Heart of Jesus and Mary. He insisted that the Sisters hold out their hands to their sisters in distress. Against all odds, the daughters of St. John Eudes have continued their way of solidarity and hope, instruments and witnesses of the mercy of God. Today they accompany women of all nationalities as asylum seekers, those in danger of falling into the trap of prostitution and put themselves at the service of the women in difficulty: education for women, offering shelter for single women and their children, support during and after prison, drug rehabilitation, etc.
In many places in the world, the apostolic and spiritual fruitfulness of St. John Eudes is a source of new dynamism in the history of the Church. On the five continents, the foundresses of several institutes like St. Jeanne Jugan (Little Sisters of the Poor), the Venerable Amelie Fristel (Holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary), are inscribed as much in the spiritual vein of John Eudes as in his charism of mercy for the poorest and people in difficulty. In another way, the beatification of Bl. Maria Droste, who invited Pope Leo XII to consecrate the world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (1899), underlines how much the way of the Heart, traced by the simple Norman missioner invites us to live mercy daily.
The other little seed planted in the city in 1643 with the opening of the seminary in Caen bore much fruit, as have other seeds that have germinated over the centuries. The foundation and development of the Congregation of Jesus and Mary have been motivated by the calls of the Church and external circumstances. The formation of “good workers for the Gospel” as John Eudes liked to say, has been enlarged today in around 20 countries, to all the people of God, priests and laity.
PILGRIMS OF HOPE.
Renewed and strengthened by the graces of the double Jubilee, we go forward with new passion and zeal, to live our LEGACY of LOVE AND MERCY “for the Glory of God and the salvation of persons.” Live Jesus and Mary!
by: Sr Mary Lourdes Fabia, RGS
