I was very struck this morning by the second reading appointed for today's Office of Readings for the feast of the seventeenth century French priest and founder St John Eudes (1601- 80), of whom there is an illustrated online life here. He is, of course, one of that great series of French priests and religious who reinvigorated the Church in France in the years after the Wars of Religion and in opposition to Jansenism.
It is a demanding passage , but also something you immediately sense to be right. The next point is how to make it a reality in one's own life. The passage from St John is as follows:
From a treatise on The Admirable Heart of Jesus by Saint John Eudes, priest
The source of salvation and true life
The source of salvation and true life
I ask you to consider that our Lord Jesus Christ is your true head and
that you are a member of his body. He belongs to you as the head belongs
to the body. All that is his is yours: breath, heart, body, soul and
all his faculties. All of these you must use as if they belonged to you,
so that in serving him you may give him praise, love and glory. You
belong to him as a member belongs to the head. This is why he earnestly
desires you to serve and glorify the Father by using all your faculties
as if they were his. He belongs to you, but more than that, he longs to
be in you, living and ruling in you, as the head lives and rules in the
body. He desires that whatever is in him may live and rule in you: his
breath in your breath, his heart in your heart, all the faculties of his
soul in the faculties of your soul, so that these words may be
fulfilled in you: Glorify God and bear him in your body, that the life
of Jesus may be made manifest in you.
You belong to the Son of God, but more than that, you
ought to be in him as the members are in the head. All that is in you
must be incorporated into him. You must receive life from him and be
ruled by him. There will be no true life for you except in him, for he
is the one source of true life. Apart from him you will find only death
and destruction. Let him be the only source of your movements, of the
actions and the strength of your life. He must be both the source and
the purpose of your life, so that you may fulfil these words: None of us
lives as his own master and none of us dies as his own master. While we
live, we are responsible to the Lord, and when we die, we die as his
servants. Both in life and death we are the Lord’s. That is why Christ
died and came to life again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and
the living.
Finally, you are one with Jesus as the body is one
with the head. You must, then, have one breath with him, one soul, one
life, one will, one mind, one heart. And he must be your breath, heart,
love, life, your all. These great gifts in the follower of Christ
originate from baptism. They are increased and strengthened through
confirmation and by making good use of other graces that are given by
God. Through the holy Eucharist they are brought to perfection.
Text: Universalis
Portrait of Saint John Eudes from 1673
Image: Wikipedia
