Congregational Celebration of the Eudist Family

SOLEMNITY OF ST. JOHN EUDES

Father, Apostle and Doctor of the Liturgical Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate

Heart of Mary

August 19, 2013

Luke 10:1-9

A LAMB AMONG WOLVES

"I am a Catholic and wholeheartedly do accept death for the Lord; if I had a thousand lives, all these I shall offer to Him." This confession of faith sealed with the shedding of blood and eventual death we Filipinos immediately identify with our protomartyr, St. Lorenzo Ruiz, who gave up his life rather than renounce his faith in feudal Japan in 1637.

In that same era somewhere in France, one holy man also professed a similar vow marked not by dying a martyr's death but by living the agonies he wrote in a consecratory prayer of martyrdom in words far more explicit:

“And should there arise an occasion on which I should have to choose between dying or renouncing your holy faith,... I make a vow and promise to you... to confess, acknowledge, adore and glorify you in the presence of everyone, at the price of my blood, my life and all the martyrdoms and torments imaginable, and to suffer a thousand deaths with all the tortures of earth and hell, rather than deny you or do anything serious that is contrary to your holy will.” (O.C. 12, 135-137)

That Spirit-filled man who wrote those lines was St. John Eudes, the founder of the Congregation of Jesus and Mary (CJM) and the Order of the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, whose feast the whole Church celebrates today.

For this solemnity, the liturgy proper to the Eudist Family uses the Gospel of Luke 10:1-9 which centers on Jesus' commissioning of the seventy disciples. When he wrote the Latin Rules for his congregation of apostolic priests and lay brothers, St. John Eudes quoted from the Jerusalem Bible the verse “I am sending you out like lambs among wolves,” which is exactly from the same pericopé we have for today. Though he loved to quote Luke when referring to Mary, he hardly quoted Luke in the first part of his Latin Rules. However, his limited Lukan quotes seemed to further explain what it meant for him to be a “lamb among wolves.”

Looking into his Biblical citations, his own life story and writings, we can sum up St. Jean Eudes’ message this way: (1) to totally “annihilate one's self”[1] and renounce all possessions in order (2) to allow the Kingdom of Jesus to “live and reign entirely in one's soul.” In short, to be a “lamb among wolves” for him, most especially in the course of accomplishing one's mission, is to take the stance of Jesus Christ, the new Lamb of God, a most humble, defenseless, vulnerable and willing holocaust always ready for the slaughter, all for the glory of God the Father. When Jesus' salvific mission took him to Golgotha, he willingly embraced death on the cross not for himself but for the fulfillment of His Father's Will.

Being a “missionary priest” who practiced what he preached in 17th century France, St. John Eudes lived his life as testimony of his own spiritual convictions. When the Jansenists attacked his devotion to the Heart of Mary, when some Church authorities opposed his kind of mission work, when false rumors proliferated against him, when one of his own CJM sons betrayed him and, even after some more tribulations, until he found himself in disgrace before King Louis XIV, he never retaliated. This little lamb among wolves had chosen the same path as Jesus, his model-Lamb. He embraced his crosses, his “thousand deaths” as a means of sanctification. He seriously lived his vow of martyrdom from his missions and foundations to his quiet restoration in the king’s favor some time later and till he breathed his last, not by shedding his blood for the faith but by natural causes.

He embraced his crosses, his 

“thousand deaths” as a means 

of sanctification.

Yet we are sure he never would have minded at all because, at the end of the day, his soul's fulfillment rested only in the further “glory of God” and never in his own glory. What mattered most to him was only Jesus — the glorious reign of Christ in his life, which was also his prayerful wish for every human soul. By that alone he had triumphed and he continues to do so even to this day. No, we can better rephrase that in the Eudist style; let us rather say — Jesus in St. John Eudes had triumphed and he still does even to this day.

So here is today's Gospel challenge: is it still possible for us in this day and age to humbly accept little acts of dying or martyrdom in the accomplishment of our responsibilities to our family, our neighbor, our profession, our government, our country or our Church? Can we, in whatever we do, take the stance of the humble, vulnerable, defenseless lamb being sent among wolves, all for the sake of the glory of God? How much of our old selves are we willing to be “annihilated” so as to welcome into our hearts the Kingdom of Jesus, who sought nothing for himself but only the Will of the Father?

- Sem. Dennis Mercurio

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[1] “Self-annihilation” here must be carefully defined as the literal meaning of the French word anéantissement, the term used by the French School of Spirituality (FSS) in referring to “losing one's life, in the Biblical sense,” meaning, a radical manner of self-emptying, a total renunciation of self (and possessions) so that “a human person no longer seeks itself but the person of Jesus Christ, who Himself sought only the interest of God the Father.” The terms used by the FSS were often striking, befitting the norm and need of the Church of that epoch. St. Jean Eudes belonged to that school of spirituality.

Prayer 

Jesus, our friend and brother, you inspired our Father John Eudes to give himself to you just as you have given yourself to us without reserve even when wolves preyed on you and sent you to your death. Grant us the same gracious heart that we may likewise be disposed to give ourselves to you in the little, the poor, the voiceless and the weak even when it means our own "annihilation." Amen. 

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