Saint Who?
Saints Who Fostered Vocations to the Priesthood
Saint John Eudes
Priest and founder († 1680)Feast: August 19
The son of French peasants, John was born in Normandy (France) in 1601. His parents had prayed for a child for three years, and when John was conceived, they offered him to Jesus and Mary. He became a priest at twenty-four. As a member of the Oratorians, he preached missions. He had a special zeal for the sanctification of clergy, and he began to give talks twice a week to the priests in the regions where he was assigned.
In his early forties, John left the Oratorians and established a society of priests called the Congregation of Jesus and Mary. The Eudists, as they became known, established seminaries and conducted parish missions. John also wrote several practical works for priests, including counsel on preaching and hearing confessions. He spoke of the sublimity of the priesthood: “What is a priest after God’s heart? He is an inestimable treasure containing an immensity of good things. The holy priest is one of the treasures of the Great King, having in his keeping the infinite abundance of God’s mercy to enrich worthy souls.”
John suffered very much in his work, including much opposition and enmity from within the Church. He bore it with patience, imitating the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to which he was deeply devoted. He died in 1680, and was canonized in 1925.
Sacred Heart of Jesus, fill us with gratitude
for the sublime gift of the priesthood.
