One morning in 1646, Jean Eudes entered a brothel in Caen. He didn't come to condemn—he came to seek. He convinced several women to follow him, housed them at the bishop's residence for lack of a better option, and within a week founded what would become the Notre-Dame de Charité Institute. This gesture says it all: a man who believed that no one is lost.
A Norman priest of the 17th century, founder of the Eudists and of Our Lady of Charity, a pioneer of devotion to the United Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
Jean Eudes was born in 1601 in a fractured France—an ignorant clergy, a superstitious populace, and abject social misery. His response was concrete: one hundred and fifteen parish missions, two religious congregations founded, and a devotion to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary that would endure through the centuries. The symbol of the heart—the seat of divine mercy—summarizes his entire program. Three hundred and forty-five years after his death, his question remains urgent: how to reach the lost where they are?
From Ri to Caen, a man on a mission
Jean-Baptiste Eudes was born on November 14, 1601, in Ri, a village in the Orne region, into a deeply Christian Norman peasant family. His father, Isaac Eudes, steered him towards ecclesiastical studies despite the family's vocation to farming. At nineteen, he entered the Oratory of Paris, founded by Cardinal de Bérulle—a school of demanding priestly spirituality centered on the mystery of the Incarnation.
He was ordained a priest in 1625. By 1627, the plague had struck Normandy. Jean did not flee: he isolated himself in a barrel in the middle of the fields to care for the sick without infecting his fellow priests. This gesture says it all about the man—pragmatic, courageous, and resourceful in his acts of charity.
Beginning in 1632, he embarked on parish missions. For forty years, he traveled throughout Brittany, Normandy, and Burgundy, preaching even at the court of Louis XIV. He undertook one hundred and fifteen missions between 1632 and 1675. His diagnosis was harsh but clear-sighted: the people "had replaced faith with witchcraft"; the priests, "ignorant and often corrupt, abandon their flocks as soon as the plague appears." The solution lay in the training of the clergy.
In 1641, he began drafting the constitutions for an institute for women in difficulty. On November 25, 1641, with the support of Madeleine Lamy, he founded the Institut Notre-Dame de Charité in Caen—a convent of nuns dedicated to the rehabilitation of prostitutes and at-risk young girls. It was the first Catholic congregation entirely devoted to this apostolate.
On March 25, 1643, he left the Oratory. On November 25, 1643—a date he cherished—he founded the Congregation of Jesus and Mary, known as the Eudists, in Caen. Its mission: to train priests in seminaries and to carry out popular missions. He opened seminaries in Caen, Coutances, Lisieux, Rouen, Évreux, and Rennes.
In 1648, he wrote the first liturgical office in honor of the Heart of Mary. In 1672, he composed the Office of the Heart of Jesus—well before the revelation at Paray-le-Monial to Margaret Mary Alacoque. This is why the Church would later call him "father, doctor, and apostle of devotion to the Sacred Hearts.".
Jean Eudes founded two active congregations and organised more than a hundred documented missions.
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He is credited with sudden conversions during missions — entire villages turned around in a few days — the extent of which is probably amplified by hagiographic accounts.
Canonized on May 31, 1925 by Pius XI, he remains a central figure of the French Catholic Reformation, often underestimated compared to Vincent de Paul or Francis de Sales.
He refused the title of superior general of his congregation and died in Caen on August 19, 1680, at the age of seventy-nine, surrounded by his spiritual sons.
The heart as a weapon
A solid fact anchors the Eudist devotion: in 1648, Jean Eudes celebrated the first votive Mass in honor of the Sacred Heart of Mary. He composed the service himself, with the approval of the Bishop of Bayeux. This was a first in Western liturgical history. In 1672, he repeated the gesture for the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Two hearts, one single impulse: mercy incarnate.
Legend adds to this accounts of spectacular missions. In a Breton town—the name varies depending on the source—John preached for three weeks. At the end, the entire population supposedly confessed, the taverns closed of their own accord, and all cohabiting relationships dissolved. The account is probably stylized, but it reflects a reality: his missions lasted several weeks, with preaching morning and evening, catechism, sacraments, and pastoral care.
For Eudes, the symbolic significance of the heart transcends mere sentimentality. He theologizes: the heart of Mary is the first sanctuary of the Incarnate Word; the heart of Jesus is the source of mercy offered to all. This double heart becomes the emblem of his spirituality—two distinct realities, united in the same saving love.
This symbol still speaks to us today. In a world that separates efficiency and compassion, Jean Eudes keeps the two together. His seminaries train priests; his institute welcomes rejected women. Pastoral wisdom and merciful tenderness are not mutually exclusive—they nourish each other.
The Eudist tradition also preserves the memory of his institutional humility: he refused the position of superior general, preferring to remain a missionary in the field. A founder who did not seek power—that is rare enough to be noteworthy.
Mercy requires organization.
Jean Eudes teaches that compassion without structure does not last. Loving the lost is good. Building homes to welcome them, training priests capable of accompanying them, writing offices to pray with them—that is better.
John's central virtue is not spectacular heroism. It is organized perseverance. He preaches for forty years. He founds, writes, trains, and starts again. When one mission ends, he prepares another. When a congregation is short of priests, he opens a seminary.
The Gospel connection is direct. In Matthew 9:36-38, Jesus sees the crowd «as sheep without a shepherd» and asks his disciples to pray for laborers. John Eudes took this prayer seriously—and it became the answer to his own intercession.
The concrete image: an open heart is not enough if it lacks formation. John opens his heart and his seminaries. For him, mercy has an address, a schedule, a rule of life. This is what makes it lasting.
Lectio divina
«The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.» — Matthew 9:37
You look around you. You see lost people, desperate needs, situations that no one seems willing to address. Are you waiting for someone else to take care of it? Or do you hear, in this void, a call that concerns you? What are you truly good at that you haven't yet put to use to help others?
Lord, you looked at the crowd and your heart ached. Teach me that gaze—not the gaze of judgment, but the gaze of seeking. Where I see failure, show me a lost sheep. Where I see unworthiness, reveal to me a heart you love. Give me the patience of John—building what will last, not what impresses. May my hands serve where no one wants to go.
A heart painted in red on a page of Norman parchment, beating gently in the silence of a chapel in Caen, while outside the rain falls on the city.
Prayer
Father, you made Jean a man of action. He didn't stay in his books—he went out into the streets, into the hospices, into the homes that others avoided. I ask you for this grace today: to leave my usual comforts and join what awaits me outside.
You know I often prefer efficiency to compassion—or compassion to effort. John refused that choice. He built houses and opened his arms to others. He trained priests and comforted rejected women. Teach me this inner unity.
Give me the courage to name what is wrong—in my Church, in my community, within myself—without becoming discouraged. John saw the corruption of the clergy and he founded seminaries. He saw the misery of abandoned women and he built a refuge. His response to sorrow was concrete action nourished by prayer.
I entrust to you the people I carry with me right now: those who search without finding, those whom society has marginalized, those for whom no one truly prays. Place in my heart a mercy that never tires.
And when the effort seems futile, remind me of Jean's heart—open to the very end, all the way to Caen, until he was seventy-nine, without title, without power, simply faithful. That is all I want to be. Amen.
To live
Spiritual gesture: spend five minutes rereading Matthew 9:35-38, asking yourself specifically: "What is the harvest I see around me?"«
An act of solidarity: making a donation or reporting a resource to a local association that welcomes women in difficulty — in the spirit of the Institut Notre-Dame de Charité.
Evening exam: write a sentence about a person you tend to avoid or judge, and ask for the grace of John's gaze upon them.
The Norman traces of a saintly builder
Normandy remains the natural home of the Eudist tradition. In Ri, in the Orne department, the parish church preserves the baptismal font where Jean was baptized in November 1601. The village is accessible via a country road from Argentan; the town hall has placed a commemorative plaque. The Diocese of Séez has highlighted this site through several educational initiatives.
In Caen, the institutional heart of the Eudist movement, several traces remain. The Monastery of Our Lady of Charity, founded in 1641, spread throughout the world. Saint Marie-Euphrasie Pelletier, born in 1796, is part of this direct lineage: in 1835 she founded the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, canonized in 1940, whose international work perpetuates the vision of John.
The chapel of the Coutances seminary bears the mark of his presence—Jean oversaw its construction and preached there several times. The Diocese of Coutances and Avranches incorporated his memory into its own Liturgy of the Hours, 1993 edition, a sign of a vibrant pastoral presence.
The Eudists (Congregation of Jesus and Mary, CJM) are present today in about twenty countries, mainly in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Their motherhouse is in Rome. They maintain an apostolate of priestly formation and popular missions—faithful to the project of 1643.
In art, the most widespread representation shows John Eudes holding both a book (the Constitutions or a liturgical office) and a flaming heart. This iconography, developed from the 18th century onwards, underscores the unity of his spirituality: contemplation and action, doctrine and mercy.
The cause for his beatification was opened in 1874; he was beatified by Pius X on April 25, 1909, and canonized by Pius XI on May 31, 1925—along with Thérèse of the Child Jesus, Jean-Baptiste de la Salle, and several others. His feast day is celebrated on August 19, the date of his death.
In 2016, Vatican Radio raised the possibility of declaring Jean Eudes a Doctor of the Church—due to his theological contribution to the devotion to the Sacred Hearts, which predates Paray-le-Monial. The cause has not yet been successful, but the unofficial title of "father of the devotion to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary" is recognized throughout the Catholic tradition.
Liturgy
Readings for the day (August 19): readings proper or common to the pastors — Ezekiel 34:11-16 (the shepherd who seeks the lost sheep); Psalm 22 («The Lord is my shepherd»); John 10:11-16 (the good shepherd lays down his life).
Song/Hymn: Hymn of the Founders of Works — Thematic opening: "Blessed be the Lord who raises up shepherds for his people."«
Liturgical color: white (in memory of a confessor who was not a martyr).
Thematic collection: "God, who aroused in John Eudes an ardent zeal for the hearts of Jesus and Mary, grant us, through his intercession, to serve you with an undivided heart in proclaiming your mercy."«
Antiphon: "He gave his life to train shepherds and welcome the lost — his heart burned with the fire of the two Sacred Hearts."«
Connection to the liturgical season: in Ordinary Time, the memory of John Eudes reminds us that daily apostolic life is itself a continuous liturgy. His feast day falls in the heart of summer, a season conducive to reflection on vocations.
✝ Biblical references
4 passages · 4 books
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. (Ezekiel 36:26)
Apocalyptic visions, oracles of judgment, and the promise of the restoration of Israel.
→ Explore the Ezekiel Codex- Leo XIV and the gesture of Saint Ignatius of Antioch: when Rome learned to sing with one voice with the East
- California: When the Church demands that the law protect the souls of children before algorithms devour them
- Moscow without a pastor: what Bishop Gallagher's mass reveals about a Church awaiting its shepherd
- When an opposition leader leaves the Vatican transformed
God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son. (John 3:16)
The Gospel of the Word: a profound theology of the Incarnation and the signs of Jesus.
→ Explore the Codex John- I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, and they will no longer be their prey (Ezekiel 34:1-11)
- I will give you shepherds after my own heart. All nations will converge on Jerusalem (Jeremiah 3:14-17)
- The Father and I are ONE (Jn 10:22-30)
- The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep (John 10:11-18)
- I am the gate for the sheep (John 10:1-10)
- Trinitarian love: when the Spirit liberates love from its own prison
- To be different in order to be free: the Christian, a happy stranger in a world that rejects him
- The joy that remains: when Jesus fulfills man's deepest desire
- Christ, the Way and the Gate: Entering the Ocean of Peace according to Saint Catherine of Siena
- Gifts to Christ: when the heart becomes a dwelling place
- An Oklahoma farmer becomes a saint: what American cinema reveals about missionary sainthood
- When swords fall silent, the earth breathes: Leo XIV and the theology of the disarmed heart
- The broken heart of the earth: when swords also shape the ecological desert
- The fading voice: what the death of Bishop Lalanne reveals about the Church that speaks
Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:20)
The Gospel of the King: Jesus, the new Moses, fulfills the Scriptures for Israel and the nations.
→ Explore the Matthew Codex- This is what should have been practiced without neglecting the rest (Mt 23:23-26)
- If he listens to you, you have won your brother over (Mt 18:15-20)
- Isn't he the carpenter's son? Where then did this man get all this? (Mt 13:54-58)
- The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few (Mt 9:32-38)
- My daughter has just died; but come, and she will live (Mt 9:18-26)
- Letting in the suffering of others: what Jesus teaches us about true compassion
- The Harvest of Souls: Clement of Alexandria and Culture as God's Field
- When God allows himself to be interrupted: what your faith does to his path
- When the Bridegroom is there, the celebration begins: fasting, joy, and the newness of the Gospel.
- «Such power to men»: when Jesus forgives and heals in Capernaum
- The Seoul model: when lay people produce priests through prayer
- Orlando, a number and a call: why Leo XIV speaks of vocations to disappearing nuns
- «"Spain awaits you": Leo XIV and the Pope's return to the motherland of faith
- When France whispered its most beautiful prayer to the universal Church: World Vocations Day
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. (Psalm 23:1)
150 poems and songs of Israeli prayer: praise, lamentation, thanksgiving.
→ Explore the Codex Psalms- A mother from Puebla before Cardinal Parolin: peace begins with empathy
- Kaduna, July 2026: when the Church becomes the silent hostage of a country tearing itself apart
- The Earth Still Burning: Leo XIV in Acerra, Prophet Against Ecocide and the Camorra
- When Rome challenges Silicon Valley: the encyclical Magnifica Humanitas and the challenge of the soul in the face of algorithms
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