Meditations for the Feast of the Sacred Heart (1): Of Jesus

Of Jesus

First Meditation: The Vigil of the Feast: Dispositions for the Worthy Celebration of This Feast . 279

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Second Meditation: the Day of the Feast: The Gift of the Sacred Heart of Jesus . 282 Third Meditation: The Gift of This Feast Is a Great Favor Bestowed by Our Lord 284 Fourth Meditation: The Sacred Heart of Jesus Is Our Refuge, Our Oracle and Our Treasure . 287 Fifth Meditation: The Sacred Heart of Jesus Is the Perfect Model and Rule of Our Lives 290 Sixth Meditation: Jesus Gave Us His Sacred Heart to Be Our Heart 293 Seventh Meditation: The Profound Humility of the Sacred Heart of Jesus . 296 Eighth Meditation: The Sacred Heart of Jesus Is the King of Martyrs 299 Ninth Meditation: The Heart of Jesus Is the Heart of Mary . . . 302

Eight Other Meditations

First Meditation: The Blessed Trinity Lives and Reigns in the Sacred Heart of Jesus .305 Second Meditation: The Sacred Heart of Jesus Is the Sanctuary and Image of the Divine Perfections . . . . . . . . . 308 Third Meditation: The Sacred Heart of Jesus Is the Temple, the Altar and the Censer of Divine Love . . . . . . . . . 310 Fourth Meditation: The Sacred Heart of Jesus Loves Us with an Eternal and a Boundless Love . . . . . . . . . 313 Fifth Meditation: The Sacred Heart of Jesus Is the Source of the Life of the God-man, of the Mother of God and of the Children of God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 316

Contents X1x

Sixth Meditation: The Three Hearts of Jesus Which Are but One Heart .318 Seventh Meditation: The Miracles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus . . 321 Eighth Meditation: The Sacred Heart of Jesus Is a Furnace of Love, Purifying, Illuminating, Sanctifying, Transforming and Deifying 324

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Special Days of the Year

Meditation for New Year's Day . . . . . . . . . . 329 Meditation for Ash Wednesday: The Holy Season of Lent . . . 333 Meditation for Good Friday . . . . . . . . . . . 335 Meditation for the Vigil of the Ascension of Our Lord . . . . 338 Meditation for the Vigil of the Assumption of Our Lady . . . . 340 Meditation for the Feast of the Holy Relics . . . . . . . 342 Meditation for Christmas Day . . . . . . . . . . 345 Meditation for the Last Day of the Year . . . . . . . . 347 XX1-

Foreword

IT WAS indeed a happy inspiration which prompted the late Reverend Charles Lebrun, C.J.M., to gather into a single volume, and thus render easily accessible, the various meditations that Saint John Eudes scattered so profusely through his many spiritual writings. It was also a happy inspiration on his part to have enriched the volume with his own brilliant essay on prayer as practised and recommended by Saint John Eudes. No one has studied more carefully or understood more thoroughly the spiritual teaching of the Saint, and no one was more highly qualified to develop his thought on prayer-its nature, importance, form and the place it occupies in his concept of the Christian life.

It is a fundamental principle in the teaching of Saint John Eudes that the Christian life i s nothing more than the reproduction, continuation and completion of the life of Jesus, the Head of the Mystical Body, in each one of us, the members. "When a Christian prays," he says, "he continues and accomplishes the prayers of Jesus Christ. When he works, he continues and accomplishes Christ's laborious life. When his relations with his neighbor are inspired by charity, he continues and accomplishes Christ's public life . . ." (1)

Now it was with the hope of aiding Christians to reproduce and continue in their lives the life of prayer of Jesus while on earth that Saint John Eudes composed his meditations. To facilitate the practice for those who find it difficult to concentrate and reflect, he frequently proposes an elevation or ready-made colloquy by means of which they can easily raise their minds and hearts to God and give expression to their sentiments of tenderest love and deepest devotion, as is evident the Saint himself was accustomed to do. We know that the entire life ( 1 ) . The Kingdom ol Jesus (New York, 1946), Part I, p. 6.

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of Jesus on earth was a life of continual prayer, and consequently that there can be nothing more important in the life of a Christian than the practice of prayer. Oportet semper orare (Luke 28, 1).

For the first time, this book of Meditations by Saint John Eudes, with the admirable Introduction of Father Lebrun clarifying the mind of the Saint on the whole subject of prayer, i s offered to the public in English dress. With it go the hope and the prayer that it may prove serviceable to many souls in the world and in the cloister; that it may assist them in reproducing and continuing the life of prayer of Jesus; nay more, that it may help many to "put on Christ," become more perfectly "other Christs," and thereby greatly extend His kingship on earth.

P. A. Bray, C.j.m

Bishop of Saint John Saint John, N.B. December 8, 1945 XX111-

Introduction

THE wish has been expressed that the meditations scattered through the spiritual writings of St. John Eudes be gathered together in one separate volume. To comply with this request, the present work has been compiled. All the meditations in The Kingdom of Jesus, The Sacred Heart of Jesus, The Admirable Heart of Mary, The Admirable Childhood of Mary, and the Manual of Piety, will be found in this book. A brief note at the beginning of each series indicates the work from which the meditations are taken and adds explanatory material to make them more useful to the reader. The following general introduction outlines the teaching of St. John Eudes on prayer, especially on mental prayer o r meditation.

I. Prayer in General

St. John Eudes did not write a special book on prayer, but the few pages devoted to the subject in The Kingdom of Jesus (1)enable us to give an account of his ideas on it. Moreover, that book is full of prayers and meditations that make it, in M. Joly's words, "a manual of prayer" and show us the theoretical ideas of the author reduced to practice.

In that volume the Saint uses the word "prayer" in its widest sense so that he applies it to every kind of prayer, no matter what acts it comprises or how it is offered. In his eyes spiritual meditation and the reading of good books are true prayers for they arouse in us devotional sentiments and acts of love of God.

Prayer is often defined as a request made to God for our necessities, and some Christians restrict prayer to petition. Such a prayer is certainly good, and the Divine Master recommends it i n the Gospels: "Ask, and it shall be given you," He said to His apostles, "seek and (1). In this Introduction and elsewhere all references to The Kingdom of Jesus and to The Sacred Heart ol Jesus are to the new American translation published in the series The Selected Works of St. John Eudes, New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons, 1946.

xxiv- INTRODUCTION you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you" (Matt. 7, -7); and on another occasion He reproached them for having made no requests: "Hitherto, you have not asked any thing in my name. Ask, and you shall receive" (John 16, 24)

Excellent as the act of petition may be, it is not the main element of prayer. St. John Eudes unfolds a much wider idea of prayer which he draws from Catholic traditions. "Prayer," he says, " isa respectful and loving elevation of your mind and heart to God. It is a joyous meeting, a holy communication, a divine conversation between God and the Christian." (2)

As a rule, in actual fact, a Christian speaks to God in prayer in the style of the Our Father, and God replies by inspiring in his mind good thoughts, or acts of faith, confidence, love and the like. But it may happen in prayer that the mind and heart are raised to God with a more or less active feeling of adoration and love which finds no expression in either external or internal words; yet, this is most certainly prayer. That is why the Saint begins by telling us that prayer is "a respectful and loving elevation of your mind and heart to God." After defining prayer, St. John Eudes goes on to describe in detail the elements that compose it. "In it," he says, "the soul considers and contemplates its Creator in His divine perfections, in His mysteries and in His works; it adores and blesses Him, loves and glorifies Him, gives itself to Him, is abased before Him at the sight of its sins and ingratitude. It implores Him to be merciful and learns to become like Him by imitating His divine virtues and perfections, and finally, asks for all the things necessary to serve and love Him."(3) (2). cf. The Kingdom of Jesus, Part 1, P. 2 4 . St. Augustine, St. John Damascene, and many subsequent writers define prayer as Ascensus mentis ad Deum, but in adopting this definition St. John Eudes develops it in his own way. He remarks that it is a respectful and loving elevation of the heart as well as of the mind, and this indeed is how everyone considers it. The second part of his definition (an intercourse with God) is also classical, and is to be found in St. Francis de Sales' Treatise of the Love of God, as well a in the writings of St. Teresa and many others. On the idea of prayer, see Bremond, Histoire du Sentiment Religieux, V11, P. 5ff. (3). cf. The Kingdom of Jesus, Part I, pp. 24-25. The Saint is not here dealing exclusively with infused contemplation. He often uses the word contemplation in The Kingdom of Jesus, but in its widest sense, meaning the attentive consideration (apparently without reasoning) of the divine perfections or of the mysteries of our Lord and of His holy Mother.

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These few lines, inserted almost accidentally in one of the chapters of The Kingdom of Jesus, really contain the germ of a complete theory of prayer, to which we will return when dealing with the subject of mental prayer. For the moment we may merely note that according to St. John Eudes prayer is primarily an exercise, the object of which is to render to God that tribute of adoration and love, of satisfaction and thanksgiving, to which He has a right. It is only when he has duly performed these duties that a Christian may turn to his own needs and ask for their fulfilment, and he does so less from self-interest than from a desire to be able to love and to serve God. As St. John Eudes ( like Cardinal de Bérulle and his followers) frequently reminds us: "the interests of God must be dearer to us than our own." Accordingly prayer in his view is profoundly theocentric.

Saint John Eudes next stresses the excellence of prayer so defined. "Prayer," he says, "is a participation in the life of the angels and saints, in the life of Jesus Christ and of His most holy Mother, even of the life of God and of the Three Divine Persons. For the life of the angels and saints, of Christ and of His most holy Mother is nothing else but a continual practice of prayer and contemplation, in which their uninterrupted occupation is to look upon God, to praise and love Him, to ask Him, on your behalf, for the things you need. And the existence of the Three Divine Persons is a perpetual contemplation, praise and love of one another, which is accomplished first and foremost by prayer. (4)

"Prayer," continues the Saint, "is perfect delight, supreme happiness, a true earthly paradise. It is by this divine exercise of prayer that the Christian soul is united to God, who is the centre of its being, its goal and its supreme good. it is in prayer that God belongs to the soul and the soul to God. It is by praying that the soul pays Him rightful service, homage, adoration and love, and receives from Him His lights, His blessings and a thousand tokens of His exceeding great love. It i s during your prayers that God takes His delight in you, according to this word of His: 'My delights were to be with the children of men' (Pr,v. 8, 31), and gives us an experimental knowledge of the fact that our true joy and perfect satisfaction arc to be found in God, and (4). The Kingdom Of Jesus, Part 1, P. 25.

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that a hundred, or even a thousand years of the false pleasures of this world arc not worth one moment of the true delights which God allows those souls to taste, who seek all their contentment only in conversing with Him in holy prayer."(5)

Of course prayer has its difficulties and trials, as St. John Eudes well knew; he devoted a section of The Kingdom of Jesus to spiritual dryness and afflictions(6). But whether it be easy o r laborious, delightful or arid, prayer is always an exercise of praise and love of God, and even when we are deprived of the sweetness of sensible devotion, the Saint would have us find all our happiness in conversing with God in prayer.

He adds that prayer is "the one true and proper function of a man and of a Christian, since man is created for God and to be with God, and the Christian is on earth only for the purpose of continuing what Jesus Christ did during His life."(6a) Therefore prayer is the basis of a truly human life, and above all the foundation of a Christian life. It is true that if we are to be really Christian we must add to prayer the practice of virtue and the fulfilment of our daily duties; but it is prayer which makes us love and practise virtue and gives us the necessary courage to face the demands of duty however formidable these may be.

And the Saint concludes with this pressing admonition: "Therefore, with all my power, I urge every one of you who read these words, and in God's name I adjure you, since our dear Jesus condescends to take His delight in being with you and speaking to you through prayer, do not deprive Him of His satisfaction, but learn by your own experience that like holy wisdom 'His conversation hath no bitterness, nor His company any tediousness, but joy and gladness' (Wisd. 8, 16). Look upon prayer as the first, the principal, most necessary, most urgent and most important business of your life, and as far as possible, free yourself from all less necessary duties, to give as much time as you can to prayer . . ." (7) ( 5 ) . The Kingdom of Jesus, loc. cit. (6a). Ibid., P. 25. (6). Ibid., Part 1, p. 83(7). Ibid., p. 26.

Introduction Xxv11

Ii. Mental Prayer

Mental prayer is inward prayer which consists, not in the recitation of a formula, but of interior acts in which language has a purely accidental part, as, for instance, when we make use of a formula to arouse our attention or to stimulate our devotion.

Mental prayer has always been held in high honor by devout souls in religious communities, but since the fifteenth century the custom has arisen in many institutes of devoting a fixed time every day to the regular practice of mental prayer.

St. John Eudes considered mental prayer of capital importance, and called it "the mother and nurse of true piety;" indeed, in his A Memorial of the Ecclesiastical Life he boldly declared it "as necessary for the soul of a Christian, and much more so for that of a priest and pastor, as is material bread for the body." So, too, in his Good Confessor, after showing that piety is indispensable to all who propose to hear confessions, he adds these strong words: "But what is piety? If you would be acquainted with it and possess it you must practise it. But I declare to you that so long as you do not know what true piety is, you will not be fit to hear confessions." He is no less outspoken in The Apostolic Preacher: "It is in prayer," he says, "that God so enlightens our minds that we arc able to see the importance and the beauty of Christian virtue; it i s therein, too, that He takes possession of our hearts so that we may taste and love that virtue. And when we are fully persuaded of this and powerfully influenced by it, then we have a wonderful power of making it intelligible to others and of firmly impressing it in their hearts.

The truths with which God enlightens our minds, whose consideration moves us to serve and to love Him, have an incomparably greater power of inflaming our hearts than have those which we derive solely from books without having meditated and pondered upon them before God. There i s almost as much difference between these two sets of truths as there is between well-cooked and well - seasoned dishes and those that are totally unprepared." He considered that religious communities absolutely require mental prayer, and that without it they cannot survive: "Without prayer;' he

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one day wrote to the superior of one of his houses, "it is impossible for a Congregation to subsist i n the spirit of piety and virtue which is necessary if it is to be pleasing to God and useful to the Church.". And he added: "There is little difference between making half an hour's prayer and not making it, yet nothing is more necessary for ecclesiastics, and I know of no seminary in which they do not make an hour's mental prayer."(8)

In The Kingdom of Jesus also the Saint strongly recommends pious souls to practise mental prayer. "This kind of prayer," he tens them, "is more holy, more useful and more filled with blessings than words can convey. For this reason, if God draws you to mental prayer and gives you the grace to practise it, you should indeed thank Him for this very great gift. If He has not yet given you this grace, pray that He may do so, and for your part exert all your efforts to correspond with His grace, and cultivate this holy practice. God Himself will instruct you in the ways of this prayer better than all the books and all the teachers in the world, if you cast yourself down at His feet with humility, confidence and purity of heart." (9)