St. John Eudes captured the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary by honoring them in the liturgy. Thanks to this saint, Holy Cross priests have as their patron Jesus’ Sacred Heart, and Notre Dame has a Basilica dedicated to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

In fact, even though John was canonized a saint after the Basilica was constructed, he is depicted there in a stained glass window leading people in devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

John’s parents were farmers in the Normandy region of France, and were childless until they went to a nearby shrine to Mary. Nine months later, in 1601, John was born, and five more children arrived after him.

John was educated at a Jesuit school, and he went on to seek ordination. He was a very good preacher, and gained the admiration of his superiors by his excellent conduct. He spent his early priesthood at an oratory—a special church (not a parish) set aside for prayer and Mass. When plague broke out in Normandy, John volunteered to return to his region to serve the sick there. He spent two months ministering to the sick and dying.

He returned to the oratory and lived there until the plague reached that area. Again, he went out into the city to tend to the sick and dying. To prevent his brother priests from becoming infected from him, he did not live in the rectory—he lived in a large cask or barrel in a field; nuns from a nearby convent brought him food.

He went on to become a distinguished preacher, and would travel the countryside offering missions to parishes to reinvigorate the faithful. He was widely known as the best preacher people had ever heard.

During his travels, he came to see that the priests needed as much reform as the faithful, so he concentrated his efforts on seminary training. He established several seminaries that were dedicated to producing zealous and well-trained parish priests.

John’s spirituality focused on the love of Jesus and Mary, symbolized in their sacred hearts. He began a feast day for people to honor the heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus; these feast days spread quickly and were taken up around the Church. While John was not the first to be devoted to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, he was the first to capture this devotion in the liturgy, which gave the Church a way to participate and spread it.

He died after giving a parish mission in his old age that left him sick and weak—he preached outdoors, in the winter, every day for nine weeks, and never recovered. He died on this date in 1680.

“Our wish, our object, our chief occupation must be to form Jesus in ourselves, to make his spirit, his devotion, his affections, his desires, and his disposition live and reign there,” St. John wrote. “All our religious efforts should be directed to this end. It is the work that God has given us to do unceasingly.”

St. John Eudes, you helped people form their hearts in the shape of Jesus’ Sacred Heart—pray for us!