The Four Foundations of Sanctity: Page 1 by SAINT JOHN EUDES Imprimatur, 1945 A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF SAINT JOHN EUDES, CONFESSOR Feast Day: August 19 Saint John Eudes was born in Normandy, France, in 1601. Endowed with extraordinary talents and filled with burning zeal for the salvation of souls, he devoted fifty years of his life, until his death in 1680, to the preaching of missions and to the organization of ecclesiastical seminaries. He founded the Congregation of Jesus and Mary, generally known as the Eudist Fathers, for missionary and seminary work; the Order of Our Lady of Charity with its two observances of the Refuge and of the Good Shepherd; the Society of the Most Admirable Heart for lay persons aspiring to perfection in the world; and lastly, the Confraternities of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary for the propagation among the faithful of the devotion, of which he was the first apostle. He wrote the first Mass and Office for the special feast in honor of the Sacred Heart and of the Holy Heart of Mary, which he established thirty years before the revelations of Saint Margaret Mary. Saint John Eudes was one of the most prolific ascetic writers of the seventeenth century. The first French edition of his works published in 1905, filled twelve octavo volumes which constitute a complete summa of ascetic and pastoral theology. HOME-----------------E-MAIL-----------------CATHOLIC CLASSICS www.catholictradition.org/Classics/eudes.htm