Apostle of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary

 It would be appropriate right now to write about St. Louis deMontfort since we are nearing the end of our study of the 33 Day Preparation for October 7th Consecration - but this article will be about a saint who has written beautifully about the Hearts of Jesus and Mary and will serve to help us in our love! He is not very popularly known but should be as he was a fighter against the Jansenists of his time by expressing the love of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary for all created souls. 

 St. John Eudes founded a religious order in 1643 — the Congregation of Jesus and Mary — principally dedicated to priestly formation and missionary work. Later in his life, he became noted for his devotion to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, and for his strong opposition to the Jansenist heresy that was plaguing the French Church in his day. He was the first to seriously develop the liturgical worship of the Sacred Heart, so that at his canonization in 1909, Pope St. Pius X called him "father, doctor, and apostle of the liturgical cult of the hearts of Jesus and Mary." In his work entitled The Sacred Heart of Jesus , we find the work of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps no one has written more movingly of the interior life of Jesus — His dispositions, virtues, sentiments, and affections — than St. John Eudes did in the pages of this book. For example, in the passage below we see the depth of Christ’s sacrificial love when he wrote chapter 8, entitled "The Sacred Heart of Jesus is a Furnace Burning with Love for us in His Sacred Passion":

“The first cause of those most painful wounds in the Sacred Heart of our Redeemer is our sins. He saw the immeasurable insult and dishonor caused His Father by all sins; He saw the damnation of a countless number of souls resulting from those sins. As He had infinite love for His Father and His creatures, the sight of all those sins rent His Heart with countless wounds, such that if we were able to count all the sins of men, which are more numerous than the drops of water in the sea, we would then be able to count the wounds of the loving Heart of Jesus.

The second cause of His wounds is the infinite love of His Sacred Heart for all of His children, and his constant vision of all the afflictions and sufferings that are to happen to them, especially all the torments that His holy martyrs are to suffer. When a mother watches her beloved child suffering, she feels the pain more keenly than the child. Our Savior's love for us is so tremendous that if the love of all parents were centered in a single heart, it would not represent even a spark of the love for us that burns in His Heart. Our pains and sorrows, ever present to His vision and seen most clearly and distinctly, were so many wounds bleeding in His paternal Heart. These wounds were so painful and deep that they would have caused his death a thousand times over, even immediately after His birth, if He had not miraculously preserved Himself, because during His whole earthly life His Sacred Heart was continually pierced by many mortal wounds of love.

Therefore we have the greatest obligation to honor the gracious Heart that sustained so many wounds of love for us.... With what affection should we embrace, and endure all our afflictions, out of love for Jesus, our Savior, since He first bore them for love of us! Should they not be most sweet to us, since they have already passed through His most gentle and loving Heart? What a horror we should have of our sins that have caused so many wounds and such intense grief to the divine Heart of our Redeemer...!”

 St John Eudes is well known for his teaching about the mystically united hearts of Jesus and Mary. He also wrote the book, The Admirable Heart of Mary. He wrote so beautifully of these two hearts. He said the following:
“You must never separate what God has so perfectly united. So closely are Jesus and Mary bound up with each other that whoever beholds Jesus sees Mary; whoever loves Jesus, loves Mary; whoever has devotion to Jesus, has devotion to Mary.”
 
May we find repose in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary during this time of great need in the Church and consecrate ourselves and the world to them. May we seek all that we need within these two Hearts which love mankind and want our salvation. The enemy is not bigger than God so may we have confidence in placing Jesus and Mary upon the throne of our hearts.  
Sacred Heart of Jesus – Your Kingdom come through Mary!
Below are the links to find these books.
 

Link to The Sacred Heart of Jesus

Link to the Admirable Heart of Mary