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Priestly formation has always been a difficult task, one that each generation has tried to perfect, correcting the mistakes of the past.
St. John Eudes lived during such a time of priestly formation, when many priests failed to live up to their holy vocation.
In order to form better priests, St. John Eudes had a simple idea that cut to the heart of the issue.
Heart to heart
Pope Benedict XVI reflected on the life and ministry of St. John Eudes during a general audience in 2009, pointing to his idea for how to form good and holy priests:
Prompted by a lucid awareness of the grave need for spiritual assistance in which souls lay because of the inadequacy of the majority of the clergy, the Saint, who was a parish priest, founded a congregation specifically dedicated to the formation of priests. He founded his first seminary in the university town of Caen, a particularly appreciated experience which he very soon extended to other dioceses. The path of holiness, which he took himself and proposed to his followers, was founded on steadfast trust in the love that God had revealed to humanity in the priestly Heart of Christ and in the maternal Heart of Mary.
St. John Eudes became a zealous promoter of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, desiring that all men in priestly formation would draw closer to those two Hearts.
He believed that devotion to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary would soften a priest’s own heart, disposing him to serve his people.
Pope Benedict XVI continued his reflection on St. John Eudes, highlighting this aspect of his ministry:
In those times of cruelty, of the loss of interiority, he turned to the heart to speak to the heart, a saying of the Psalms very well interpreted by St Augustine. He wanted to recall people, men and women and especially future priests, to the heart by showing them the priestly Heart of Christ and the motherly Heart of Mary. Every priest must be a witness and an apostle of this love for Christ's Heart and Mary's Heart.
If a priest wants to truly serve his people, he must become one with the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, loving people with the same love they have for humanity.
