The Reign of Jesus: Being an Abridgement of the Work of Blessed John Eudes

Our blessed Founder, in the opinion of the most Eminent Cardinals whose duty it was to study his works preliminarily to the Cause of Beatification, is a remarkable Master in all the questions which concern the Christian and priestly life. Now his most finished work with respect to the Christian life is incontestably the “Life and Reign of Jesus in the Soul." Cardinal Satolli, in the Church of Gesu at Rome, and the Cure of Notre Dame of Caen at Tourailles, in the diocese of Seez, both chose this work as the subject of their panegyric on the Blessed Jean Eudes. The spiritual doctrine which is there developed with so much learning and piety merits for its author a high place of dignity amongst the most celebrated spiritual and mystic writers. By conforming his spiritual life to the teaching of the Blessed Jean Eudes, a soul will inevitably attain rapidly to the greatest holiness, living the life of Jesus. Your abridgment retains the merits of the work of the Blessed Jean Eudes, and by the form you have given it you have succeeded in bringing it within the reach of the greater number of the faithful. Your readers will be nourished with the marrow of the doctrine of the Blessed Jean Eudes ; I can, therefore, but thank and congratulate you for having undertaken this work and for proposing to give the public a second edition. The Blessed Jean Eudes will bless this new edition as he blessed the first. BEFORE teaching, our Lord Jesus Christ began by putting into practice what He was to enjoin on others. Thus the holy Gospel is but the manifestation of the life of Jesus Christ-a life resplendent with holiness and light as was fitting for the only-begotten Son of the Father. The holy Founders of Orders have followed in the steps of the Master. The Rules of S. Benedict and of S. Francis of Assisi were the programme of their own lives before becoming the programme of the lives of their disciples. In the same way, those books which set forth a method of spiritual life, approved by the Church, have been lived before being published. Thus, the admirable book of the “Exercises of S. Ignatius" is but the expression of his soldier's soul, striving by strategy to attain the final goal, the glory of God. What is stranger still. the" Introduction to the Devout Life" existed already. unknown to its author, before it assumed the form of a book. S. Francis of Sales was quite surprised at having compiled this masterpiece. He had only to put in order and to complete the counsels he had given, out of the treasure of his heart, to meet the needs of his penitent . “The Reign of Jesus in the Christian Soul" might well be entitled “The Inner Life of the Blessed Jean Eudes." For if it be the outline of his teaching and of his method of direction, it is still more the most true and perfect expression of his soul. He was only thirty-six years old when he wrote it, and he determined to make it always his rule of life. "The Reign of Jesus" is the first and the most important of the writings of the Blessed Jean Eudes. He had published an outline of it in 1636 with the title of “Spiritual Exercises," and the following year the complete work appeared.