The Fountain of Salvation and true life.

Remember that Our Lord Jesus Christ is your true head and that you are one of his members. He is to you as the head is to the members of the body; all that is his is yours. His spirit, his heart, his body, his soul, all his faculties, all are to be used by you as if they were your own, so that serving him you may praise him, love him, glorify him. For your part, you are to him as a member to the head, and he earnestly desires to use all your faculties as if they were his own for the service and glorification of the Father.

Not only is he yours; he wishes to live and exercise dominion in you, just as the head lives and rules in the members of the body. He desires that all that is in him may live and hold sway in you: his spirit in your spirit, his heart in your heart, all the powers of his soul in those of your soul, in such a way that these words may be fulfilled in you: ‘Glorify and carry God in your body.’

And ‘Let the life of Jesus be manifested in you’. Moreover, you belong to God’s Son: You should, therefore, be in him what members of the body are to the head. All that is in you must be grafted on to him, so that from him you may draw life and by him be ruled. True life is nowhere to be found by you except in him, who is the only source of life. Apart from him you will find nought save death and destruction. Let him be the only principle of all your actions, emotions, powers. You must live by him and for him, and so fulfill the words of the apostle: ‘None of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself. If we live, we live to the Lord, if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For this end Christ died and rose again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.’

You are one with Jesus as the members are one with the head, so you must have with him one spirit, one soul, one life, one will, one intention, one heart. It is he himself who is to be the spirit, heart, love, life, everything for you. In the life of a Christian all these marvels have their origin in baptism, are increased and strengthened by confirmation and the good use of the other graces in which God makes him share, and are perfected above all by the Holy Eucharist.

St. John Eudes was born in the diocese of Seez in France in the year 1601. After being ordained priest he spent many years preaching as a missioner. He founded congregations with the object of educating priests in seminaries and of rescuing women who were in moral danger. He strenuously promoted devotion to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. He died in 1680.

This article is taken from The Office of Readings for the feast day of St. John Eudes on 19 August.