B – Reconciliation at the heart of the grace of the missions
A look at John Eudes’ life as a whole, allows us to judge just how fundamentally “missionary” he was before anything else, in the sense that he was aware of having been “sent”, mandated, to call his brothers and sisters to conversion, to a change of life, to a commitment to live according to their baptism, in the dynamism of their Baptism, in the logic of the “contract of alliance” concluded at Baptism (remember all that the Bible says of the Covenant).
During almost 50 years, in several regions of France, he animated more than 110 parochial missions, lasting at least three weeks, and even three months, and he also gave missions to the Court. In all these missions, it is in fact reconciliation that we find at the heart of the grace attached to the missions: at the high point of each mission in fact we find the sacrament of reconciliation.
1 – Zeal for Salvation
To calculate exactly the importance John Eudes attached to the missions, and what was at the heart of them, the work for reconciliation, we must also see the place of “zeal” in his priestly life. He is not the only one of his time to speak of zeal for the salvation of souls, but he is certainly, among those who speak of it, the one who lived it out with the most passion.
He had meditated at length on all that Jesus had done “to save souls”:
“All the mysteries that our Saviour operated on earth for the salvation of the world … all his words, all his actions, all his sufferings, all the love with which he did everything and suffered everything, all these things are as so many voices crying out: this is how Jesus loves souls… This is how he loved them more than his rest, more than his own satisfaction, more than his reputation, more than his human interests, more than his own life.” (OC IV 166).
Following Jesus who gave his life for the salvation of the world, John Eudes was convinced that “to help to save the souls created in the image of God and redeemed by the precious blood of his Son, is the work of works, which incomparably surpasses all the others.” (id)
Just like Paul who knew himself as a minister of salvation and ambassador of the reconciliation gained by Christ, the missionary is seized by the urgency of the task to be accomplished, he gives himself to it completely, passionately, no longer being preoccupied with his own rest, satisfaction, interests or even his life, after the example of his Master and Lord, Jesus. And what will mobilise him completely, even more profoundly than the preaching, even if it is in a most obscure way, is the time he will spend in the confessional welcoming people.
2 – To prepare reconciliation
The aim of the mission was a lasting change of life for its participants and on the whole of the geographical sector.
If the final objective is such a change, a concrete sign of the salvation accepted, it is evident that reconciliation is one of the central imperatives of the mission: reconciliation with God, from whom we are separated by sin, by mediocrity and by lukewarmness; reconciliation with the brothers and sisters, for the relationship with others is at the heart of our whole life, and this relationship is often perturbed, wounded, by sin, by all that comes from the “old man” (cf. the “lists” of St. Paul in his letters).
To illustrate the requirement of a change of life to which the “exercises of the mission” called, we must refer to the fundamental text of Paul to the Corinthians:
“And this is because the love of Christ overwhelms us when we reflect that if one man has died for all, then all men should be dead; and the reason he died for all was so that living men should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised to life for them.
From now onwards, therefore, we do not judge anyone by the standards of the flesh. Even if we did once know Christ in the flesh, this is not how we know him now. And for anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation; the old creation has gone, and now the new one is here. It is all God’s work. It was God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the work of handing on this reconciliation. In other words, God in Christ was reconciling the world to himself, not holding men’s faults against them, and he has entrusted to us the news that they are reconciled. So we are ambassadors for Christ; it is as though God were appealing through us, and the appeal that we make in Christ’s name is: be reconciled to God. For our sake God made the sinless one into sin, so that in him we might become the goodness of God.” (2 Cor. 5, 14 – 21)
This is the message that the listeners must have heard when they came to listen to the preachers of the missions in their parishes, often during several weeks. And this message must have penetrated their hearts to the point where they undertook a process of conversion and reconciliation, which was expressed in the sacrament of penance, which was, in some way the high point and heart of the mission: reconciliation with God, reconciliation with the brothers, with a more interior fruit, which often consisted in reconciliation with oneself; the possibility of a new departure.
We become aware of the importance of this process of reconciliation through the works that John Eudes consecrated to the theme of the sacrament of penance: the Warnings to missionary confessors” (1644), and “The good confessor” (1666).
Already in his first book, Life and Kingdom of Jesus, in 1637, which reflected the experience of his first years as a missionary, he underlined the importance of a concrete process in order to be reconciled with others.
“To have true contrition …Do, on one’s own side, all that one can so as to be reconciled with those with whom one disagrees.” (OC 1 132)
For those listening, perhaps reconciliation with God seemed more self evident … without always the realization that its condition is in some way reconciliation between brothers, as Jesus underlines in the Our Father. It needed a whole catechesis to help Christians to understand the extent of the field of reconciliation.
There is no doubt that his pastoral experience down the years only made him more attentive to this aspect, more conscious of its central character.
For him, and he would also know how to convince his missionary companions, reconciliation is not trifling matter. It has to be given its full importance, and so time has to be taken.
Undoubtedly this is one of the reasons why appeal was made for a great number of priests for confessions (sometimes as many as 100!). This ensured that numerous penitents were not “dispatched” in a few minutes, but that time was taken to help them to look at their lives, to enter into themselves, to become aware of all that was at stake:
· The sanctity of God, at the same time as his love;
· The dignity of the each person, “come from the heart and goodness of God…” (cf Lect. 12), and the respect that is their due.
· A requirement of coherence between the relationship to God and fraternal relationships.
Once they were more capable of better situating themselves with regard to God and others, Christians would also be better able to sense the gravity of sin, become aware of being in some way cut off from the source of love, “separated” from their deepest being, their entourage, from God himself.
This was the aim of the entire mission preaching, the catechesis adapted to the different categories of people: to discover the Christian life and the demands of baptism, which makes us members of the Body of Christ in a new light.
Then the detailed examinations of conscience that the priest had at hand must have helped them to lead the faithful in a sort of “review” of their life, so as to discern the ‘shadows’ in it, the refusal to respond to God in their daily behaviour.
But at the same time, they had to discover that God, was not only asking them to change their behaviour and their life, but that he loved them no matter what they had done, that he is never discouraged with them and that he gives them the grace and strength of conversion, of ‘turning round’ their beings to the one who calls them.
“O admirable benignity! For an instance of true contrition, for a tear that comes from perfect repentance, for a single sigh coming from a contrite and humble heart, God pardons fifty, sixty years of sin and millions of crimes of all sorts, and receives the sinner into his grace, and re-establishes him into the number of his children and his heirs, and in the right to possess all his goods one day.” (O C VII p. 23).
3 – Reconciliation - a life commitment
When the penitents, duly prepared, came finally to confession, they had to become aware that this step was not simply a sort of rite of purification, after which they would be quits, like when they washed their hands: it was indeed a question of a new beginning. To go to confession, is to commit oneself to a change of life, in a very concrete way.
In order to signify this very clearly, before giving absolution, the priest had to assure himself that such a commitment was indeed real. John Eudes insists on it in his books, while adding that they should not defer absolution for too long so as not to discourage people. So we can imagine that certain of them had to go back to see the priest after having concretely examined what they could do to “repair” their faults.
In the Good Confessor, when John Eudes speaks of those for whom absolution has to be deferred, we can see that it is often round reconciliation with others that it turns, so difficult is it to “take the first step” towards the other which Jesus tells us is paramount:
“All those who are in dissention with the neighbour, must not be absolved, if they do not wish to do on their side what they must do in order to enter into peace and charity.
Nevertheless, before refusing them absolution, you must try to soften their heart by strong and good reasoning, and by the example of our Lord, his Mother and the Saints, so as to oblige them to be reconciled and to talk to each other, if they can, offering to help them if it is necessary, and to bring or go to see the persons with whom they are in disagreement and arrange their meeting and their reconciliation.” (O C IV 299 (The good confessor)
We can see that John Eudes knew human nature very well, how easy it is to find resistances within ourselves to taking the step towards reconciliation.
And it is undoubtedly for this reason that he offers the possibility of “mediation” by the priest in order to facilitate the steps that have to be taken.
“If they are in disagreement with someone, oblige them to be reconciled and to speak to each other, before absolution if this is possible: offering yourself to them to help them do this, if is necessary, and in order to come or go to see the people with whom they are in disagreement, and arrange their meeting and reconciliation.” (OC IV 290 warnings to confessors)
But at the same time, this step of mediation must be taken with discernment. They must not run the risk of appearing to take one side against the other:
“If disagreements occur between Lords and Magistrates or others, we must not take one side against the other; but we must have a universal charity for all, and we will pray to God that he give them the spirit of peace.” (OC IX, 233)
Continuing on in this same subject of mediation, in the Rules for the missionaries (OC IX, 8/2, p. 373), when he talks of the Exercises of the Mission, he says that
“There will also be someone, if it is possible, whose occupation it will be to give value to the process and the differences of opinion.”
This tells us, both the importance that these problems could have in the social life of the times, and their impact on the whole of the Christian life. So that they did not take over, people had to be helped to tackle them in the light of the Gospel.
Elsewhere, we know that in John Eudes’ time, and in a significant way in Normandy, where Protestants were numerous, wounds brought about by the wars of religion were still very present. In his days, there was no talk about ecumenism, and neither was it seen that work between groups could be done. Like most Catholics, he was rather situated in the perspective of a “conversion” of heretics to the one true faith, at the same time, he was aware of the necessity for the Catholic Church to be purified (see Paul Milcent, an artisan …, p. 61), so as to give less reason to the Protestants’ criticisms.
Conclusion
From this missionary work that occupied a good part of John Eudes’ life, we see how he was marked by reconciliation. In most cases, the mission is presented differently today … And yet, often we are also in the presence of a people which has lost the sense of reference to God, which needs a first, or new evangelisation.
Whatever the way in which we approach our brothers and sisters, in order to tell them something (in words or acts) of the message of salvation, is it not important that we should have present to our spirit and heart the word of reconciliation of which we are the ambassadors?
We live in a divided world, which is moving away from the source of living water in order to dig out cisterns incapable of holding water (Jer. 2, 13), the heart of man itself is divided: do we let ourselves be seized, in our turn, by the zeal which burned in John Eudes, to announce the Good News of universal reconciliation?