To form Jesus in us
John Eudes
O most powerful and good Jesus use your power yourself and your infinite goodness to establish yourself in me
We have four things to do to form Jesus in us.
1. We must train ourselves to look to him in all things, and to have no other object in all our devotional exercises and actions than him and all his states, mysteries, virtues and actions. For he is all in all things: he is the being of things that are, the life of living things, the beauty of beautiful things, the power of the mighty, the wisdom of the wise, the virtue of the virtuous, the holiness of the holy.
And we hardly do any action that he did not do something similar while he was on earth, which we should look at and imitate when doing our own. By this means we will fill our understanding with Jesus and form and establish him in our minds, thinking of him often and looking to him in all things.
2. We must form Jesus, not only in our minds by thinking of him and looking to him in all things, but we must also form him in our hearts by the frequent exercise of his divine love. For this purpose we must accustom ourselves to raise our hearts often to him for love, to do all our actions for his pure love, and to consecrate to him all the affections of our heart.
3. We must form Jesus in us by a complete annihilation of ourselves and of all things in us. For if we desire that Jesus should live and reign perfectly in us, we must put to death and annihilate all creatures in our minds and hearts, and no longer look upon them or love them in themselves, but in Jesus and Jesus in them. We must make the state that the world and all that is in the world is annihilated for us, and that there is only Jesus in the world for us, and that we have only him to please, and only him to look at and love.
We must also work to annihilate ourselves, that is, our own sense, our own will, our self-love, our pride and vanity, all our perverse inclinations and habits, all the desires and instincts of a depraved nature... so that Jesus Christ may live and reign in us perfectly
This is the main foundation, the first principle and the first step of the Christian life. This is what is called, in the sacred Word and in the books of the holy Fathers, losing oneself, dying to oneself, perishing to oneself, renouncing oneself. It is one of the principal cares we must have, one of the principal exercises we must employ, through the practices of self-denial, humiliation and interior and exterior mortification, and one of the most powerful means we must use to form and establish Jesus in us.
4. But, because this great work of the formation of Jesus in us surpasses incomparably our forces, the fourth and principal means is to have recourse to the power of divine grace, and to the prayers of the most holy Virgin and the Saints.
Let us therefore often pray to the Blessed Virgin, all the Angels and Saints, to help us by their prayers. Let us give ourselves to the power of the eternal Father, and to the love and ardent zeal that he has for his Son, begging him to annihilate us completely, so that his Son may live and reign in us.
Let us also offer ourselves to the Holy Spirit for the same intention, and let us make the same prayer to Him.
John Eudes, Life and Kingdom, II, 41
return to the list