St. John Eudes

A Norman priest of the French School of spirituality who founded the Eudist congregation to train priests and the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity to shelter women in danger. He was the first to celebrate liturgical feasts in honor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, anticipating the great devotions of the next two centuries.

Born in 1601 in the village of Ri in Normandy, Eudes was ordained under the Oratorians and spent years as a parish missioner, preaching through the plague-ravaged countryside of northern France. He would personally nurse the sick, sleeping in barrels rather than risk bringing contagion to his hosts, and his missions drew enormous crowds back to the sacraments.

He died in 1680 after decades of opposition from Jansenists and jealous ecclesiastics who tried to block his foundations at every turn. His beatification was delayed for two centuries, but the devotions he championed conquered the Church long before his canonization in 1925 — Pius X called him "the father, doctor, and apostle" of the liturgical cult of the Sacred Hearts.