Leo XIV to the Church of France: Your Saints will help you renew your missionary zeal

by Gianni Valente


Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - The most beautiful and simplest "mission program" for the Church in France is not a strategy directed to resist secularization. Nor does it consist in a "genetic engineering" operation to redistribute powers and responsibilities within ecclesial structures. It is much more useful and fruitful to seek the face of one's own Saint, the Saints of one's own history, every day. And to ask that God himself, with their help, renew "the wonders he has accomplished in the past", also through them. Pope Leo XIV emphasizes this in a letter to the French bishops and "to all your faithful", on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Canonization of Saint John Eudes, Saint John Mary Vianney and Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus.
The Message, published today in the bulletin of the Holy See, is dated Wednesday, May 28.

Close to the Heart of Jesus

Pope Pius XI canonized the three French Saints in May 1925 (Thérèse of Lisieux on May 17th, John Mary Vianney and John Eudes on May 31st).
A century later - the Bishop of Rome notes today - the "continuing relevance" of the three holy figures stands out strongly in the face of the "breadth of challenges that, a century later, present themselves to the Church in France".

In some passages of the message, Pope Prevost realistically notes that the People of God in France often walk "with courage, despite the contrary and sometimes hostile winds of indifference, materialism and individualism". He recalls that "the lack of vocations is harshly felt in your dioceses and priests are under increasing strain".

In such a context, the three Saints should not be understood as witnesses to a cultural counteroffensive, but just for "a spiritual trait that John Eudes, John Mary Vianney and Thérèse have in common and present in a very meaningful and attractive way to the men and women of today". All three, simply, "loved Jesus unreservedly in a simple, strong and authentic way; they experienced his goodness and tenderness in a special daily closeness, and they bore witness to it in an admirable missionary drive".

All three lived and bore witness to the closeness to the Heart of Christ that even "the late Pope Francis" wanted to recall with his last encyclical Dilexit nos, the "beautiful Encyclical on the Sacred Heart", which "he left us, rather like a testament". And - Pope Leo suggests - "there could be no more beautiful and simple programme of evangelization and mission for your country: to help everyone discover the tender and devoted love that Jesus has for them, to the point of transforming their lives". Like John Eudes, who was the first to celebrate the liturgical worship of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary; like John Mary Vianney, the Holy Curé of Ars, for whom "the priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus". Like Thérèse of Lisieux, "she who “breathed” the Name of Jesus at every moment of her life, and who taught the little ones an “easy” way to access it ".

The "easy way" for the little ones

Celebrating the centenary of the canonization of these three saints by Pope Ratti - underlines the Bishop of Rome - is first and foremost an invitation
"to give thanks to the Lord for the marvels he has accomplished" in this land of France over long centuries of evangelization and Christian life. Saints - the Pontiff continued - do not appear spontaneously but, "by grace, emerge from living Christian communities that have been able to transmit the faith to them, to kindle in their hearts the love of Jesus and the desire to follow him". And commemorating the Saints of France does not merely "evoke nostalgia for a past that might seem bygone". Rather, it can become an opportunity to ask them today too "to awaken hope and give rise to a new missionary impetus". Because "God can, with the help of the saints he has given you and whom you celebrate, renew the marvels he has accomplished in the past". (Agenzia Fides, 31/5/2025)

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