This work provides an introduction to the history and major themes of the 17th-century French School of Spirituality and its contemporary relevance. Included are works of Pierre de Berulle (1575-1629), Madeleine de Saint-Joseph, Jean-Jacques Olier and John Eudes.

A quite remarkable study of seventeenth-century spirituality in France was published in 1999. Yves Krumenacker's L'école française de spiritualité: Des mystiques, des fondateurs, des courants et leurs interprètes1 examines the French or Bérullian School of Spirituality and, for our purposes, situates John Baptist de La Salle within the context of this "age of spiritual grandeur." Unfortunately, Krumenacker's work still remains relatively unknown to English-speaking audiences; but hopefully its 660-pages will someday be translated into English. However, we are pleased with this book to make a small portion - and this mainly concerned with De La Salle - available for your study and consideration.

A contemporary introduction to the French school of spirituality of the seventeenth century.

This multiauthor book celebrates the bicentenary of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI), founded by St. Eugène de Mazenod, and arises from an international conference on French spiritual traditions hosted by the Oblates in San Antonio, Texas, in November 2016. More broadly, this book aims to make available to a wide readership the riches of the important family of French spiritual traditions originating between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries—not least the emphasis on mission to the poor. French traditions have been greatly underestimated in conventional histories of Christian spirituality, but their spiritual wisdom offers much to today’s believers.

Here are the rules, conferences and writings of these two Vincentian founders who, through service to the poor, left an indelible mark on the church in France in the seventeenth century and beyond to the present. Louise (1591-1660) first came to Vincent (1581-1660) for spiritual direction and they became coworkers and friends for the rest of their lives.