The Life Hidden with Jesus in God - Henri-Marie Boudon

By Henri-Marie Boudin
Edited by Andrew L. Ouellette and Rev. Hugh Gillespie, SMM

Echoing Saint Paul, Henri-Marie Boudon writes: “Happy they whose life is hidden with Christ in God that they may appear with Him when He manifests His glory.” The Christian life is steeped in this mystery of hiddenness: its model, Jesus Christ himself, is hidden in God. It is with this “double hiddenness,” Rev. Hugh Gillespie, S.M.M., explains in his Introduction, “the hiddenness of our very selves within the great hiddenness of Christ” that Boudon is concerned.

     Your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Col. 3:3)

Thematically united to another of Boudon’s works, The Holy Ways of the Cross, The Life Hidden with Jesus in God contends primarily with the prerequisite task of Christian discipleship: to deny oneself. Only after the act of self-denial can the primary work of that discipleship begin: to follow Christ and receive life in abundance from him. Deftly edited and insightfully introduced by Andrew L. Ouellette and Rev. Gillespie, The Life Hidden with Jesus in God is a wellspring of both spiritual wisdom and practical instruction in the ways of Christian discipleship.

Henri-Marie Boudon (1624–1702) was a French Roman Catholic priest and author. An eminent figure in the French School of spirituality, Boudon was highly influential in St. Louis de Monfort’s development of Marian devotion. His works in English include God Alone, The Holy Ways of the Cross, and The Life Hidden with Jesus in God.

Rev. Hugh Gillespie, S.M.M., is a priest of the Company of Mary, the U.S. National Director of the Association of Mary, Queen of All Hearts, and the rector of the Shrine of Our Lady of the Island, Manorville, New York.

Andrew L. Ouellette teaches theology at Holy Cross College in Notre Dame, Indiana, where he also serves as the Director of Foundation and Church Relations. He is the managing editor of Ecce Mater Tua, a journal of Mariology by the International Marian Association.