Raoul Plus

{{Short description|French Jesuit priest and author}} {{Infobox Christian leader | type = | honorific_prefix = Raoul Plus | name = | honorific_suffix = | title = | image = | native_name = | native_name_lang = | church = | archdiocese = | province = | metropolis = | diocese = | see = | elected =  | term =  | quashed =  | predecessor = | successor = | opposed = | other_post = | previous_post =  | ordination = 1913 | ordained_by = | consecration = | consecrated_by = | cardinal = | created_cardinal_by = | rank = | laicized =  | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth date|1882|01|22}} | baptised = Boulogne-sur-Mer, France | birth_place =  | death_date = {{death date and age|1958|10|23|1882|01|22}} | death_place = Lille, France | buried =  | resting_place_coordinates = | nationality =  | religion = | residence = | parents =  | spouse =  | children = | occupation = | profession = | education = | alma_mater = | motto = | signature = | signature_alt = | coat_of_arms = | coat_of_arms_alt =  | feast_day = | venerated = | saint_title = | beatified_date = | beatified_place = | beatified_by = | canonized_date = | canonized_place = | canonized_by = | attributes = | patronage = | shrine = | suppressed_date =  | module = | module2 = | other = }} '''Raoul Plus''', {{post-nominals|list=SJ}} (January 22, 1882 in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France – October 23, 1958 in Lille, France) was a French Jesuit priest and author.<ref name="NCE">{{cite web |last1=Bergen |first1=F.J. |title=Raoul Plus |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/plus-raoul |website=New Catholic Encyclopedia |publisher=Cengage |access-date=5 November 2022}}</ref>

== Life == He attended the Collège Notre-Dame of the Jesuits in his hometown. He entered the Jesuit novitiate at Saint-Acheul-lez-Amiens in 1899. From 1901 he lived and studied in exile due to the 1901 French law on associations, which limited the freedom of religious orders in France. He studied two years of higher rhetoric in Arlon, Belgium; three years of philosophy in Gemert, Netherlands, and in Florenne, Belgium; and four years of theology in Enghien, Belgium. During his time studying philosophy, his spiritual director was Germain Foch, SJ, a German Jesuit who taught the importance of incorporation into Christ.

Plus was ordained a priest in 1913. He served as a French Army chaplain during the First World War. He received the ''Croix de Guerre'' for his service during the war.

After a year of personal work in Enghien, Plus spent his tertianship with Father Louis Poullier in 1919–1920. During his tertianship, one of his companions was Fr. Onesimus Lacouture, SJ, whose retreat preaching would later influence Dorothy Day.<ref name=lacouture>{{cite web |last1=Day |first1=Dorothy |author1-link=Dorothy Day |title=Death of Father Onesimus Lacouture, S.J. |url=https://catholicworker.org/944-html/ |website=The Catholic Worker |access-date=5 November 2022 |page=1,6 |date=December 1951}}</ref>

After his tertianship, Plus was appointed to the Catholic Institute of Arts and Crafts in Lille to teach religion. At the same time he was a chaplain and spiritual director and gave numerous retreats during the holidays.

From 1935 to 1939, Plus taught at the Institut Catholique de Paris, a period of great literary productivity.<ref name="NCE" />

During the Second World War, Plus lived in seclusion in the La Barde retreat house in the Dordogne, although he continued to preach and write. In Lille, from 1945, he was a spiritual father for the Jesuit community at Saint-Joseph College.

Plus died in 1958 in Lille.

== Author ==

The talks Plus gave to soldiers during the First World War laid the foundation for his first two books, ''God within Us'' and ''The Ideal of Reparation''. The early books were well received for their style and teaching. He emphasized membership in the mystical body of Christ.<ref name="NCE" /> These books and the many others he would write, more than 40 in total, were translated into English and many other languages.

Dorothy Day noted her familiarity with Plus's work in her obituary for Fr. Lacouture.<ref name="lacouture" />

Cardinal Albert Gregory Meyer, then Archbishop of Chicago, gave two of Plus's books, ''How to Pray Always'' and ''How to Pray Well'', as presents to his secretary Fr. Edward Egan, the future Cardinal Archbishop of New York, in 1958 or 1959.<ref name="Cardinal Egan">{{cite news |last1=Poust |first1=Mary Ann |title=Chicago Years |url=https://www.cny.org/stories/chicago-years,524?content_source=&category_id=&search_filter=&event_mode=&event_ts_from=&list_type=&order_by=&order_sort=&content_class=&sub_type=stories&town_id= |access-date=5 November 2022 |work=Catholic New York |date=22 June 2000}}</ref>

== Works ==  ''Note: publication dates and titles are those of English translations.'' *{{cite book |last1=Plus |first1=Raoul|author-mask=2 |title=The Ideal of Reparation|date=1920}} *{{cite book |last1=Plus |first1=Raoul|author-mask=2 |title=God Within Us|date=1922}} *{{cite book |last1=Plus |first1=Raoul|author-mask=2 |title=Mary in Our Soul Life|date=1940}} *{{cite book |last1=Plus |first1=Raoul|author-mask=2 |title=Radiating Christ: An Appeal to Militant Catholics |date=1944 |publisher=Press of St. Meinrad Abbey, for the Abbey of Gethsemani}} *{{cite book |last1=Plus |first1=Raoul|author-mask=2 |title=Toward the Eternal Priesthood |date=1946 |publisher=Pustet}}<ref name="Towards Review 1">{{cite journal |last1=De La Costa |first1=H. |title=Book Review: Towards the Eternal Priesthood |journal=Woodstock Letters |date=1 March 1947 |volume=76 |issue=1 |pages=101–102 |url=https://jesuitonlinelibrary.bc.edu/?a=d&d=wlet19470301-01.2.9&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN------- |access-date=5 November 2022}}</ref> *{{cite book |last1=Plus |first1=Raoul|author-mask=2 |title=The Folly of the Cross|date=1949}} *{{cite book |last1=Plus |first1=Raoul|author-mask=2 |title=How to Pray Always}} *{{cite book |last1=Plus |first1=Raoul|author-mask=2 |title=How to Pray Well}} *{{cite book |last1=Plus |first1=Raoul|author-mask=2 |title=Simplicity}} *{{cite book |last1=Plus |first1=Raoul|author-mask=2 |title=Christ in the Home|date=1951|publisher=Pustet}}<ref name="CIH R 1">{{cite journal |last1=M. |first1=J.H. |title=Friars' Bookshelf: Christ in the Home. By Raoul Plus, S.J. |journal=Dominicana |date=June 1952 |volume=37 |issue=2 |pages=232–233 |url=https://www.dominicanajournal.org/wp-content/files/old-journal-archive/vol37/no2/dominicanav37n2friarsbookshelfchristthehomer.pdf |access-date=5 November 2022}}</ref> *{{cite book |last1=Plus |first1=Raoul|author-mask=2 |title=Marriage|publisher=Burns Oates and Washbourne}}<ref name="Marriage Review 1">{{cite journal |last1=Howse |first1=Marguerite |title=Book Review: Marriage. From the French of Raoul Plus, S.J. |journal=Theology |date=September 1932 |volume=25 |issue=147 |pages=173–174 |doi=10.1177/0040571X3202514717 |s2cid=171729207 |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0040571X3202514717 |access-date=5 November 2022|url-access=subscription }}</ref> *{{cite book |last1=Plus |first1=Raoul|author-mask=2 |title=In Praise of Work}}<ref name="IPoW 1">{{cite journal |last1=Todd |first1=John M. |title=Can We Praise Work |journal=The Irish Monthly |date=February 1953 |volume=81 |issue=954 |pages=55–59 |jstor=20516494 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20516494 |access-date=5 November 2022}}</ref>

==References==

{{Reflist}} {{Authority Control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Plus, Raoul}} Category:20th-century French Jesuits Category:1958 deaths Category:1882 births Category:20th-century French male writers Category:French Army chaplains Category:French recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1914–1918 (France) Category:20th-century French non-fiction writers Category:French male non-fiction writers Category:People from Boulogne-sur-Mer Category:Academic staff of the Catholic University of Paris

Raoul Plus

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