St. Peter Julian Eymard’s Eucharistic love began very young. One day when he was five years old, his parents couldn’t find him and sent out his older sister Marianne to look for him. She found him in the church, where he had used a stool to climb up on the surface of the high altar and was leaning his head upon the tabernacle door. When Marianne, astonished, asked what he was doing, with childlike simplicity he replied, “I am near Jesus and I am listening to him!” Before he was able to receive his first Holy Communion, he used to do something similar with his sister. He would sit next to her at Mass and, after she had returned from the Communion rail, he would put his head on her breast and say with joyful fervor, “I can feel his presence!” When he made his first Communion at 12 years old, he embraced Jesus within and told him, “I shall be a priest, I promise you!”
Even though he struggled with asthma and fierce migraines most of his life, he was an energetic young priest who worked zealously and fruitfully in two parish assignments. He preached often about Jesus in the Eucharist as well as how the Blessed Virgin Mary teaches us how to love him. Such loves dilated his priestly heart beyond the confines of his parish and he began to sense a calling to join a religious order. When he approached his bishop to ask for permission, the bishop, testing his vocation, told him he would not consider it until he had brought back to the sacraments all of the 450 parishioners in the village of Monteynard. Two years later, he had succeeded in bringing every lost sheep back to the Eucharistic Good Shepherd, and he returned to the bishop asking permission to join the newly-founded Society of Mary. The bishop gave permission, confident that the Lord, through blessing Eymard’s apostolic fruits, was giving a clear sign of his will.
Father Eymard entered the Marist novitiate, and three years later professed vows. He became a seminary spiritual director, popular mission preacher, and provincial superior at 33. After a powerful moment carrying Jesus in a Corpus Christi procession, he was fired with a desire to “preach nothing but Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ Eucharistic.” He decided to leave the Society of Mary and establish one religious institute dedicated entirely to glorifying the mystery of Christ’s Eucharistic love. This group of priests, consecrated to the Blessed Sacrament, would help people who had given up the practice of the faith — especially poor, uncatechized adults and children from non-practicing families — to be prepared to receive Jesus well. He approached the Archbishop of Paris to ask for the canonical erection of a house of religious studies, which was given only 12 days later — a sign of how important the archbishop deemed the work of the Blessed Sacrament Fathers to promote perpetual adoration and carry out Eucharistic catechesis.
He also founded the Servants of the Blessed Sacrament, religious women dedicated to adoring the Lord, and then the Priests Eucharistic League and the Archconfraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, so that priests and laypeople, respectively, would be able to aggregate themselves to the work of Eucharistic adoration and promotion. St. Peter Julian emphasized the mind-blowing love of the Lord in giving himself to us. He prayed that, like the transubstantiation of bread and wine into Jesus’ body and blood, he might have his life changed “into the spirit and life of Jesus.” He urged people to recognize Jesus in the Eucharist, to come to receive him with love, to spend time in prayer before him, and to spread love of him. “What a joy that you can receive Holy Communion often,” he taught. “It’s our life and support in this life. Receive Communion often, and Jesus will change you into himself.” He promoted daily Mass, which he promised would “prosper the whole day,” help us better to do our work and strengthen us to bear our daily crosses.
He urged us to draw close to the Eucharist in prayer. “Go to the good Lord very simply, with the surrender of a small child. Tell the good Lord what you are thinking, what you want, what is upsetting you. O how happy we become when we discover this interior conversation with our Lord! We carry our treasure everywhere. He becomes the center of our heart and life.” He hoped our “whole life ought to be drawn to [the Eucharist] like a magnet.” He urged us not to keep the gift to ourselves but rather to “be the apostle of the divine Eucharist (and) proclaim him to those who don’t know him,” communicating that the Eucharist “is the divine oasis of the desert, the heavenly manna of the traveler, the Holy Ark, the life and Paradise of love on earth,” as well as “the sacrifice par excellence, the sacrament of love, the fountainhead of holiness, the goal of Christian perfection, the nutriment of piety, and the means as well as the model of religious life.” In short, he said, “The Blessed Sacrament is everything!”
Father Roger Landry. “Apostle of Eucharistic Revival for Every Age.” Putting into the Deep, Anchor, August 2, 2022. https://catholicpreaching.com/wp/an-apostle-of-eucharistic-revival-for-every-age-putting-into-the-deep-august-5-2022/
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