St. Peter Julian Eymard whom the Pope Named a "perfect" Adorer of the Eucharist - Saint of August 2

 

 August 2, is the feast day of Saint Peter Julian Eymard (1811-1868), “Apostle of the Eucharist,” and founder of the Blessed Sacrament Congregation, a newer society dedicated to adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. At his canonization, Pope John XXIII said of Saint Peter, “Yes, dear sons and daughters, honor and celebrate him who was so perfect an adorer of the Blessed Sacrament; after his example, always place at the center of your thoughts, of your affections, the undertakings of your zeal this incomparable source of all grace: the mystery of faith, which hides under the veils the author himself of grace, Jesus the incarnate Word.”

Peter Julian Eymard was born in Mure d'Isère in the Alpine mountains of southeastern France. His family, supported by his father who worked as an olive-presser, was rather poor, but strong in devotion to their faith. His mother inspired Peter’s devotion to Our Blessed Mother, teaching him of the Holy Eucharist, and the dangers of sin. As a child, Peter demonstrated great piety and desire to serve the Lord, promising at his first Holy Eucharist that he would become a priest. However, Peter’s father wished him to assume responsibility for the family’s small olive oil press, and discouraged his priestly endeavors. Nonetheless, Peter studied Latin on his own, and sought spiritual direction from a local missionary priest.
His father was to die while Peter was a young man, and with his mother’s permission, he entered the Oblate novitiate at Marseille. Not long after receiving the habit, he was sent home from the monastery for reasons of poor health. Near death, Peter received the Last Sacraments, and in agony prayed to the Lord for the strength, grace, and endurance to celebrate only one Mass prior to death. Monsignor de Mazenod, the local bishop of Marseille and founder of the Oblates, assisted Peter in entering the diocesan seminary, and there he was ordained at the age of 23. Peter was assigned to a small country parish, and within a few years had transformed the splintered faith community into a fervent and devoted congregation. With his healing improving, Peter felt a strong call to enter the Marist Society of Lyons. There, he was successively named to three important posts in the administration of the society. It was as Spiritual Director at one of the society’s colleges that he demonstrated great efficacy and grace in the direction of souls. The families of the students, in addition to the professors and students themselves, found their piety flourishing miraculously under his gentle influence.
Ever open to the call of the Lord, Peter felt himself being pulled in a new direction, one based upon the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Peter became certain that he must found a Congregation dedicated uniquely to promoting the glory and reign of Jesus in His Sacrament of Love. “You take communion to become holy, not because you already are,” he preached. However, it took some time to convince his Superior and the other members of the Marists, whom he loved, and who desired to keep him within the order. Eventually, it became clear that he must leave, and founded his new order, the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament.
The small order grew slowly but steadily, outgrowing any building it inhabited, and working to prepare adults for the sacrament of First Communion in Paris and then throughout France. Despite exhaustion, poor health, and constant opposition, Saint Peter Julian led the order, and founding a second community—Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament—as well as an Association of Priests. During these years of constant opposition, demolitions, shock and unrelenting trials, Saint Peter Julian was exhausted by the difficulties of founding not one, but two Communities — a second one for Sister-Servants of the Blessed Sacrament, as well as an Association of Priests.
In declining health, Eymard lived to see his own Congregation begin its expansion outside France in the mid 1860s. His mystical life deepened during his final years, as he came to recognize what he called the ‘gift of self’ which involved an act of total self-surrender based on the model of Christ. Today, the Servants of the Blessed Sacrament continue their devotion to the love of Christ through perpetual adoration of the Eucharist. The society, inspired by their founder, practices charitable acts throughout the world, prepares adults and children for First Communion, and models devotion and love to the saving grace of the Eucharist.
He once said: “The Eucharist is the life of the people. The Eucharist gives them a center of life. All can come together without the barriers of race or language in order to celebrate the feast days of the Church. It gives them a law of life, that of charity, of which it is the source; thus it forges between them a common bond, a Christian kinship.”
PRAYER

Saint Peter Julian, who received the great privilege of so perfectly knowing what treasures are ours in the Most Blessed Sacrament, of being all afire with seraphic love for It, and of consecrating unto It your untiring zeal that It might be perpetually adored and glorified by all mankind, we beg of you to obtain for us the spiritual and temporal favors of which we stand in need.
Obtain for us particularly to become, in imitation of you, faithful adorers in spirit and in truth of the Most Blessed Sacrament, while tending ever more toward the acquiring of Christian virtue, above all, of sincere humility. Thus we hope to live that life of union with Our Lord which was the aim of your constant zeal, as it is the principal effect on Holy Communion in our souls.
Finally, Saint Peter Julian, obtain for us your own filial devotion toward Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament, that we may learn from that dear Divine Mother how to serve and adore on earth Our Savior hidden in His Sacrament, and thus come to adore and glorify Him unveiled in heaven. Amen
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