Saint Peter Julian Eymard, founder of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, was born on February 4, 1811 at La Mure, Isère, in the French Alps. He lived 57 years and wrote many books about devotion to Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. His feast day is August 2.
As a priest, he promoted perpetual adoration as he was deeply transformed by his experiences with the Real Presence of Christ during adoration. St. Peter Eymard once said, “The greatest grace of my life has been a lively faith in the Blessed Sacrament since my childhood. The Holy Eucharist is Jesus, past, present and future.”
Saint Peter Julian Eymard (1811-1868)
Founder of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament
St. Peter Julian Eymard was drawn by the Holy Spirit to a lifelong devotion to Jesus Christ and his Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament. He was gifted with a keen ability to not only hear and respond to Jesus, but also to write about his experiences and the Church’s long history of teachings on this mystical devotion. St. Peter Julian Eymard is a saint for our Eucharistic revival, and both his life and his teachings should be shared with a growing population of Catholics worldwide who do not know or understand about the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.
He grew up after the destruction of the French Revolution, at a tumultuous time in the history of France when many changes had come to secularize the society and the life of the Church was marred by forces in the culture that sought to destroy it.
Saint Peter Julian Eymard is most known for founding the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, which is devoted to the Eucharist. His work during the 19th century led him to be known widely as the “Apostle of the Eucharist”.
Saint Peter Julian Eymard was canonized on December 9, 1962 by Pope John XXIII.
Early Years of St. Peter Julian Eymard's Life
As with all amazing saints who have had callings from Christ, Saint Peter Julian Eymard was given a special grace at an early age to know and understand who Jesus is, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the Eucharist. Always drawn to Christ from his earliest memories, the postulator of his cause for sainthood wrote that Satan expressed a hatred for St. Peter Julian Eymard from his earliest years. When only four, Rev. Edmond Tenaillon writes of this spiritual phenomena, “he felt a hand grasping his throat, as if to strangle him, as we have related elsewhere.”
Eymard was born into a poor family in southern France, the tenth and last child in his family, and only son to survive infancy. He suffered a chronic weakness in his lungs and migraine headaches. Since the day of his first communion as a child he longed to be a priest, even though the French culture he lived in was hostile to priests.
A common childhood memory explains his early devotion to Jesus. When he was only five years old he wandered from home without telling anyone. After a frantic search by his family, Peter Julian Eymard was found standing on a stool near the tabernacle of the high altar, attempting to get as close as he could to Jesus. When asked why he wandered off he answered them, “I am here listening to Jesus.”
Saint Peter Julian Eymard, His Life as a Priest
First as a Marist, then forming the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament
Saint Peter Julian Eymard joined the seminary at age 20, and was ordained in 1834. After 5 years as a priest in a local diocese he joined the Congregation of the Marist Fathers in Lyon in 1839.
Desiring to do more for Christ in his vocation as a priest, Fr. Eymard made a life-changing prayer to God while carrying the Blessed Sacrament in a Eucharistic procession in 1845. Eymard asked God to give him the apostolic zeal of St. Paul to spread the Gospel. This began his journey as an apostle for the Blessed Sacrament.
Through his devotion to the Virgin Mary, Fr. Eymard made a total commitment to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Through revelations, Jesus revealed to him that His will was for Fr. Eymard to devote his life to a Congregation that would perpetually adore Him in the Eucharist. While at prayer in 1853, Fr. Eymard was shown by Our Lord that it was time for this work to begin. This prompted St. Peter Julian Eymard to leave the Marist order after 17 years, to obey the call of Christ, and this began his vital work in promoting Eucharistic adoration.
Fr. Eymard knew that Eucharistic adoration was the heart and soul of his life as a priest. He understood that through his time in adoration in the real presence of Christ, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, he was given many graces to do the difficult charitable work that was needed for the people God entrusted him to serve.
Fr. Eymard had many mystical gifts; he was known to have prophetic knowledge and had a gift of healing. Read about the supernatural gifts of Fr. Eymard. This conviction led him to found the Servants of the Blessed Sacrament and the Priests’ Eucharistic League. He was so devoted to spreading the good news that Jesus is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament to the world that he tirelessly preached this, offered spiritual direction about it, and taught it through his efforts to pass down this mystery to children he was entrusted with their First Communions.
In his book, Le Trés Saint Sacrement, St. Peter Julian Eymard wrote:
“Society dies when it no longer has a center of truth and charity, when it no longer has family life. When everyone is isolated, focused on themselves, wanting to be self-sufficient, disintegration is imminent. But society will be reborn with vigor when all of its members come together and are united around our Emmanuel.”
We must take this advice to heart in the 21st century and promote the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist in our families, parishes, communities, and country. We must reconnect with the One who waits for us in the Tabernacle. Fr. Peter Julian Eymard is the saint for our Eucharistic Revival. St. Peter Julian, pray for us!
Read a meditation by St. Peter Julian Eymard: Faith in Jesus who is with us Always until the End of Time.
A Perpetual Vow of Personality
St. Peter Julian Eymard’s significant transformation as a priest was born out of his desire to decrease so much so that he could grow in virtue and become another Christ to the world.
His devotion to the Holy Family gave him many graces, and helped him to grow in virtue throughout his priesthood. He truly believed that he must die to himself in order to serve the people under his care.
Eymard wrote: “One must give to God one’s personality, love God for God and not for self, becoming nothing more than a shadow without name, without propriety, in order that Our Lord may continue in us His Incarnation. . . .”
On March 21, 1865, on the Feast of Saint Benedict, St. Peter Julian Eymard made the vow of personality to Jesus.
“I have made,” he writes, “the perpetual vow of my personality to Our Lord Jesus Christ through the hands of the Most Blessed Virgin and Saint Joseph, under the patronage of Saint Benedict. Nothing for me, and nothing by me.”
He believed that by emptying himself off all that is not in union with the divine will of God he could be filled more fully with the power of the Holy Spirit to act in the Person of Christ for those whom the Lord put into his path. His vow was to do everything in his power to stop his selfish self-will from forbidding God the ability to work through his priestly ministry.
Fr. Eymard desired that the mystery of the Incarnation should be the model of the vow of personality. As the
human nature in Our Lord acts only by the movement of the Person of the Word and only for Him,so did he wish to act only by and for God.
And this is the grace of Holy Communion
Jesus says, "Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me."
Eymard explains, “This vow ought to be the greatest, the holiest of all vows, since it is the vow of self, of the ego, and of the ego free always to give itself again. . . .”
The true gift of self is the vow of all the other vows of religion, and when it is taken, this vow to die to oneself will elevate the priest to an heroic degree.
“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.”
St Peter Julian Eymard’s Feast Day is the 2nd of August. He spent his life as a priest dedicated to a deep devotion to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and wrote volumes of books on the power of this devotion. He is a wonderful saint for the Eucharistic revival.
Learn about his life and works here. Read an excellent post about him here, and Pray the Litany of the Holy Eucharist.
Prayers of the Saints
Mother Teresa of Calcutta Prayer for Priests
“Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration with exposition needs a great push. People ask me: ‘What will convert America and save the world?’ My answer is prayer. What
Prayer for Divine Transformation from Within by St Faustina
The Lord Jesus Christ gave St. Faustina Kowalska a beautiful gift and through her obedience to Him she gave a message of God’s mercy to the world. Jesus revealed to Saint Faustina the way of Christian perfection based on trust in God having mercy on our neighbors.
Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi before the Crucifix
Saint Francis of Assisi had a deep devotion to Jesus in adoration. When he began his ministry of rebuilding the church he entered a ruined church and heard Jesus speak to him from the crucifix.
Beautiful Prayer for Priests by Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
This beautiful prayer for priests was written by St. Thérèse of Lisieux, and is a wonderful way to support our clergy while we are praying to Jesus in the adoration chapel.
Prayer to St. Peter the Apostle
Pray this prayer to St. Peter the Apostle, the first pope, who Jesus raised to high authority even though he denied Him three times on Good Friday.
Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel
This prayer to St. Michael the Archangel was written by Pope Leo XIII and published in the Roman Raccolta on July 23, 1898. This prayer to St. Michael the Archangel was recited after Low Mass from 1886 to 1964 in the Catholic Church.
