August
2
St. Peter Julian Eymard
(1811-1868)
Born in La Mure d'Isère in southeastern France, Peter Julian's faith journey
drew him from being a priest in the Diocese of Grenoble (1834) to joining
the Marists (1839) to founding the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament
(1856).
In addition to those changes, Peter Julian coped with poverty, his father's
initial opposition to Peter's vocation, serious illness, a Jansenistic
overemphasis on sin and the difficulties of getting diocesan and later papal
approval for his new religious community.
His years as a Marist, including service as a provincial leader, saw the
deepening of his eucharistic devotion, especially through his preaching of
Forty Hours in many parishes. Inspired at first by the idea of
reparation for indifference to the Eucharist, Peter Julian was eventually
attracted to a more positive spirituality of Christ-centered love. Members
of the men's community, which Peter founded, alternated between an active
apostolic life and contemplating Jesus in the Eucharist. He and Marguerite
Guillot founded the women's Congregation of the Servants of the Blessed
Sacrament.
Peter Julian Eymard was beatified in 1925 and canonized in 1962, one day
after Vatican II's first session ended.
Comment:
In every century, sin has been painfully real in the life of the Church. It
is easy to give in to despair, to speak so strongly of human failings that
people may forget the immense and self-sacrificing love of Jesus, as his
death on the cross and his gift of the Eucharist make evident. Peter Julian
knew that the Eucharist was key to helping Catholics live out their Baptism
and preach by word and example the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Quote:
“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” (Peter Julian Eymard).