AN IMPASSIONED APOSTLE OF THE EUCHARIST
Peter Julian Eymard, born at La Mure d’Isère (Grenoble) in France, on the 4th of February 1811, was baptized on the following day. After some family and vocational difficulties he eventually entered the diocesan seminary of Grenoble and, in 1834, was ordained a priest. In 1839, after a number of years of zealous pastoral ministry, he began an experience of religious life, entering the newly formed Congregation of the Marist Fathers, at Lyons. In a short time he gained the confidence of the Founder, Father Colin, who entrusted him with various important responsibilities.
At the same time his search for the will of God continued and led him to direct his life more and more towards the Eucharist for which he wanted to achieve something exceptional.
A significant point in this search was reached when he underwent a spiritual experience at the sanctuary of Fourvière in Lyons in January, 1851. While praying there he was “profoundly moved” by the thought of the spiritual abandonment in which the secular priests were living, of the lack of formation for the laity, of the little devotion there was towards the Blessed Sacrament and of the sacrileges committed against the Eucharist. As a result he decided to form a Third Order of men dedicated to reparatory adoration. In the years that followed this would evolve into the definitive idea of establishing a religious Congregation entirely dedicated to the worship and apostolate of the Eucharist.
Not being able to carry out this work from within the Marist Fathers, Fr. Eymard left the Institute and came to Paris where, on the 13 May 1856, he founded the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament. The new religious Institute for men immediately received the approbation of Archbishop Sibour and, later, the blessing and the definitive approbation of Pope Pius IX (1863).
The work began under somewhat poor conditions in some premises situated in rue d’Enfer where, on the feast of the Epiphany in 1857, the foundation was officially inaugurated with solemn exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. Again in Paris, in 1858, Father Eymard, with the help of Marguerite Guillot, founded the Congregation of the Servants of the Blessed Sacrament for women. In 1859 he opened a second community at Marseilles and placed in charge of it his first companion, Fr. Raymond De Cuers. A third foundation was established at Angers; then two others at Brussels and a formation house for the novitiate at Saint Maurice in the diocese of Versailles.
In the meantime, these years of “eucharistic” life saw Father Eymard involved in apostolic work, directed particularly towards the poor on the outskirts of Paris and towards priests in difficulty, in the work of first communion of adults and in many and various preaching commitments, centered particularly on the Eucharist. Furthermore, certain initiatives which began or developed after his death can be traced back to his eucharistic activity and spirituality, as for example, the Eucharistic Fraternity for the laity, the Association of Priest Adorers inspired by his concern for priests, International Eucharistic Congresses.
Worn out by his responsibilities as Founder and first Superior General, and marked by trials of every kind, Peter Julian died at the place where he was born at only 57 years of age on the lst of August, 1868. Beatified by Pius XI in 1925, he was proclaimed a Saint by John XXIII on the 9th of December 1962 at the conclusion of the first session of the Vatican Council II. Exactly 33 years later, on the 9th of December 1995, his feast day was inserted into the general Roman calendar and he is now presented to the whole Church as an “Apostle of the Eucharist”.
The life and activity of Saint Peter Julian Eymard was entirely centered on the mystery of the Eucharist. Initially he approached it with the theology of his time, stressing particularly the “real presence”. Nevertheless, he was able to gradually free himself from the devotional and “reparatory” aspect with which the eucharistic piety of his age was almost exclusively concerned and he arrived at the point of declaring the Eucharist to be the center of the life of the Church and society: “No other center than Jesus Eucharistic”.
HIS VISION OF THE EUCHARIST
The Blessed Sacrament has always been supreme”, he wrote in his last personal retreat, thus characterising in an incisive way the form of Christian life he proposed. At the center stands the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Faithful to the post-tridentine theology, Eymard strongly emphasized the fact of this presence and its unique character: the Eucharist is the person of the Lord. This gave rise to the concise affirmations with which he expressed his faith: “The holy Eucharist is Jesus past, present and future… It is Jesus sacramentalized… Blessed is the soul that knows how to find Jesus in the divine Eucharist, and in Jesus Hostia everything else”.
However, while emphasizing this “personalist” aspect, Father Eymard understood that this presence is the source of a dynamism, that it is related to a mission: “The grace of the apostolate: faith in Jesus. Jesus is there, therefore to Him, through Him, in Him”. This faith in the Eucharist is nourished by meditation of the Word of God. Adoration, which he proposed as the particular type of prayer for his religious and, in a general way, for the faithful, is a means of allowing ourselves to become penetrated by the love of Christ. This prayer takes its inspiration from the Mass.
For this reason he proposed to his religious that they pray according to the method of the “four ends of the eucharistic sacrifice” with the purpose of “actualizing, as it were, all the mysteries of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the most eminent worship of the Holy Eucharist”, in attentiveness and docility to the Holy Spirit in order to “advance in recollection and in the virtue of holy love at the feet of the Lord” (cf. Constitutions, nos. 16-17). Therefore, far from being sufficient by itself, adoration tends towards sacramental communion.
THE NOURISHMENT OF DAILY LIFE
Eymard was a tireless promoter of frequent communion. In a beautiful text of 1863 he clearly expresses the central role of the Eucharist. “Convinced that the sacrifice of the holy Mass and communion in the body of the Lord are the living source and the aim of the whole of religion, each one has the duty to direct his piety, his virtue, his love, so that these may become means that will allow him to reach this goal: the worthy celebration and the faithful reception of these divine mysteries”.
The saint broke with the practice of his time in which, under the pretext of respect for the Sacrament, many pastors prevented the faithful from approaching the eucharistic table. This is how he expressed himself in one of his letters: “Whoever wants to persevere, let him receive our Lord. He is the bread that will nourish your failing strength, that will sustain you. The Church wants it this way. She encourages daily communion: as a witness to this we have the Council of Trent. Someone will say that we need to be very prudent… But our reply to that would be: this nourishment, if taken at very long intervals, would have to be considered as an extraordinary food. Therefore, where is the ordinary nourishment that is meant to sustain me each and every day?”.
Communion ought to become the pivot of the christian life: “Holy communion should be, above all, the aim of christian life … Every pious exercise that does not have some relationship with holy communion is not directed towards its main goal”. To receive the Eucharist in communion fruitfully is an action that changes one’s life.
“Our Lord comes into us sacramentally in order to live there spiritually”. That is what he wrote in notes he made during the “great retreat of Rome” (1865). And, a few months before his death, he wrote: “He who does not receive Holy Communion has only a speculative knowledge. He knows only the terms, the words, the theories; he is ignorant of what they signify … But he who receive Holy Communion, while previously he had just an idea of God, now he sees him, recognizes him at the holy Mass.”
THE SOURCE OF A NEW WORLD
A life that is purely contemplative can not be fully eucharistic: the fireplace has a flame”. Thus wrote Eymard in 1861. An adorer, he was also an impassioned apostle of the Eucharist and he traced out ways of glorifying this mystery. The basic lines of his activity and teaching can be synthesized in the following way.
Above all, a renewal of christian life. It is not just a question of combating ignorance or indifference, but rather, and above all, of regenerating the christian life which becomes lost in the middle of a thousand practices and devotions that forget the essentials. In the preliminary draft of the “Directory” of the lay “Fraternity of the Blessed Sacrament” he lays down this principle: “Man is love like his divine prototype. Just as he is love, so he is life.” And he explains that “every love has a beginning, a center, a goal”. From this principle Eymard draws a whole pedagogy for the spiritual life: “In order that the devout soul become stronger and grow in the life of Jesus Christ, it is necessary first of all to nourish it with his divine truth and the goodness of his love, so that it may proceed from light to love, and from love to virtue”.
The religious Institutes founded by him are called to live that spirit of love of which the Eucharist is the sacrament: “This Eucharistic love of Jesus should therefore be for all our religious the supreme law of their virtue, the object of their zeal and the distinctive mark of their holiness” he wrote in the Constitutions. In a word… a community shaped by love. In the same way he conceived the “Fraternity” as a group of lay people who unite adoration and apostolic commitment. For this reason he created centers not only close to his SSS communities but also in numerous parishes. At times he seems to have had thoughts of having some members who, for the purpose of leading a more eucharistic life, would form a family community in the world like a small religious cenacle.
The ideal that he confided to his spiritual children was “to set the four corners of the world on fire with eucharistic love”. And he exhorted his religious, in the Constitutions, “that our Lord Jesus Christ be always adored in the Blessed Sacrament and glorified socially throughout the world”. This is the meaning of the expression “the reign of the Eucharist” which appears frequently in the writings of Eymard.
Thus, in an article entitled “The century of the Eucharist”, written in 1864 for the review Le Très Saint Sacrement which he had founded, Peter Julian noted:The great evil of our time is that people do not go to Jesus Christ as to their very Saviour and God. They abandon the only foundation, the only law, the only grace of salvation… What is to be done then? We must return to the fountain of life, and not just to the historical Jesus nor to the Jesus glorified in heaven, but rather to Jesus in the Eucharist. It is necessary to bring him out from the shadows so that he can once again take his place at the head of christian society… May the reign of the Eucharist increase… Adveniat regnum tuum.
In concluding, here is a text from St. Eymard which the Liturgy of the Hours – Office of Readings (Matins) offers us:EUCHARIST: SACRAMENT OF LIFEThe Eucharist is the life of the people. The Eucharist gives them a centre 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. All eat the same bread, all are table companions of Jesus Christ who supernaturally creates among them a feeling of togetherness. Read the Acts of the Apostles. It states that the whole community of the first Christians, converted Jews and baptised pagans, belonging to different regions, “had but one heart and one soul” (Acts 4,32). Why? Because they were attentive to the teaching of the Apostles and faithful in sharing in the breaking of the bread (Acts 2,42).
Yes, the Eucharist is the life of souls and of societies, just as the sun is the life of the body and of the earth. Without the sun, the earth would be sterile, it is the sun which makes it fertile, renders it beautiful and rich; it is the sun which provides agility, strength and beauty to the body. In the face of these amazing effects, it is not astonishing that the pagans should have adored it as the god of the world. In actual fact, the sun obeys a supreme Sun, the divine Word, Jesus Christ, who illumines everyone coming into this world and who, through the Eucharist, Sacrament of life, acts in person in the very depths of souls in order to form Christian families and peoples. Oh how happy, a thousand times happy, is the faithful soul who has found this hidden treasure, who goes to drink at this fountain of living water, who eats often this Bread of eternal life!Christian society is also a family. The link between its members is Jesus Christ. He is the head of the household who has prepared the family table. He is the head, Jesus Christ, who celebrated christian togetherness at the Supper; he called his Apostles filioli, my little children, and he commanded them to love one another as he had loved them.
At the holy table we are all children who receive the same nourishment, and Saint Paul draws out the consequence of this, that is, that we form but one family, one same body, because we all share in the same bread, which is Jesus Christ (I Cor. 10, 16-17). Lastly, the Eucharist gives Christian society the strength to observe the law of honour, and to practice charity towards one’s neighbour. Jesus Christ wants everyone to honour and love his brothers and sisters. For this reason he identifies himself with them: “What you do to the least of mine, you do to me” (Mt. 25, 40); and he gives himself to each one of them in Communion. Edited by Flavio Fumagalli SSS
A Glimpse on Eymardian Spirituality
By Fr. Mark U. del Rosario, SSS
St. Peter Julian Eymard was born in an epoch marred by tremendous political, social, cultural revolutions and wars making people religiously indifferent and ignorant. It was also the time wherein the heresy of Jansenism which regards human beings as unworthy of God’s love was prevalent. Nonetheless, Peter Julian was reared by his parents and elder sister, Marianne, in an atmosphere of deep reverence and love for God. At an early age, he felt called to the priesthood. He had a deep devotion to Mary and likewise to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Given his Marian orientation, he joined the novitiate of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate briefly. Eventually, he became a Marist. His dream to be a missionary in a foreign land did not materialize due to his frail health. He took key positions in the Marist Congregation but he was never satisfied. He searched for the answers to the inner stirrings and longings of his heart. He was searching for a deeper and more intimate relationship with Jesus. Mary, then, led him to her Son.
Peter Julian was a very passionate man. He had the ardor to find God in all things, feebly at first but becoming more comfortable as he traveled along the way. During his early years he desired to receive, and he did receive Holy Communion more frequently than what was allowed. When he was a diocesan priest, he developed a devotion to the Blessed Sacrament in which he had a small window made on the wall of his room so that he could view the tabernacle from his room. He became associated with the Nocturnal Adoration Society at Toulon, France and envisioned to start a group of priests who would be devoted to the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Eventually, he founded a congregation for both men and women who would particularly live the Eucharistic mystery in their lives and share that experience to others. He, himself, discovered what real adoration of the Eucharist in Spirit and in truth with the witness of his own life.
The center of Peter Julian’s life was Jesus Eucharist. He placed his whole life in God’s hand with complete trust, confident in the tenderness of the Father’s love for him. He experienced God’s love and goodness through His Son Jesus who is present in the Blessed Sacrament. He said, “I must be to Jesus as Jesus was to His Father!” He recognized that he must be attached to Jesus who is the Vine and allowed himself to be pruned by the Father, who is the vinedresser. To be united with Jesus was his main preoccupation. He practiced mortification of his senses and stayed in an atmosphere of recollection so as to be in touch always with the presence of Jesus. He would celebrate the Mass with great ardor and devotion sensing always that it is the supreme act of the self-giving of Jesus for mankind. Holy Communion for him was a privileged moment to be connected with Jesus more intimately. His spending protracted time for prayer before the Blessed Sacrament allowed him to savor the sweetness of that intimate moment with Jesus in Holy Communion. More so, his deep affection for Jesus instilled in him the consciousness that his very self is the interior Cenacle of Jesus. He would spend hours in prayer meditation and contemplation of Jesus’ love in the Blessed Sacrament and in his own life. For him, Jesus Hostia’s reign will be fully realized in the hearts of believers who welcome Him with love. With this, he endeavored to bring people to recognize Jesus’ love for everyone. His famous battle cry was “Jesus is there. Everybody to Him!.” He also recognized that Jesus is also present in the lives of other people especially the priests (the “alter Christus”) and the poor. He devoted his attention to reach out to and help the priests who are especially in need of encouragement and spiritual strength and the ragpickers (street people) of Paris, whom he catechized and prepared for their first Holy Communion. He shared this insight, disposition and work with those who shared the same vision and mission by founding the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament (Fathers and Brothers) and the Servants of the Blessed Sacrament (Sisters).
As if to highlight all these, during his great retreat in Rome, he made a perpetual vow to make a gift of his personality to Jesus. This disposition of his soul bespeaks of his own spiritual stance of Eucharistic humility. On March 21, 1856 we find him writing his spiritual stance to life. “Towards the end of my thanksgiving, I made the perpetual vow of my personality to our Lord Jesus Christ in the hands of the Most Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph, under the patronage of St. Benedict (his feast); nothing for me as a person – with a prayerful for the grace that is essential to this gift: nothing by me. The model of this gift: the Incarnation of the Word.
“Just as in the mystery of the Incarnation, the sacred humanity was deprived of its own person, so that it no longer sought itself as an end, no longer has any interest on its own, no longer acted for its own sake – for it had another person substituted to its own, that is, the Person of the Son of God, who sought only the interest of His Father and had His eyes fixed on Him always and in all things; so must I be without any desire and interests of my own, and have none but those of Jesus Christ, who abides in me to live therein for His Father and gives Himself in Communion to do just that in me: As the Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me – (Jn. 6:57).
“It is as if my Savior said: In sending me through the Incarnation, the Father has torn out of Me every root of self-seeking by leaving Me with a human person and uniting me to a divine Person in order to make me live for Him; in the same way, through Communion, you will live for Me, for I shall be living in you. I will fill your soul with My desires and with My life, which will consume and reduce to nothing, everything that is personal to you; so much so that it will be I instead of you that shall live and shall desire everything in you. Thus will you be entirely invested with Me; My heart will beat within your body, My soul and will act through your soul; your heart will be the receptacle and pulsation of My heart.
“I shall be the person of your personality, and your personality will be the life of My person in you. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me – Gal. 2:20.”
Peter Julian discovered that to be an adorer in spirit and in truth is to enshrine Jesus, first and foremost, in the tabernacle, the altar, the Cenacle of his very life. Thus, the love of Jesus Christ would reign in the hearts of everyone and make us cooperate actively in making his Eucharistic Reign come about. This is what he is sharing to each and every one of us. He invites us who are continuing his legacy to make his spirituality our own.
