St. Peter Julian Eymard, Priest

St. Peter Julian Eymard was born at La Mure d’Isère, a small town nestled in the French Alps in the Diocese of Grenoble, on February 4, 1811. From his earliest years, he thought of becoming a priest, but because his father did not enjoy the same vision as he, Peter Julian found it necessary to study Latin secretly. After his father’s death in 1831, Peter Julian entered the major seminary in Grenoble and was ordained to the diocesan priesthood in 1834. His first assignments were in two small parishes, but because he felt called to the religious life he received his bishop’s approval and entered (1839) the newly founded Society of Mary (Marist Fathers). For the next seventeen years, he held positions of authority in that congregation; he was spiritual director at the junior seminary at Belley (1840–44), then provincial superior of the congregation (1844–51) in Lyon, and finally rector (1851–56) of the College of La Seine-sur-Mer. During a visit to the shrine of Our Lady of Fourvière in February 1851, he was deeply inspired to found a religious society devoted principally to promoting devotion to and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Aware that no such religious congregation existed in the Church, he felt it his duty to found one. Because he was unable to organize such a group within the Marists—this did not fall within the scope of their apostolate—he approached, with his superior’s permission, the Bishop of Paris, and in 1856 founded the Priests of the Most Blessed Sacrament (known as the Blessed Sacrament Fathers), of which he was superior general until his death. In 1857, he founded the Pious Union of Priest Adorers and then in 1858 the Servants of the Blessed Sacrament, a community of cloistered contemplative nuns devoted exclusively to perpetual adoration. He guided these communities until his death in his native town on August 1, 1868. He was canonized by Pope John XXIII on December 9, 1962, and he is acknowledged as the “Priest of the Blessed Sacrament.”