Ruminations of an Irascible Hermit.: St Peter Julian Eymard

Wednesday, August 2, 2023

St Peter Julian Eymard - Apostle of the Eucharist

St Peter Julian Eymard is known as the Apostle of the Eucharist. This is because of his own intense personal devotion to the Eucharist and especially his promotion of the practice of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, as well as the benefits of frequent reception of Holy Communion. At his canonisation, Pope St John XXIII said of him that: “His characteristic distinction, the guiding thought of all his priestly activities, one may say, was the Eucharist: eucharistic worship and apostolate.”

As noted in my other post regarding St Alphonsus, the heresy of Jansenism infected the Church and emphasised God as distant, angry, and ever ready to punish us. You can still find traces of this today among many of us in our understanding of God. This unbalanced emphasis is a scourge in the spiritual life that has turned many people away from the faith due to this misunderstanding and misrepresentation of God.

While it is true that many people today no longer believe in sin or the need for grace to be saved, so long as you are a “good person” - there is also an issue among many Catholics who love God, but are so fearful of punishment and scared of God that they forget the love God has for us and his mercy ever offered for us. So the focus for prayer and the spiritual life is to avoid hell and not sin, rather than to love God and experience the intimacy God wants with us and the fullness of life that is possible for us with the help of grace and the Holy Spirit. Our focus should be on the revelation of the Fatherhood of God who loves us and wants us to be saved, rather than living in a state of fear that God is waiting for us to make a mistake and punish us out of his wrathful righteousness.

As a remedy against the influence of Jansenism on authentic Catholic spirituality, St Peter Julian Eymard promoted the reception of frequent Holy Communion and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Both of these were uncommon at his time in 19th century France and the Catholic Church. This was before the time of Pope St Pius X who approved and promoted frequent Holy Communion in recognition of the damage that Jansenism had done to the understanding of many Catholics regarding sin, and their worthiness to receive Holy Communion.

St Peter Julian Eymard powerfully understood that the Eucharist is the proof or the evidence of God’s love for us. The passionate love that Jesus has for us is not in the past, but he still loves us and continues to love us so much that he gives us physical evidence of this in the Blessed Sacrament. His love is not just symbolised in the Eucharist, but the reality of His love for us is available and present to us here and now in the Blessed Sacrament. The reality of His love present for us is so strong, that Jesus Himself is fully but mysteriously present in the Eucharist. This was the conviction of St Peter Julian Eymard that was the central feature of his entire spirituality and mission as a priest. The connection between Jesus in the flesh and Jesus present in the Blessed Sacrament is why his particular devotion to Mary was under the title of “Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament”.

With this background, it helps is to understand what motivated St Peter Julian so powerfully in his ministry as a priest. When we understand and realise the love of Jesus present for us and to us in the Eucharist, then how can we not respond to this in wonder and awe! This should impel to want to go to Mass often, not out of a sense of guilt, but out of love for Jesus who loves us first and is there waiting for us! This is what inspired his tireless promotion of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, he wanted people to experience this love of Jesus present in the Blessed Sacrament and inflame their hearts to them reciprocate this love back in attending Mass and regularly receiving Jesus in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is Jesus Himself present, loving us, strengthening us and encouraging us to grow on holiness. The Eucharist is the remedy for our weak wills and our sinfulness, it is our food that strengthens and nourishes is to love Jesus with His own passionate love that He gives to us and shares with us.

Holy Communion not only unites us to Jesus, but it also purifies us, sanctifies us and strengthens us. It becomes the preeminent means of grace from which our spiritual life should flow, and to goal to which all our prayer should aim towards. This gives us courage in prayers and confidence in the Blessed Sacrament as the guarantee and proof of Jesus’ love for us.

How can this not inspire us and fill us with joy? This is the genius and the legacy of St Peter Julian Eymard to Catholic spirituality and continues for us today. When the Eucharist becomes our delight and our nourishment, then we naturally grow deeper in love with Jesus who unites Himself to us in Holy Communion. Our union with Jesus makes us appreciate Mary His mother, who as Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament brings us her son, upholding Him for us to inimtate and follow, and in turn she brings us and our prayers to her beloved son. She was and remains a living monstrance who brings us and shows us the presence of the love God made flesh for us in Jesus Christ, present in the Blessed Sacrament waiting for us to respond to His open heart and outstretched arms offering His love to us.

May we grow in our devotion to the Eucharist and increase our love for Jesus Present in the Blessed Sacrament loving us from all eternity. May he who loves us first, inflame is with His love and help us to spread this love to others to transform the world.

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Disclaimer

Please note. I am a Catholic layman, not a qualified theologian or philosopher. What I say and write here are my own personal thoughts and ideas, although I always try to conform my writings to the Magisterium of the Church.

I- with firm faith believe and profess everything that is contained in the symbol of faith: namely,

I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven: By the power of the Holy Spirit, he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered, died and was buried. On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. I believe in the one holy catholic and apostolic church. I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

With firm faith I believe as well everything contained in God's word, written or handed down in tradition and proposed by the church--whether in solemn judgment or in the ordinary and universal Magisterium--as divinely revealed and called for faith.

I also firmly accept and hold each and every thing that is proposed by that same church definitively with regard to teaching concerning faith or morals.

What is more, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman pontiff or the college of bishops enunciate when they exercise the authentic Magisterium even if they proclaim those teachings in an act that is not definitive.