Portal:Catholicism/Patron Archive/August 2 2007

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Peter Julian Eymard (1811-1868) was a French Catholic priest, founder of two religious orders, and a canonized saint

Eymard was born 4 February 1811 at La Mure d'Isère, Grenoble, France. His first attempt as a seminarian ended when he departed because of poor health. Nevertheless, on 20 July 1834, he was ordained a priest for the diocese of Grenoble. In 1839, he joined the Society of Mary (Marist Fathers and Brothers) where he worked as a well-respected spiritual advisor with seminarians and priests. He worked with the Third Order of Mary and other lay organizations promoting devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and to the Eucharist, particularly in the Forty Hours. He rose to the position of Provincial of the Marist Order at Lyon in 1845. In 1856, Eymard founded the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament and in 1858, together with Marguerite Guillot, he founded the lay Servants of the Blessed Sacrament, a congregation for women.

The Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament began working with children in Paris to prepare them to receive their First Communion. It also reached out to non-practicing Catholics, inviting them to repent and begin receiving Communion again. Eymard was a tireless proponent of frequent Holy Communion, an idea given more authoritative backing by Pope Pius X in 1905.

Eymard overcame a number of difficulties to reach his goals, including poverty in his family and in his newly founded order, his father's initial opposition to his only son’s desire to be a priest, years of serious illness and pain, a Jansenistic striving for inner perfection and the difficulties of getting diocesan and later papal approval for his new religious community. Eymard was a contemporary and a friend of other saints including Peter Chanel, John Vianney and Marcellin Champagnat.

Eymard died on 1 August 1868.
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