Who was St Peter Julian Eymard? An Apostle of the Eucharist

By Ben Smith

In 1995, Pope St John Paul II inserted a feast day for St Peter Julian Eymard into the universal calendar of the church on 2 August. On this occasion the pope recognised him as “an eminent Apostle of the Eucharist.” 

St Peter Julian Eymard was born in the French Alps in 1811, a few decades after the French Revolution and a few years before the Battle of Waterloo.  

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From a young age he displayed a strong devotion to Our Lady. On the day of his first Holy Communion he made a promise to God that he would become a priest. His first attempt to join the priesthood was with the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in 1829. However, ill health and his father’s opposition to his vocation delayed his journey to the priesthood.  

When his father died in 1831, he entered the seminary for the Diocese of Grenoble. He was subsequently ordained in 1834 and, while he was quite successful in his pastoral efforts, he grew dissatisfied with parish life. In 1839 he entered the Society of Mary (the Marist Fathers), where he would be a religious for 17 years. While he was serving in the parish of St Paul’s in Lyon in 1845, his call to be an apostle of the Eucharist began to emerge.  

During the Corpus Christi procession that he was leading, he experienced a powerful spiritual force that encouraged him to ask God for the grace to have the apostolic zeal of St Paul. 

In 1849 he made a visit to the Marist House in Paris as part of his duties as provincial. During this visit he discovered the work of the Association of Nocturnal Adorers and met key leaders in the fledgling Eucharistic adoration movement. His commitment to spreading Eucharistic devotion was boosted during a visit to the shrine of Our Lady of Fourvière (Lyon) in 1851.  

While he was praying, he felt a sense of urgency to lead a Eucharistic renewal. He saw the importance of promoting the formation of the clergy and the laity to help awaken them from their indifference to the gift of Jesus in the Eucharist. 

A critical moment in St Peter Julian’s life emerged in 1853 when he experienced a deep call to focus on Eucharistic renewal. He developed a vision for this work with Fr Raymond de Cuers and others and sought approval for this work within the Marist order. His superiors disapproved of the proposal and sent him to a Marist college in the south-east of France. 

In 1856, he left the Marists and began the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament with Fr de Cuers, with the approval of the Archbishop of Paris. He subsequently established the women’s branch, the Servants of the Blessed Sacrament, with Marguerite Guillot in 1858. The work of these congregations spread throughout France, Europe and around the world. 

St Peter Julian Eymard died in 1868 at the age of 57. He was beatified in 1925 and canonised in 1962. 

His influence on the Catholic Church in Australia stems from two main sources. Firstly, his pioneering work in promoting Eucharistic adoration in France led him to meet Madame Tamisier, a devout laywoman. He was her spiritual mentor for a few years until his death. She then moved to Ars to be close to St John Vianney, who was a friend of St Peter Julian.  

Madame Tamisier went on to found the Eucharistic Congress movement that evolved into the International Eucharistic Congress (IEC). An IEC has been held in Sydney (1928) and Melbourne (1973), and we are preparing for the 54th IEC in Sydney in 2028 (Eucharist28). 

Secondly, soon after the 1928 IEC in Sydney, Archbishop Mannix invited the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament to Melbourne in 1929 to run the parish of St Francis of Assisi in the Melbourne CBD and promote Eucharistic adoration.  

The congregation eventually came to Sydney in 1953 and established a parish at Haymarket that was renamed St Peter Julian’s shortly after his canonisation in 1962. The congregation has continued its work in promoting Eucharistic adoration throughout Australia and abroad. 

We are indebted to the work of this remarkable Eucharistic saint. St Peter Julian Eymard, pray for us.