Eymard . . . In His Own Words
Translated from the French
with Introduction by Sr. Catherine Marie Caron, S.S.S.
Saint Peter Julian Eymard (1811-1868) to the Servants of the Blessed Sacrament, focuses on something essential in our lives.
The spirit of Eucharistic love will make you refer everything to the Holy Eucharist, for the Eucharist is the summary of all marvels. It is the permanent mystery in which we find all others. If you have this Eucharistic spirit, if your thoughts are tuned continually toward the Eucharist, the presence of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament will never leave you. God is immense, the universe if filled with God's presence, but the Eucharistic soul prefers to search and find God where he is sacramentally. Just as the eagles assemble where the body is, so also Eucharistic souls are attracted instinctively, easily, and habitually to the Holy Eucharist. Therein is their happiness, their peace; there they find a supernatural knowledge of all things. That is why after holy Communion we often understand some things which before were incomprehensible to us. That is why some saints who were very ignorant spoke admirably of God.
Put yourselves, then, dear sisters, in the holy Eucharist, and you will be in a center of light.
The saints find a sense of direction in the contemplation of Jesus Christ, and in attentiveness to the call of the Holy Spirit. They learn patterns of thought and behavior contrary to those which are commonly held up for admiration. Who would think to proclaim that meekness can be a Christian response to social evil because it elicits change at a deeper personal level and helps the individual to wait for God's action. In his retreat of Rome, Saint Peter Julian reasoned as follows.
Jesus did not shun those who hated him, nor did he leave any duty undone or any gospel truth unspoken because of fear, to avoid being contradicted, or to please a person of importance.
He reprimanded no one hastily, made no prophecy to individuals ahead of time as he might have to Peter, to Judas, to his executioners. . . . He lived among them with equanimity, kindness, simplicity, and meekness. The time to act had not yet come, the order from heaven had not yet been given..."
During his long Roman retreat of 1865, Saint Peter Julian became deeply aware of his restless spirit. He spent many meditations trying to find the roots of his agitation. Reflecting on the beauty of God's love, he became aware of his own limits. He acknowledged that his love of God was imbued with self-centered motivations which were hindering his spiritual journey. In a meditation written on March 14, he cried out to God as follows.
We are like a ship fastened to the shore. It floats on the water of the sea, but it does not leave its moorings; it merely bobs up and down. We are like a swimmer who prefers to walk rather than take to the water. O my God, sever these moorings, loosen the thread from the wings of my soul, plunge me into the sea.
Upon my oath, I love you in life and in death.
Saint Peter Julian Eymard believed that the message of the "good news" is the message of God's love ― a love thoroughly undeserved, a love that knows no bounds. Such is the Eucharistic gift that we receive and contemplate.
Our Lord so loved us that he could not separate himself from us, even in his state of glory. The Eucharist is his incarnation continued, multiplied, perpetuated to the end of time. . . . but how few there are for whom Jesus sacramental is the love of their life, their first love, their delight!
Even the holiest things can become obstacles to spirituality when they are divorced from the inner source which gives them meaning or when they fall short of creating an inner unity. Saint Peter Julian Eymard realized this, and wrote:
Up to now I have been preoccupied with the intellectual aspect of the Eucharist, with the study of the Eucharist, with the exterior means of success, but I have not yet penetrated to the marrow, to the heart of that divine love. That is why I have been so restless.
But, O my soul, you must live from within your heart in the goodness of Jesus Eucharistic. Yours must be a nobly passionate love which takes up everything in one scoop, which surrenders everything in one act of giving.
God is love! The Scriptures proclaim God's eternal love, and centuries of seekers continue to contemplate that love and ponder its deeper meanings. For Fr. Eymard, the proper response to such extravagant love is gratitude ― gratitude that leads to self-giving.
God loved us, and to prove it to us became human in order to become our brother in the flesh. He became poor, the poorest of the poor, in order to be able to include us all as his brothers (and sisters). He became a little child in order to be like children, even born, children from the slums
God has loved us and has given us all that he is and has. The Father gave the Son, the Son gave his very self, the Holy Spirit became our habitual sanctifier. . . . How grateful I should be to this kind Savior!
Saint Peter Julian Eymard had a tender love for his directees. He could intuit their needs and their situation. He never failed to tell them so, and urged them to find the greatness of God's love in the midst of their difficulties.
My respectful regards to Madame, your sister. I can't get her off my mind. She is ill; something makes me think of her often. Do tell her that our Lord really loves her and that she in turn must love her situation and her cross in God's love.
Saint Peter Julian Eymard was a master of the interior life. His deep interiority was matched only by the simplicity with which he lived it. His friends described him as "modestly modest," friendly, and natural. We find in this excerpt from a letter to Mrs. Natalie Jordan the Scripture texts which nourished his own spirit.
I like your present state, your outlined plan, the apostolate of example, a more interior virtue, living in God in a more constant, studied way; that will work out fine! Begin by living with God, and with God within, for Jesus said: "If someone loves me, he will keep my word; we will come to him and we will dwell in him." And elsewhere: "If anyone loves me, my Father will love him and I will manifest myself to him."
One day he said to his apostles who were weary from their apostolate: "Come aside and rest awhile in a high and deserted place." Luke says that our Lord would often withdraw alone on the mountain to pray there all night.
In the psalms the Holy Spirit says through David: "I will listen within to what the Lord God says."
I am reminding you about all these things, dear daughter, simply to tell you: "Dwell within, recollect your inner spirit, be in control of yourself, recollect yourself from external things to those within, put the world aside. Your part is to withdraw with Jesus in your heart, where he is inspiring your soul, speaking to it in an interior language which love alone hears and understands.
To find one's own style of prayer, one's own true self in God's presence, may indeed be the key to the integration and harmony so ardently sought in prayer. In the following passage, Saint Peter Julian Eymard counsels Miss Antonia Böst in just this way.
As for meditation, I would like you to be a disciple of prayer, because without prayer there is no habitual union with God. You need a type of prayer which is suited to your temperament, your situation, your inner inclination, consequently, your heart. Speak simply and candidly to our Lord as with another self, as with your sister. Be a child who is full of love and surrendered to her good maker. Let it be an interior conversation with God more than a work of the mind. Then, a scattered, distracted meditation will come together, because it will express all the thoughts and needs of your heart.
Faith, love, and mortification were seen by Saint Peter Julian Eymard as means of transformation. This transformation of the whole self is the work of the Holy Spirit, who alone can bring about the kingdom of God in our midst. Let us surrender to that love.
The Holy Spirit prays within us, and groans with ineffable groanings of love. The kingdom of God, spoken of so much in the Scriptures, is the interior rule of God within, while he rules over our intelligence through faith, over our heart through love, over our body by mortification of the passions.
Uniquely Called by the Eucharist