The Doctrinal Synthesis
of Saint Peter Julian Eymard
on Our Lady
of the Blessed Sacrament
by Fr. Georges M. Jobin, S.S.S.
How delightful it would be if we possessed from Saint Peter Julian Eymard himself a perfect and complete synthesis of that part of theology that deals with the relationship between Mary and the Eucharist. Or, at the least, how pleased we would be to have a compendium of his thought, which, in his position as precursor of devotion to Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, he could have given to the world. But because we possess nothing like this, we are forced to rummage through his writings, looking for a way to establish the broader outlines of his thinking.
Before we proceed with this work, two preliminary observations are nonetheless necessary.
In the first place, it must not be forgotten that Saint Peter Julian was not a professional theologian. Although by his personal work and perseverance in study he had an excellent preparation in theology, which permitted him to explain Catholic doctrine with lucidity and sureness in his sermons and conferences, he was not a theologian by profession. He was oriented rather toward apostolic work and did not have the leisure to give himself over to speculation, as his natural talents might have enabled him to do. We cannot claim to find in his writing that rigorous terminology, that expository perfection that we are pleased to discover in the work of theologians.
There is, moreover, a second observation that must be made. Saint Peter Julian was a precursor, a prophet, in a certain way, of the contemporary Eucharistic movement. His biographers show him to us, in a series of brilliant portraits, as the promoter of this movement, which is so vigorously alive in our day.
Without assimilating to the category of prophetic inspiration the inspiration with which he was graced, we may, by way of an example, make our thinking on this matter understood. The ancient prophets, moved by the Holy Spirit, spoke in the name of God without always grasping in their fullness the distant repercussions and the profound richness of their inspired words. When Isaiah uttered his enthusiastic cry, "Truly you are a hidden God, God of Israel, O Savior!", he could not have perceived the full import of his vibrant exclamation, the fullness of its dogmatic and spiritual value.
In the same way, we may think of Saint Peter Julian, when, on the first of May 1868, he uttered, "not without divine inspiration," these his watchwords, which ring in our ears like a spiritual testament: "Ah, well, we shall honor Mary under the title of Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament!" Here we find him obeying an interior impulse. At the time, he was doing no more than expressing a truth, launching an idea that was rich in theological and spiritual substance, whose great doctrinal depth he could not plumb himself.
In the same way, Saint John the Baptist had no other mission in his role as precursor than that of preparing and announcing the immediate coming of the Messiah, declaring: "Behold the Lamb of God!" and then disappearing from the scene, leaving to others, to the apostles and disciples and their successors, the task of preaching the doctrine of Christ and establishing it in precise terms. It was in just this way that Saint Peter Julian Eymard was the providential herald of this new title, leaving to others, after himself, the task of examining thoroughly the doctrine indicated by this invocation and establishing all that was contained within it.
Prophet and precursor was what Saint Peter Julian was in all that touches on devotion to Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament. This is why it would be useless to wish to seek a complete synthesis of this doctrine in his writings.
Once this is clear, it is entirely permissible for us to suggest a brief synthesis, in spite of the difficulties involved. To guide us in our work, it will suffice to dwell on two aspects of the question, the dogmatic aspect and the moral aspect, and to clarify the two following points:
What is the thinking of Saint Peter Julian on the dogmatic foundations of the devotion to Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament?
What is, for him, the moral and ascetical value of this devotion?
1. THE DOGMATIC FOUNDATIONS
The work undertaken to establish the foundations of devotion to Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament was something that took place after the fact for Saint Peter Julian. Nevertheless, as Campana calls to our attention, "Saint Peter Julian Eymard had full knowledge of the solid and well-proven arguments for this devotion. The theologians who afterwards investigated and deepened the argument did none other than envelop with erudition and ground thoroughly, after patient research, what the saint's profound faith had allowed him to sense and to fathom with simplicity and certitude."
The theological arguments which justify the devotion in question can be summarized under three headings:
a. Divine motherhood
b. Co-redemption
c. Universal mediationIn the writings of Saint Peter Julian can be found clear allusions to these three truths.
a. His thinking on the subject of Mary's divine motherhood can be summarized in these terms: Mary is Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, because, as mother of Jesus, she provided the immaculate flesh which, once become the body of Jesus, would be, by transubstantiation, present in the Eucharist: "Where is Jesus to be found on earth if not in the arms of Mary (his mother)? Is it not she who gave us the Eucharist?"
What is more, the relationship which united mother to son and son to mother is not abolished by the ascension of Jesus to heaven. And there, as in the Eucharist, it is always the son of Mary who is honored and who becomes the nourishment of the faithful: "Mary, mother of Jesus, Son of God. Mary from whom was born Jesus: in this phrase lies the sublime praise which the Gospel pronounces about Mary. . . . (It is this which) still gives to Mary a crown of glory. . . . (She) will be queen because she transmits to the world Jesus the King. . . . Everywhere where Jesus has a throne, Mary will have hers too: the altar of Mary will always be beside the altar of Jesus."
b. Mary is equally the co-redemptrix of mankind. For Saint Peter Julian, the Eucharist is the extension and, as it were, the normal end-term of the redemptive incarnation, for at one and the same time all the mysteries of the life of Christ are relived and recapitulated in it. This is why Mary is as closely related to the Eucharistic mystery as she is to the mysteries of the incarnation and the redemption: "It was her consent to the incarnation of the Word in her womb which set into motion the great mystery of reparation toward God and of union with us that Jesus accomplished during his mortal life and that he continues in the sacrament. Without Mary we would not be making our way at all to Jesus."
Called by her special vocation to suffer with her son for our redemption, she gives birth to us in sorrow, at Calvary: "She will be at the foot of the cross and will undergo in her heart all the torments of the passion, so that she may become our mother by adoption."
By her Eucharistic life, she will continue after that this co-redemptive mission: "She climbed with Jesus to Calvary, in order to die there with him; she descends again from it with the disciple, her son by adoption, with the holy women, her daughters, and comes to the cenacle of the Eucharist to begin therein her Christian motherhood, at the foot of the divine sacrament."
c. Mary, mediatrix of all graces, can and should be honored as such, under the title of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament.
It is through the universal mediation of Mary that there come to us all graces, including that of the Eucharist. Saint Peter Julian contemplates Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament chiefly at the cenacle, after the ascension. It pleases him to see her continuing her mission of mediatrix by means of silent prayer and generous sacrifice: "Mary devoted herself entirely to the Eucharistic glory of Jesus. . . . Her whole desire was to make him known in his sacrament. . . . From the time of Calvary, men became her children. She loved them with the tenderness of a mother and desired their sovereign good quite as much as her own. Behold, this is why she burned with desire to make Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament known to all. . . . To obtain this grace, (she) took on a perpetual mission of penance and prayer at the foot of the most adorable Eucharist. . . . But the mission that was dearest to her souls was to pray continually for the success of the preaching and labors of the apostles and all the members of the priesthood of Jesus Christ . . .; (she) clung to the foot of the throne of mercy, beseeching for them the goodness of the Savior."
These few excerpts from his writings show us that Saint Peter Julian, even though he never had the intention of constructing an organically coherent treatise, did not ignore the dogmatic foundations of devotion to Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament.
The whole of Saint Peter Julian's thought, however, can be understood in a more concrete and complete way, when the question is examined in its moral and ascetical aspect. In dealing with the subject of devotion to Mary, Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, Saint Peter Julian has, in effect, let his heart speak for him in the main.
2. THE MORAL AND ASCETICAL VALUE
When we speak of the moral value of devotion to Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, we are taking this word in its most positive and largest sense, that is, its sense of the soul's progression to supernatural perfection. It is evident, in this case, that asceticism is a more elevated part of morality, as mysticism is a superior degree of it.
For Saint Peter Julian, devotion to Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament has above all a moral and ascetical aspect. It becomes for him the means of maintaining, in a harmonious unity, all of our moral life, at the same time as it is the means of honoring with more profundity and perfection the Blessed Sacrament.
As His Eminence Cardinal Massimi notes with justice, "What can be seen in the lives of all the saints is the close link that exists between these two loves: the Eucharist and Mary. All the saints are Marian-Eucharistic and so much the more Eucharistic to the extent that they are Marian."
Haunted by the thought that the Eucharist is not loved and honored as it ought to be, Saint Peter Julian sought by all manner of means to promote the worship of the Blessed Sacrament. It is remarkable to ascertain how Divine Providence led him by secret paths to his Eucharistic mission, by, in effect, a Marian route. And in his spiritual life, his Eucharistic formation went hand in hand with his Marian formation.
Nothing could be more natural for him than to recommend to those whom he attracted to the Eucharistic ideal a tender devotion to the Blessed Virgin, who was to become for her own, under his impetus, Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament.
For Saint Peter Julian, the moral value of this devotion was established on the following principles:
a. The moral life is an extension, in souls, of the mystery of the redemptive incarnation. Actualized in us by baptism, the redemption extends its blessed effects in our souls, in a durable and definitive way, by the Eucharist.
Eucharistic life, which is to say holiness in and by the Eucharist, is thus the most noble and most perfect expression of God's ascendancy over the souls of those who are redeemed. Just as Mary played a part of first importance in the mystery of the incarnation and the redemption, so she is bound to be more active in Eucharistic life to the extent that she is nearer to her son: "Yes, the Eucharist begins at Bethlehem and in the arms of Mary: it is she who brought to humanity the bread which it is hungry for and which alone can nourish it."
b. The Eucharistic movement, an expression of the renewed vitality of Christianity and a proof of the constant dynamism of the Christian spirit, is spreading and asserting itself more and more in the world. Our time is ringing with the triumph of Jesus by the Eucharist. This will also be the hour of Mary's triumph: "The veneration of the Eucharist is spreading. Never was it greater and more universal than in our time. . . . The veneration of the Eucharist will be the glory of this century. It will make it a great century. To be sure, devotion to Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament will grow with the veneration of the Eucharist."
This principle, enunciated by Saint Peter Julian, is merely an affirmation of what we may call the conjunction of two spiritual movements and activities: Jesus and Mary in unison, perform their work on souls, for an identical end, and in this way they undergo, the one on the other, a reciprocal influence.
How may times Saint Peter Julian invites his audience to assure the triumph of the Eucharistic kingdom by intensifying their devotion to the Blessed Virgin. His thinking is clearly expressed by these words: "Since we have devoted ourselves more specially to the service of the Eucharist, since we are its adorers, it is in this wise that we owe a particular veneration to Mary. . . . If we belong to the Son, we belong also to his mother. If we adore the Son, we honor his mother, and we are obliged, in order to remain in the grace of our vocation and to enter it fully, to render to the Blessed Virgin a wholly special veneration as Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament."
c. This activity of Mary's in the context of the Eucharistic movement and its spirituality is manifested in two ways chiefly: mother and model of Eucharistic souls.
Although he offers the whole life of Mary for us to imitate, it is above all at the cenacle that Saint Peter Julian lingers in order to contemplate the virgin, our mother and our most perfect model of an integral Eucharistic life. Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament is for him Our Lady of the Cenacle, and if we wish to be faithful to his thinking, we must first and foremost go ourselves as well to the cenacle, to seek therein nourishment for our devotional life and a model which is presented for our imitation.
It would take too long to cite the texts, so full of charm and sweetness, where Saint Peter Julian talks to us of this mission of Mary at the cenacle. Let it suffice for us to indicate the landmarks, as it were, of this mystical road which leads to the perfect imitation of Jesus and the fullness of sanctity.
Mary, at the cenacle, "was the queen and mother of adorers"; her life "was nothing if not a life of love and adoration."
At the cenacle, she "lived by the Eucharistic life of Jesus . . . she lived by the Eucharist . . . she remained in the Eucharist, center of her love; . . . the Eucharist was the oracle which she consulted, the grace which she pursued."
Because Mary lived there in union with the Blessed Sacrament for more than 20 years, all her virtues took on a Eucharistic character . . . and acquired at the cenacle their last perfection."
"She was truly, in her Eucharistic life, our mother and our model, in the sense that we find in her, in a state of exquisite perfection, all the Eucharistic virtues."
She is, for us, the model of perfect Eucharistic contemplation: "Before the Eucharist she was in such a state of contemplation that no human or angelic tongue would be able to express it," reliving, in her silent prayer, all of Jesus' mysteries and states of life.
She was equally an apostle there, by her prayer and sacrifice: "she devoted herself entirely to the Eucharistic glory of Jesus."
This rapid synthesis of the doctrine of Saint Peter Julian Eymard on Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament is merely a rough draft. It does, however, show us the thinking of Saint Peter Julian on this subject. May this sketch enlarge the horizons before us, within which we find our field of action! May it rouse our curiosity and incite us to a more profound study of the thought and heart of this great Apostle of the Eucharist, so that as a result we, following the lead of Mary, may live a life that is fully Eucharistic.