St. Peter Julian Eymard

Who they were

Peter Julian Eymard was a French priest, a baker's son who as a small boy was found standing on a stool behind the tabernacle to be nearer, whose whole vocation condensed into one conviction: that the Eucharist deserved not only Mass but company.

Leaving the Marists after two decades, he founded the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament in 1856, communities whose work is perpetual adoration and whose apostolate went straight down the social ladder. His First Communion preparation for the rag pickers and working children of Paris, adults and adolescents the parishes had missed entirely, was the practical engine of the work. One story is worth keeping for its usefulness: a grieving young sculptor entered his novitiate after a sister's death, and Eymard discerned that the man's vocation was not the cloister but the studio, and sent him back to his art. The sculptor was Auguste Rodin, whose bust of Eymard survives.

Why people turn to St. Peter Julian Eymard

Adorers: every parish holy hour and perpetual adoration chapel has its patron here. Parents of first communicants. And spiritual directors have in him a second patron beside St. Claude de la Colombiere: the grace of sending someone back to their real call.

How to ask their intercession

By going. Fifteen minutes of presence this week, one decade prayed there, and his own method of letting the rest be silence.