Born in La Mure d’Isère, Southeastern France, Peter Julian Eymard’s faith journey drew him from being a diocesan priest of Grenoble in 1834, to joining the Marists in 1839, to founding the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament in 1856.
In addition, Eymard coped with poverty, his father’s initial opposition to his vocation, from serious illness, a Jansenistic overemphasis on sin, and the difficulties of getting diocesan and papal approval for his own established religious community. Beyond all of this he remained a faithful servant of God.
Peter Julian Eymard was beatified in 1925 and was canonized in 1962, the day after the end of Second Vatican Council’s first session.
