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Tuesday, 24 March 2020 09:12

By the hand of Mary, in the lands of St. Peter Julian Eymard

We are a married couple of Blessed Sacrament laypersons. We made our promises on 12 December 2014, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. A few weeks ago we visited some significant places for our Association. Our director Fr Andrés Taborda encouraged us to share our experience and relate a little account of them.

We are a married couple of Blessed Sacrament laypersons. We made our promises on 12 December 2014, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. A few weeks ago we visited some significant places for our Association. Our director Fr Andrés Taborda encouraged us to share our experience and relate a little account of them.

We traveled always as pilgrims, accompanied by the Lord who granted us that grace. And our guide has always been his Mother, Mary. With her, every place, every journey, every person has been joined in thanksgiving and praise. She has taken us to the house of our holy founder in France. He was our “host”. He was a joyful experience: a dear lifelong friend who insisted we stay in his house. Father Eymard called us, received us and lodged us in his house. He told us about himself, about his life, his people, his family and especially about his eucharistic spirituality since this permeates every place, every story, every corner of La Mure, his native town. He introduced us to his community, adorers of the Blessed Sacrament, where we shared the Eucharist as lay and consecrated brethren. We found the signs of the Sacramental Jesus in the fraternal faces of Fathers Antoine, Thaddée, Nino and the Blessed Sacrament laypersons of La Mure.

Adding to the joy was the meeting with the Superior General, Father Eugênio Barbosa Martins, who was visiting the community. He welcomed us in the midst of his tasks with his availability and delicacy. We shared with him our situation, bringing him close, as it were, to the family and also to the community of Blessed Sacrament laity in Rosario, Argentina. How this fraternal encounter encouraged us! His heart was filled with the hope of seeing us again soon.

SSS Inter 287e 5LA MURE – We wrote about La Mure in our travel diary: “… a town preserved in houses and streets as before…” The chapel next to the cemetery jealously guards remnants of the holy founder: the baptismal font, images of his childhood in the stained-glass windows. It was like going home!

THE HOUSE – The welcoming building contains the story of an exemplary life: the aroma of French breakfast in the morning, the cold of autumn, snow, the breeze from the Alps when opening the windows, the library filled with books, the place where once Father Eymard worked with his father. The environment, so simple and austere, told us about those last moments of Father Eymard’s agony. Next to his bed, the tabernacle held the Blessed Sacrament, before which the pilgrim genuflects. We pray there, entrusting ourselves to its protection and praying for the whole Blessed Sacrament Community. We toured the town. Each historical place took us back centuries ago. We reached the foot of the road that led to the Mount Calvary, where Father Eymard used to pray.

LA SALETTE – How not to go to the sanctuary of Our Lady! So beautiful in the midst of the morning snow. Surely the Saint was inspired to be recollected before the work of the Creator. The chapel of the Blessed Sacrament is named after St Peter-Julian Eymard. It was time for adoration! Everything was conducive to prayer and we let ourselves be enveloped by the Blessed Sacrament. Thank you, Lord, for your company!

MONTEYNARD – The first parish looked after Fr Eymard. Situated at the top of the mountain. We looked at the landscape trying to see it with the same eyes that dreamt about the Blessed Sacrament Congregation.

LYON – Notre Dame de Fourvière Basilica, in the heart of Lyon. Imposing. From here one can see the whole city. In there Mary is present, at every corner. She spoke there to Fr Eymard. His passage through that place was sealed by receiving the mission of founding the Congregation. In the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament at the Basilica at Lyon, there is a plaque commemorating St Peter-Julian.

THE PLACES WE STILL NEED TO “GET TO KNOW…”
So many places we love! And we still have others to see, maybe on another trip … We give thanks to God for being there and for having the opportunity to celebrate the Eucharist at each place. However, Fr Eymard invites us to ask for the Grace of “knowing” Jesus, to love him without hesitation. His is the fountain of Love to love our brothers, those with whom we share our daily life. We think we have understood, in prayer, that the time invested in Eucharistic adoration and reading the Word of God is very valuable. We should do nothing that takes us from getting to know Jesus.

FR EYMARD IS STILL CALLING
Fr Eymard’s presence is not reduced to one country. As a Saint, he is himself a “universal message”. From La Mure and for the world, the invitation is the same: Blessed be the soul who knows how to find Jesus in the Eucharist and in everything! SPJE (Eucharistic Works). Saint Peter Julian is alive among us, his memory encourages us to follow Jesus in the Eucharist, together with the Blessed Sacrament Community, united in the whole world by the Spirit. He invites us to live fully the Eucharistic passion and to repeat his experience. He moves us with his witnessing of hospitality and welcoming and calls us to prayer that is permanent, persistent, particularly in front of the Blessed Sacrament. In each temple or chapel let us look for the “Owner of the house”. He has a place reserved and prepared, where he is always waiting for us. “But in relation to God, as long as we fail to have a passion of love for the Eucharist, we will have done nothing […]. And so, develop a passion for the Eucharist. Love like a man who loves a woman passionately” (PR 124, OC XIV).

7 January 2020

Patricia Constantini 
Sergio Campisi