I WANT TO BE A PRIEST!

He who was to become the founder of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, Fr. Julian Eymard, seemed predestined from early childhood to be a great devotee of the Eucharist. When his mother, carrying him in her arms, went to the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, the child never tired of gazing at Jesus in the monstrance.

He went with his mother on all her visits to the church and never grew tired nor asked to leave before she did.

His sister Mariana, who was ten years older and became like a second mother to him, used to receive Communion frequently. The little brother, envying her, would say:

— Oh! how happy you are to be able to receive Communion so many times; do it sometimes for me.

— And what shall I ask Jesus for you?

— Ask Him that I may be very meek and pure and grant me the grace to be a priest.

At times he would disappear for whole hours. They searched for him and would find him kneeling on a small bench near the altar, praying with hands joined and eyes fixed on the tabernacle.

Even before the age of reason he longed to confess; but they would not admit him. When he was nine years old he wished to take advantage of the feast of Christmas to “convert himself,” as he said.

He presented himself to the parish priest and then to the curate, but as they were very busy, they did not attend to him.

So he set out with a companion, fasting, and, walking eight kilometers over the snow, there in the neighboring parish he managed to make his confession.

— How happy I am — he said — how joyful I am! now I am pure!

— What great sins had he committed?

— Ah! I committed many sins in my childhood: I stole a cap from a shop and, later, repentant, I went back and left it on the counter.

To prepare himself for First Communion, he began to do penances: he placed a board under his sheet, fasted, and when hunger pressed him, he ran to make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament to forget it.

Finally, on March 16, 1823, the great day arrived for him. What passed in that first “embrace with Jesus”?

As he pressed Him to his heart, he said:

“I want to be a priest! I promise it.”