QUOTATION: The Blessed Virgin Mary in Her Mother's Womb

Mary was born with all personal greatness. She was enriched with God's gifts. But that is little, for on the day of her birth she was already rich with her own merits. She had already acquired treasures of merits during the nine months of silent and uninterrupted adoration passed in the bosom of her mother. She was, even before her birth, penetrated with the divine light, and she had given herself entirely to God, whom she loved with a love of which we can form no just idea. She was born with the treasures that she had won, with the riches that she had acquired.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard, Month of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament

QUOTATION: Sacrifice

A sacrifice foreseen makes us reason, and reasoning diminishes its value. But those that we make generously, without premeditation and without deliberation, are of more value.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard, Month of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament

QUOTATION: To Jesus Through Mary

We must never separate Jesus from Mary. We can go to Him only through her. I even maintain that the more we love the Eucharist, the more we ought to love Mary. We love all that our friend loves. Now, is there a creature better loved by God, a mother more tenderly thought of by her son, than was Mary by Jesus?

--St. Peter Julian Eymard, Month of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament

QUOTATION: No Mary, No Jesus

Without Mary, we shall not find Jesus, for she possesses Him in her heart. There He takes His delight, and they who wish to know His inmost virtues, His sacred and privileged love, must seek them in the heart of Mary. They who love that good Mother will find Jesus in her pure heart.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard, Month of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament

QUOTATION: The Blessed Mother and the Eucharist

Because we make profession of especially honoring the Holy Eucharist, it does not follow that we should have less devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Far from it! He would be guilty of blasphemy who would say: "As for me, the Blessed Sacrament suffices. I have no need of Mary." Where shall we find Jesus on earth if not in Mary's arms? Did she not give us the Eucharist? Was it not her consent to the Incarnation of the Word in her pure womb that inaugurated the great mystery of reparation to God and union with us, which Jesus accomplished by His mortal life, and that He continues in the Eucharist?

--St. Peter Julian Eymard, Month of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament

QUOTATION: Desire of Heaven

There are degrees in the desire of heaven. Some say “I want to go to heaven, because I shall be happy there, because people are so well-off there.” This is the first and lowest of desires for heaven. It is lawful, but it is chiefly the desire of those that live only for self, that work only for wages as the day-laborers. It is lawful, it fits in perfectly with the Christian law. But where is the love, where is the desire to see the good God?

Others say: “I want to go to Paradise, that I may no more offend God.” That is better, that desire is more noble, it has the interests of God's glory more in view. There is some love in that motive since it is to be forever faithful to Him that they desire heaven. But there are others who say: “I want to go to Paradise in order to love the good God, to see Him, to praise Him, and always to thank Him.” Oh! Here is perfection, since they want the good God for Himself What a pleasing thing to hear one speaking in this way! We say: Here are souls who really love. It is, indeed, beautiful!

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Immortality

The soul that loves God dies not. She simply reaches the end of her journey, and the barriers fall. She only changes her condition. Her love of suffering becomes a love of beatitude. Her body itself does but rest in the earth, therein preparing for its renewal in glory. Plants and animals die, but man dies not, he only changes his state. The earth will not retain the dust of his bones. It will restore all for the glorious resurrection, and the whole man will live again forever.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Paradise

Paradise is God possessed, the term of God's love for us. Love longs to give itself and to share all that it has and all that it is. God, who is infinite love, does not desire to be happy alone. He puts us in Paradise, in order to, give Himself to us just as He is, in all His perfections, in His infinite happiness.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: The Desire for Heaven

The desire of heaven is holy. God wishes us frequently to desire it, and that is the reason He has filled our life with suffering, persecution, and the cross. It is for that He permits the inconstancy of human friendships. He does not want us to be attached to the goods of this world, nor to any one in the world. We are not made for one another, but for God alone. The happiness of this world is but a point without continuity, without length. One cannot attach himself to it for any length of time, cannot establish himself in it.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Baptism

As soon as a man is baptized, his name is inscribed in the Book of Life. He has his place in heaven, he is an heir of glory,he has the right of heritage with Jesus Christ and in Him.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Sin

The conclusion of all this is that you be ready to die rather than commit a mortal sin, and ready to die, also, rather than commit a venial sin with deliberation. Rather endure all things, rather death itself than offend God! It would be better to let the whole world go to ruin rather than try to save it by the smallest venial sin.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Useless Words

Our Lord warns us that we shall render an account for every useless word. What will it be for those words against authority, those back- biting words, those words against God's goodness, those words against the poor of Jesus Christ, against the lowly who are already humiliated by their inferiority, whatever it may be!

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Divine Mercy Created Saints

There are saints who are the work of divine mercy, and who became greater saints by the power of mercy and by the constant homage they afterward rendered to it, than they would have been by innocence and virginity. Witness Saint Peter, far greater, far more devoted after his sin than before, also Saint Paul and Saint Magdalen. Their sanctity was nourished on mercy, their tears were the food of their love.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Venial Sin

Live, then, in this disposition of enduring everything, of allowing yourself to be despoiled of everything, to be ready to beg your bread barefoot, rather than consent to a venial sin.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Venial Sins

If we have never sinned mortally, God's mercy in pardoning us our venial sins is not less. It is always the fruit of Jesus' blood. And then we renew them so often that God has to exercise it incessantly, while the occasions of mortal sin are rarer. Besides, when we sin venially, we are in His friendship, and we afflict His Heart and His love in the tenderest point.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Erasing Venial Sins

It is not necessary to confess every time you have committed a venial sin. He has placed in your hands the sacramentals, the Confiteor, the Pater, and above all holy water. Any one of these with an act of regret, purifies you.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Guide to Confession

1. Tell your sins in all simplicity, confessing them as you know them and are affected by them at the moment.

2. Accuse yourself with propriety, in becoming words, through respect for the priest and for yourself. Enter into no detail upon the way in which you committed the sin. The way falls not under the law of accusation. It is even prohibited when there is question of sins against chastity. Tell the nature of sins of thought without recounting them in detail, without explaining them, which is never obligatory. Mention your sins of words, but without repeating the words. Be satisfied with mentioning their species, namely, against charity, or authority, or chastity. As to sins of act, tell the nature of the sin, its grievousness. In sins of omission, state what duty you have omitted.

3. Accuse yourself with humility, as a guilty man who tells his fault to Him who already knows it better than he does himself, but who wishes by making him repeat it to test his sincerity and repentance. Let your humility consist in seeing and telling your faults truthfully, and not exaggerating them. Exaggeration is often the fruit either of sloth which does not want the trouble of examining, or of tepidity which clothes itself with false contrition.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: God's Mercy

The malice of him who abuses the choice graces  of God is so great, and men are so alive to the fact of its deserving His vengeance that the majority of those that fall after having been loaded with special privileges of grace by the good God, remain in evil, not so much because they love evil as because they despair of pardon for a sin so great as theirs. Every sinner, however. must of necessity consider God under the aspect of His mercy. Before His other attributes, His sanctity, His majesty, His justice, he would feel crushed.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: God's Mercy

The days of our life are much less numerous than our sins, for; we can offend by every one of our thoughts, and even mix up sin with our good works. We should have to despair at having sinned so much, of feeling ourselves again so borne to evil, if God were not infinitely good.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

QUOTATION: Priests

Priests do not exist to give certificates of virtue to the just, but to absolve and console poor sinners.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard