Emmanuel
FROM THE EDITOR
When Peter Julian Eymard made the difficult decision to leave the
Society of Mary in 1856, one of the things he brought with him to
the work of founding two religious congregations dedicated to the
Eucharist was an enduring love for Mary, the mother of the Lord.
Eymard’s affection for Mary was shaped in his childhood by visits
to the shrine of Notre Dame du Laus near his home, intensified in
his teenage years when his mother died and he asked Mary to be
his spiritual guide and protector, and deepened during almost two
decades of ministry as a Marist.
In Marist spirituality, the frame of reference for understanding Mary
as a model of discipleship is Nazareth and the nexus of relationships
in the Holy Family. The society’s charism was encapsulated by its
founder, Father Jean Claude Colin — whom Father Eymard knew well
and worked closely beside — in the phrase “hidden and as it were
unknown in the midst of the world.”
In living out his eucharistic vocation, Father Eymard searched for a
new locus for understanding Mary. He found it in the Cenacle, as he
wrote in 1865: “How she has led me by the hand, all by herself to the
priesthood! And then to the Most Blessed Sacrament! From Nazareth,
Jesus went to the Cenacle, and Mary there made her dwelling.” Earlier,
he told the Servants of the Blessed Sacrament: “It is the life of Mary in
the Cenacle which should be the model and the consolation of your
life. Honor this life of Mary in the eucharistic Cenacle.”
The Cenacle is where Jesus shared a final meal with his friends and
instituted the memorial of his saving death. It is the place of intimacy,
as we read in John 14-17, where the Lord pou ɕ