Approbation of Cardinal James Gibbons
In his latest Encyclical, Our Holy Father Leo XIII exhorts the faithful to increase their devotion toward the Blessed Sacrament and points out the great advantages accruing to society in general from the Sacrament of the Eucharist, which nourishes faith, hope and charity. He lays great stress upon the fruits of redemption gathered from the Eucharist as a sacrifice, and strongly recommends pastors to encourage devotion toward the Blessed Sacrament and frequent Communion. In a former Encyclical he exhorted the faithful to greater devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and signalized his own allegiance to her by the salutation Queen of the Most Holy Rosary!
This little work of Père Eymard entitled, "Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament," is so much in accord with the wishes of the Holy Father, that we cannot help giving its appearance in English dress a most cordial welcome. We are confident that it will be much appreciated, and that devout souls will find in it many holy thoughts that will serve to increase their devotion to the Holy Eucharist and their love for Mary Immaculate, and stimulate them to strive more earnestly after a life of virtue.
The Reverend Clergy will find in the work appropriate readings for May devotions. These readings possess a deep, fervent tone, which breathes the tender piety and profound religious spirit of Père Eymard. They cannot fail to awaken sentiments of faith in the Real Presence, and of reverence for her who was raised to the sublime dignity of Mother of God.
The great good accomplished in France for the edification of Christians of all classes by the writings of Père Eymard, is sufficient to warrant the hope that these writings will accomplish the same amount of good in this country. We are, therefore, glad to hear of the prospect of all his works being translated into the English language, and gratefully acknowledge the commendable thought of the Fathers of the Blessed Sacrament to place the valuable works of their saintly founder at the disposal of English readers.
- Cardinal James Gibbons, Archdiocese of Baltimore, Maryland
Approbation of Bishop Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Lequette
We have read with great interest the Month of Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament. Its meditations taken from the writings of Père Eymard, are full of unction and very proper to inspire the Faithful with a desire always to unite with Mary in their numerous duties toward the Holy Eucharist.
The Appendix justifies the title, Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament, by sound theological reasons drawn from authors the most highly commended for knowledge and piety.
We shall be glad to see this work spread throughout our diocese. It will certainly encourage true and solid devotion, so well comprised in these words: Ad Jesum per Mariam.
- Bishop Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Lequette, Diocese of Arras, Boulogne, and Saint-Omer, France, 19 March 1872
Approbation of Cardinal Charles-Philippe Place
Reverend Father: No present could be more pleasing to me than that which you have been so kind as to make me of the works of the very lamented Père Eymard, for which I beg you to accept my most sincere acknowledgments.
In spite of my confirmations, I have commenced to read them, and that with the greatest edification. I find in them the tender piety and the sound theology of your venerated founder.
I am happy to unite with my venerable colleagues, the Bishops of Angers and Arras, to grant an Indulgence of forty days to the Faithful of my diocese for the invocation, whenever made: "Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament, Mother and Model of Adorers, pray for us who have recourse to thee."
Accept, Reverend Father, the assurance of my affectionate devotedness.
- Cardinal Charles-Philippe Place, Diocese of Marseille, France, 3 June 1872
Approbation of Archbishop Pierre-Anastase Pichenot
My Dear Father: I have read with the liveliest interest, not the Month of Mary, from Père Eymard, but your Appendix. You have studied the subject thoroughly. You have thrown such light upon it that there remains nothing more to be said. The title, Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament, is henceforth secured to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and it is one of the most beautiful.
I heartily approve this new homage rendered to the Mother of God, and I willingly grant forty days Indulgence to all in my diocese who will repeat three times this invocation.
Accept, dear Father, with my blessing and my thanks, the renewed assurance of my affectionate devotedness.
- Archbishop Pierre-Anastase Pichenot, Diocese of Tarbes, France, 11 June 1872
Approbation of the Almoner of the Hotel-Dieu de Romans (Drôme)
5 July 1872.
I have the happiness to announce to you that His Lordship, the Bishop of Valence, has informed me through M. Vigne, his Vicar-General, that he deigns to unite with the Bishops of Angers and of Arras in granting to the Faithful of his diocese an Indulgence of forty days, each time they recite the invocation: Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament, Mother and Model of Adorers, pray for us who have recourse to thee. This Indulgence is applicable as suffrage to the souls in purgatory.
The Bishop of Angers and the Bishop of Arras were the first to bless this title, given to Mary. They graciously granted an Indulgence of forty days to all the Faithful of their diocese who would re cite the invocation to Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament.
We have reason to think that most of the Bishops will grant the same favor in their dioceses. We venture to beg the promoters of the devotion to the Virgin of the Eucharist, to ask this favor in their respective dioceses. Nothing is so capable of spreading a devotion as the benediction of the chief Pastors.
The Bishop of Salamanca, Spain, not only approved the new title given to Mary, but preached and wrote in honor of Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament.
The following pages from his august pen, we copy from the Bulletin Ecclésiastique, des Diocèses de Salamanque et Cindad-Rodrigo. They are clothed with such authority, that we should feel self-reproach did we neglect to reproduce them.
And again, we think that Père Eymard's children will welcome with delight this eulogium of their venerated Father. They will be powerfully encouraged by the kindly words addressed by the eminent Prelate to the Society of the Most Blessed Sacrament, which he founded at the price of so great sacrifices, and even, we may say, at the cost of his life.
The following is the article signed by His Lordship, and translated from the Spanish:
OUR LADY OF THE MOST BLESSED SACRAMENT
Behold the new title given to Mary by the Very Reverend Pierre-Julien Eymard, Founder of the Society of the Most Blessed Sacrament.
This admirable man was born at Mure, Isere, in 1811. After embracing the ecclesiastical state and exercising the sacred ministry for some time, he entered into the Society of Mary, where for seventeen years he afforded an example of all the religious virtues. But God destined him to be the Father of a new family. As soon as the divine will was clearly known to him, Père Eymard accepted unhesitatingly all the trouble and labor which the founding of such a Society would cost him, and to it he gave the name, Society of the Religious of the Most Blessed Sacrament. To glorify the Most Holy Eucharist, is its end. By what means? By solemn and perpetual Exposition of the August Sacrament. It has, also, an exterior apostolate, embracing all the works directly relating to this essential end.
This holy institution commenced in Paris, in 1856, in an humble locality given provisionally by Archbishop Sibour. In 1862, Père Eymard, having already a sufficient number of disciples, opened a novitiate. On the 8th of May of the following year, His Holiness, Pius IX, after having heard the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, granted the Decree of Approbation to the said Society.
The life of the pious Founder was not of long duration. But before his death God gave him the consolation of seeing his religious family consolidated and extended. On 1 August 1868, he died the death of the just, consumed with the love of Jesus in the Eucharist.
Among the pious legacies which Père Eymard left to his religious family, there was one which today more especially claims our attention, since we are in the month of May, and that is the devotion to Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament.
May 1, 1868, being at Saint-Maurice, a house of retreat which he had opened in a pleasant situation far from the noise of the city, and the turmoil of the world, Père Eymard began the pious exercises of the Month of Mary, and closed his burning exhortation with these words: "O let us honor Mary under the title, Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament! Yes, let us say with confidence, let us say with love: Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament, Mother and Model of Adorers, pray for us who have recourse to thee!"
Père Eymard was radiant, his words trembling with emotion, his heart over flowing with joy, for he had discharged a debt of gratitude to Mary, his Mother, to Mary who had given him Jesus in the Sacrament, who had sustained and encouraged him with maternal solicitude in the founding of his pious and edifying Society. Upon the point of bidding adieu to his children, and leaving them a powerful means of serving their Master better, he added to Mary's diadem a jewel not less beautiful than glorious.
Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament is the new title of a thing very old, says the Father.
We have good reason to venerate all the mysteries of the life of the Mother of God. Contemplative souls have found an example in the life of Mary of Nazareth, as desolate hearts have done in Our Lady of Dolors. In all Mary's actions there is a grace which sweetly attracts us to honor and imitate them, each according to his vocation.
Now, Mary lived over twenty years after the Ascension of her Divine Son. By what were her long days of exile occupied, and what grace does this important part of our Mother's life comprise?
The Acts of the Apostles seem to indicate it with sufficient clearness. "The first Christians," we then read, "lived in peace, union, and the most ardent charity, sighing after martyrdom, and in order to prepare themselves for it, persevering in the breaking of the Bread: Perseverantes in communicatione fractionis pants." - Acts 2:42
To live of the Eucharist and by the Eucharist, to gather round the tabernacle in order to chant hymns and sacred canticles, this was the distinctive characteristic of the primitive Church. The Holy Spirit records it in the sublime ecclesiastical history written by Saint Luke, and such is, also, the resume of the Blessed Virgin's last years. She found again in the Adorable Host the blessed fruit of her womb, and in the life of union with Our Lord in His tabernacle, the happy days of Bethlehem and Nazareth.
O yes! It was Mary, above all, who persevered in the breaking of the Bread. She is the great model for the adorers of the Blessed Sacrament.
We shall now enumerate briefly some of the reasons which justify the title, Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, given to Mary by Père Eymard.
Mary is the Mother of Jesus, de qua natus est Jesus. We believe, and our faith is our sweetest joy, that the Adorable Body of Our Lord, really present in the Eucharist, is the same Body that was formed of the most pure blood of Mary, that was nourished with her substance and her virginal milk. It is for this reason that Saint Augustine says, Caro Jesu caro est Marise, et ipsam Marise carnem nobis manducandam dedit ad salutem. "The flesh of Jesus is the flesh of Mary, and the Saviour gives us this flesh of Mary as the food of our salvation."
In the same sense spoke Saint Ambrose, Saint Anselm, Richard of Saint Laurence, and the theologians Suarez, Kick, Schurlog, Zelada, Vega, Cornelius a Lapide, and others.
The Church in her Liturgy for Corpus Christi, repeats for that day the Preface of the Nativity of Our Lord, which speaks of the flesh given by Mary to the Word Incarnate. The Doxology of the Hymn of the Divine Office for this feast, after having chanted the love and the glories of Jesus in the Eucharist, turns to the Virgin as to the cause of the Gift that we receive at the altar: Jesu tibi sit gloria, qui natus es de Virgine.
These reasons and others, which we are forced to omit for want of space, authorize the new title given to Mary by Pere Eymard. We have found them commented upon with wonderful erudition in one of the works of the Bibliothèque, published by the Religious of the Most Blessed Sacrament.
The Lord Bishops of Angers and Arras have granted forty days Indulgence to the Faithful of their respective dioceses, and we accordingly do the same in our own for as often as the following invocation is recited:
Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament, Mother and Model of Adorers, pray for us who have recourse to thee!
Salamanca, fourth day and first Saturday of the month of May, consecrated to Mary, 1872.
- Cardinal Joaquín Lluch y Garriga, Diocese of Salamanca, Spain, 4 May 1872
- from Month of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, by Saint Pierre-Julien Eymard