We are a Catholic religious congregation of priests and brothers whose mission is to share the riches of God’s love manifested in the Eucharist.
The Eucharist is at the center of our life and faith as followers of Jesus Christ. It has the power to transform individuals and societies, to renew the church. Our founder, Saint Peter Julian Eymard, understood this and proclaimed it with his whole heart and being.
We are many, though one. We minister in many lands and cultures, and in a variety of situations, but share a common vision and hope for a world renewed by the Eucharist. We speak different languages, but tell a common story of life transformed by the power of table, word, bread, and wine―the sacrament of Christ’s presence and love. The Spirit of God moves us, as it did our founder, Saint Peter Julian Eymard, the Apostle of the Eucharist, “to do something great for the Eucharist!” And we invite all―religious, lay, and ordained―to share in this work.
The Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament was founded in Paris, France, in the year 1856 by Father Eymard. All his life, he searched for an answer to the deep spiritual hungers of his day, and he discovered it in the Eucharist. Inspired by this sacrament, he inaugurated a new way of life in the church, one completely shaped by the Eucharist celebrated, contemplated, and lived in communion.
We respond to the reality of God’s love in the Eucharist by a “gift of self” to God and others. By prayer before the Blessed Sacrament and an active apostolic life, we strive to make Christ in the Eucharist better known and loved. We live together and work together to show the fruits of the Eucharist.
In the United States of America (the Province of Saint Ann), our ministry of eucharistic evangelizing includes celebrating the sacraments, preaching, writing, teaching, counseling, and working for justice. We publish Emmanuel, an award-winning magazine of eucharistic spirituality. We promote Life in the Eucharist programs and work with teams of laity in doing so. We serve parishes and are active in ecumenism, the effort for Christian unity. In these and other ways, we care for the body of Christ in the church and in humanity with the same love and care that we show Christ in the Eucharist.
In everything, Christ in the Eucharist is our inspiration and the center of our personal and community life. “We seek to understand all human reality in the light of the Eucharist, source and summit of the life of the church” (Rule of Life, 34).
