Peter was a native of Grenoble, France, and was ordained priest in 1834. After serving the diocese for a couple of years, he joined the Congregation of the Marists. It was in this new atmosphere that his love for the Blessed Sacrament began to unfold itself. Peter would spend hours before his Eucharistic King. It is narrated that whenever he carried the Sacred Host in procession during the feast of Corpus Christi, he would be overwhelmed with inner love and light. Heeding a divine inspiration, Peter founded a religious order called Priests of the Blessed Sacrament in 1856 and an order for sisters titled Servants of the Blessed Sacrament in 1858. They dedicated their lives to adore the Eucharistic Lord and spread devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. Peter was an excellent educator, an effective preacher and an outstanding organizer of lay societies, the most reputed among them being the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament. The last years of his life were clouded with physical pain from which he found relief before the Tabernacle until the Lord took him to Himself on August 1, 1868. He was proclaimed a saint in 1962 by Pope John XXIII.
Reflection: The sacrifice of bread and wine by Melchizedek, King of Salem and priest of God most high (Gen.14: 17-20), the Manna that Yahweh rained upon the Israelites to sustain them on their journey to the Promised Land (Exod.16: 11-35), the mysterious heavenly bread which sustained prophet Elijah for forty days and forty nights (1 Kings 19: 4-9), and the multiplication of loaves in the in the hands of the Apostles were figures of the Holy Eucharist.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh…..Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. (Jn.6: 51-55)
