For many religious of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament throughout the world, making a pilgrimage to the homeland of Saint Peter Julian Eymard is already no easy undertaking. For religious coming from Asia, especially from Vietnam, such a journey is even more distant and fraught with limitations. Throughout the history of the Vietnamese Province of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, although Vietnamese religious today constitute one of the largest groups within the Congregation worldwide, only a handful have ever had the opportunity to set foot in the homeland of our holy Founder. Geographic distance, travel expenses, and living conditions remain considerable obstacles for many confreres.

For this reason, the pilgrimage of the Vietnamese Blessed Sacrament religious in March 2026 may truly be regarded as a singular grace.

With the permission of Provincial Superior Fr. Joseph Phạm Đình Ái, SSS, three religious, on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of their religious profession, undertook this pilgrimage to the roots of their vocation: Fr. Joseph Vũ Quốc Bình, SSS, Fr. Paul Mary Nguyễn Thanh Quang, SSS, Fr. Peter Nguyễn Văn Tường, SSS. The program was later expanded to include several other confreres of the Province, bringing the total number of participants to ten.

The group was led by Fr. Joseph Vũ Quốc Bình, SSS, who was responsible for the research and collection of materials related to Saint Eymard. Accompanying and guiding the pilgrimage was Fr. Mar-Aug Bùi Văn Hồng Phúc, SSS.

The pilgrimage lasted three weeks, from March 1 to March 21, 2026. Yet, because of the conflict situation in the Middle East, the itinerary had to be changed at the last moment. The connecting flight through Doha was cancelled, forcing the group to alter its route in order to arrive in Europe according to schedule.

The first week was spent at the Generalate House of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament in Rome. The confreres were warmly welcomed in an atmosphere of genuine fraternity and family spirit.

During their stay, the Superior General, Fr. Philip Benzy Romician, bestowed upon the jubilarians the Apostolic Blessing on the occasion of their silver jubilee of religious profession. It was truly a grace-filled moment for the confreres to receive, with their own hands, the blessing of the Holy Father through the Superior General.

The days in Rome became profoundly meaningful. Besides participating in an audience with Pope Leo XIV, the group also visited several places closely associated with Saint Eymard, such as the Basilica of Saint Mary Major and the house of the Redemptorists. It was here in Rome that the confreres were reminded of Saint Eymard’s great retreat of sixty-five days in 1865, during the period when he was awaiting the outcome of his plan to purchase the Cenacle in Jerusalem. That retreat marked a decisive turning point in his spiritual life, leading him to make his vow of personality and to surrender himself entirely to Jesus in the Eucharist.

Through this experience, we learned from Saint Eymard the spirit of humility and obedience before the will of God. Though carrying within himself great hopes and plans, he remained ready to renounce his own desires in order to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit and walk according to God’s designs.

If Rome allowed the confreres to touch the depth of Saint Eymard’s spirituality, then the second week in La Mure became a deeply moving encounter with the very homeland of the Saint himself. During five days spent in Saint Eymard’s family home, the group made pilgrimage to nearly all the places connected with his childhood and vocational journey. The community of La Mure welcomed the confreres with remarkable warmth and generosity. Accompanying and guiding the group was Fr. Jesu, together with several other members of the community. Their simple yet profoundly fraternal hospitality seemed to erase every distance. This was no longer a foreign land, but a true “spiritual home,” where the confreres felt they had returned to the source of their own vocation.

Fr. Paul Mary Nguyễn Thanh Quang, SSS - an artist who has created many works depicting Saint Eymard and the village of La Mure - shared with emotion: “Perhaps I must repaint all my works. For only now, by being present here, do I realize that everything I painted before reflected but a very small part of reality.”

Meanwhile, Fr. Peter Nguyễn Văn Tường, SSS, became deeply moved while sitting beside the bed where Saint Eymard died: “I feel as though I am truly present at the final moments of Saint Eymard’s life - a priest who devoted his entire life to the Eucharist. I can only hope to possess even a small fragment of his holiness.”

From La Mure, the pilgrimage continued to two Marian shrines of great importance in Saint Eymard’s spiritual journey: Our Lady of Laus and Our Lady of La Salette.

There, the confreres experienced more profoundly the filial love that Saint Eymard bore toward the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the difficult conditions of nineteenth-century travel, he nevertheless made repeated pilgrimages to Marian shrines, like a son constantly returning to his Mother.

The group also visited many other significant places, including the churches of Chatte and Monteynard, Grenoble Cathedral, Saint-Romans, and the Shrine of Notre-Dame de l’Osier. Each place left its own spiritual imprint upon the confreres, rekindling within them a renewed zeal to live Eucharistic spirituality according to the spirit of Saint Eymard.

During the final week, the group stayed with the Servants of the Blessed Sacrament community in rue Cortambert, Paris. Although the convent was undergoing renovation, the Sisters welcomed the confreres with heartfelt warmth and a genuine family spirit. Their care was expressed not only through fraternal meals, but also through every smile and every quiet act of kindness.

Accompanying the group during their days in Paris was Sr. Maria Lê Thị Tho, General Councilor of the Servants of the Blessed Sacrament, who helped arrange visits and guided the confreres along the footsteps of Saint Eymard in Paris - from 88 boulevard Denfert-Rochereau (formerly 114 Pavillon Chateaubriand, rue d’Enfer), where the cradle of the Congregation was born with the first exposition of the Blessed Sacrament on January 6, 1857, to the later house at 66-68 rue du Faubourg-Saint-Jacques, now Place de l’Île de Sein, Paris 14th arrondissement, to which the community moved less than two years later.

The confreres also had the opportunity to visit the Blessed Sacrament Fathers at the Corpus Christi Chapel on 23 avenue de Friedland, Paris 8th, founded in 1876. Most especially, they were able to stay at the first novitiate house of the Congregation in Saint-Maurice — a place greatly loved by Saint Eymard and where he made his final retreat three months before his death. Though the stay lasted only one day and one night, that brief time allowed the confreres to perceive the profound vision of Saint Eymard in choosing a place of silence and solitude for the formation of novices. 

Fr. Joseph Vũ Quốc Bình shared: “This place brings back memories of my own novitiate years. Saint Eymard truly possessed remarkable foresight in choosing this place as a novitiate house - a place of silence and beauty, with gardens full of flowers and trees, conducive to intimacy with God. It is truly regrettable that, because of the political instability of that period, the house no longer belongs to the Congregation.”

As the pilgrimage came to an end, the confreres returned to Vietnam carrying within them a profound sense of longing. Leaving La Mure, leaving the home of Saint Eymard, leaving brothers and sisters who share the same spirituality - each carried home not only cherished memories, but also a renewed conviction regarding the identity of his own vocation.

Having seen with their own eyes the places where Saint Eymard lived, having touched the traces, documents, and memories he left behind, the confreres felt more deeply the call to continue living and proclaiming the mystery of the Eucharist in today’s world, so that Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament may be ever more known and loved throughout the earth.

Father Mar-Aug Bùi Văn Hồng Phúc, sss