At Moerzeke near Ghent in Belgium, Blessed Edward Poppe, priest, who amid the hardships of his time, through his writings and his preaching, spread Christian instruction and devotion to the Eucharist throughout Flanders.
Lifespan: 1890–1924
Beatified: 3 October 1999 by Pope John Paul II
Memoria liturgica: 10 June
“I have never asked to grow old, but only that men might return to love God and that priests might be sanctified.”
Edward Joannes Maria Poppe was born in Temse, Belgium, on 18 December 1890. He was a great teacher of Eucharistic devotion.
At the age of twenty-two, in 1912, Edward Poppe entered the Leo XIII philosophical seminary in Leuven.
Owing to the First World War, he was called up for military service. In 1915 he was transferred to Ghent, and in 1916 he was ordained to the priesthood.
He formed many young people in catechism and Eucharistic devotion. He founded the “League of Frequent Communion” among children and working women. For the children of the “Pius X Eucharistic Crusade” throughout Belgium, he published a weekly journal entitled Zonneland (Land of the Sun).
Confined to an armchair by ill health, he wrote his best-known works: Spiritual Direction of Children (1920), Let Us Save the Workers (1923), and Eucharistic Apostolate (1923).
He died on 10 June 1924, at only thirty-four years of age, at the convent of Moerzeke-lez-Termonde.
He was beatified by John Paul II on 3 October 1999.