After a period of exile, being transferred from one place to another due to high demand from the population, Father Eustáquio was then given the mission to become a parish priest in Belo Horizonte.

According to records, the new parish priest took office one day after his arrival in the capital of Minas Gerais, on April 8, 1942, a Wednesday. Curiously, this was the day the Church dedicates to Saint Joseph, one of Father Eustáquio's great devotions.

That year, Dom Antônio dos Santos Cabral entrusted the parish of São Domingos, in Vila Celeste Império (present-day Padre Eustáquio neighborhood) in Belo Horizonte, to the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts. The new mission field would become yet another fruitful field of apostolate, but only in a short space of time.

In the book, "The Vicar of Poá," Father Venâncio Hulselmans recounts the beginning of this apostolate in the capital of Minas Gerais. Check it out:

“"For Father Eustáquio, Belo Horizonte would become the most fruitful and beneficial field of apostolate. If, in all the places where he was, even in passing, he sought to do good to his neighbor, physically and spiritually, in Belo Horizonte his zeal knew no bounds. One might say that a sad premonition, manifested more than once in enigmatic phrases such as:

“"I will not see the end of the war; I started the church but I will not finish it," impelled him to expand his activity and win an ever-increasing number of souls.
His reputation as a "miracle worker" preceded him, so that, soon after his arrival on April 7, 1942, people flocked in droves to the chapel of St. Dominic in the "Celestial Empire" village.

Father Eustáquio, who had hoped to carry out his apostolate in a less crowded environment, felt somewhat embarrassed by the competition, which threatened to make his permanent stay impossible once again.
He had received strict orders not to attend to people who sought him out at home; not to visit the sick in their residences except those from his own parish; not to give blessings to anyone except through the confessional grille.”