Monday, June 4, 2018

A pact of love (François Mauriac)


   Being for every man the touchstone of faith and love, the Eucharist, like death on the Cross, divided the minds as soon as it was announced.  Nothing engages a man as much as does the Eucharist… 

   The man who partakes in the breaking of the bread dares to build his house on the very core of love.  He becomes, as it were, Godlike, but regardless of the strength he derives from it, his free will remains.  We are always free to disown this immense grace, to abuse it.  The Greatest Love may be betrayed. Fed on the Living Bread, we nevertheless conceal a part of ourselves which longs for swine’s food. 

   The Eucharist engages us unreservedly; it is a pact of love, an alliance signed in the deeper recesses of our being.  All our potentialities are called upon to warrant the protection and fulfillment of this pact. 

--François Mauriac, Holy Thursday:  An Intimate Remembrance


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