Bread That Is Broken

The Holy Eucharist is the Church's center, her most precious treasure, the source and summit of her prayer and worship of God. The Church is built upon and around the Eucharist. In this book, the renowned spiritual writer and Carmelite priest shows how the Eucharist is not only seen as the great Sacrament that brings about our oneness with Christ, and with the faithful, but also how the Eucharist is the foundational norm for all our actions. To become one with the Lord who is sacrificed has necessary consequences. The mystic of the Eucharist leads to a Eucharistic ethic for life. Fr. Stinissen says that the Eucharist is such a rich and many-faceted mystery that a systematic and exhaustive treatment of it does not suffice. Therefore he has chosen to touch on the subject with the help of some key concepts, consider it from different perspectives, and thus continually find new aspects and dimensions of the Eucharist. All the Sacraments are holy, but the Eucharist is called "Sanctissimum Sacramentum". According to St. Thomas Aquinas, all the Sacraments are directed toward this "Most Holy Sacrament" as toward their final purpose. The Church keeps guard over this sacred treasure and does not readily distribute it if she is not sure that others are worthy of it, and receive it with as great a reverence as she does. In this profound work, Fr. Stinissen says that since Christ comes to us in the Eucharist and unites himself with us under the form of broken bread, we must become like him, a sacrificing, serving people. Anyone who wonders how he should act will find the answer in the Eucharist. He is called to become like Jesus, bread that is broken, "for the life of the world" (Jn 6:51).