BREAD THAT IS BROKEN

The Holy Eucharist is the Church's most precious treasure, the source and summit of her worship and life. The Church is built upon and around the Eucharist. In this book, a renowned spiritual writer and Carmelite priest shows how receiving the Lord in the Eucharist has profound consequences, because the Eucharist is not only the great Sacrament that brings about oneness with Christ and with the faithful but also the foundational norm for Christian behavior. Any Christian who wonders how he should act, he writes, 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). According to Saint Thomas Aquinas, all the sacraments are directed toward the Eucharist as toward their final purpose. The author explains that the Church must therefore guard this precious gift. She correctly challenges the faithful to approach the Eucharist with great reverence and a clear conscience so as not to receive the Lord unworthily but to become his sacrificing and serving people.