TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF MONSEIGNEUR DE LA BOUILLERIE, Archbishop of Perga, Coadjutor of Bordeaux.
Now, is it necessary to add that this perfection of relationship tends to maintain in the family an admirable union ?
In creating at the first the family, and in restoring it by His Divine Son, God willed that it should be for us the centre of the most intimate relations and of the most perfect affections.
The indissolubility of Christian marriage imitates the first union of man and woman, and this latter, in the thought of God, was the principle of the universal fraternity of man.
But while God unites, sin divides and separates. From the creation of the world it has sown the most violent hatred between brothers, and soon, not even respecting the first of all bonds, it has broken the conjugal tie. How, then, has it accomplished this work of division ? In giving us up to our guilty passions it has closed our heart to the most holy affections. It is one of the signs which S. Paul attributes to the irreligious : " They are without affection."
Nature, I know, notwithstanding the disorder caused by original sin, has not lost in us all its power, and there especially where the Christian influence has not entirely disappeared, it can maintain intact family ties. Who, however, will deny that these ties are more fragile if they, are left to the mercy of our natural feelings ? Family affection is of too high an order for nature to suffice for it. It is, besides, too much an affair of every day, too much given up to the events of life, too dependent on our imperfections and our deficiencies, for it not to require a higher power in order to establish it.
Well, then, O Christian soul, the holy Eucharist is precisely this power.
When God is present in us He sanctifies all our feelings. When the members of the same family kneel together at the holy Table they more easily forgive each other their faults, and consider only how to venerate and love the Divine Guest Whom they have received together. The Eucharist thus supplies what love is most wanting in each one. It covers our faults, and allows only divine graces to be seen in us. In raising our affections above nature, It has been able to make them immortal.
Now, is it necessary to add that this perfection of relationship tends to maintain in the family an admirable union ?
In creating at the first the family, and in restoring it by His Divine Son, God willed that it should be for us the centre of the most intimate relations and of the most perfect affections.
The indissolubility of Christian marriage imitates the first union of man and woman, and this latter, in the thought of God, was the principle of the universal fraternity of man.
But while God unites, sin divides and separates. From the creation of the world it has sown the most violent hatred between brothers, and soon, not even respecting the first of all bonds, it has broken the conjugal tie. How, then, has it accomplished this work of division ? In giving us up to our guilty passions it has closed our heart to the most holy affections. It is one of the signs which S. Paul attributes to the irreligious : " They are without affection."
Nature, I know, notwithstanding the disorder caused by original sin, has not lost in us all its power, and there especially where the Christian influence has not entirely disappeared, it can maintain intact family ties. Who, however, will deny that these ties are more fragile if they, are left to the mercy of our natural feelings ? Family affection is of too high an order for nature to suffice for it. It is, besides, too much an affair of every day, too much given up to the events of life, too dependent on our imperfections and our deficiencies, for it not to require a higher power in order to establish it.
Well, then, O Christian soul, the holy Eucharist is precisely this power.
When God is present in us He sanctifies all our feelings. When the members of the same family kneel together at the holy Table they more easily forgive each other their faults, and consider only how to venerate and love the Divine Guest Whom they have received together. The Eucharist thus supplies what love is most wanting in each one. It covers our faults, and allows only divine graces to be seen in us. In raising our affections above nature, It has been able to make them immortal.
