ANDRÉ FROSSARD

20TH CENTURY

The Eucharist and the Conversion of the Atheist Writer

The conversion of the atheist

writer Andre Frossard, in the

presence of the Holy Eucharist,

has had great repercussions in

the world. He himself

recounted how his conversion

came about in his book,

God Exists. I Have Met Him

(1969). Up to his final years,

up to his final days, he would

only say: “Since the time when

I encountered God, I have

never succeeded in growing

tired of the mystery of God.

Every day is something new

for me. And if God exists,

I should speak of it; if Christ

is the Son of God, I should

proclaim it loudly; if there is

Life Eternal, I should preach it.”

rossard’s testimonial: “Having entered a

chapel in the Latin Quarter of Paris at 5:10

in the morning to look for a friend, I left at

a quarter after 5 in the company of a friendship

that was not of this earth. Having entered as a

skeptic and an atheist…and ever more skeptical

and atheistic, indifferent and preoccupied with so

many things other than a God to Whom I never

even gave a thought even to deny... I was standing

by the door, looking around with my eyes for my

friend, but did not succeed in finding him...

“My gaze passed from the shadows to

the light...from the faithful gathered there, to the

nuns, to the altar...and came to rest above the

second candle burning to the left of the Cross

(unaware that I was standing in the presence of

the Blessed Sacrament). And at that point,

suddenly a series of miracles unfolded whose

indescribable force shattered in an instant the

absurd being that I was, to bring to birth the

amazed child that I had never been... At first

the hint of these words, ‘Spiritual Life’ came to

me... as if they had been pronounced in a whis-

per

next to me... then came a great light... a

world, another world of a radiance and a des-

tiny that in one stroke cast our world among

the fragile shadows of unfulfilled dreams... of

which I felt all the sweetness... a sweetness that

was active and upsetting beyond every form of

violence, capable of breaking the hardest stone

and that which is even harder than stone - the

human heart. Its overflowing eruption, so com-

plete,

was accompanied by a joy which is the

exultation of the saved, the joy of the shipwrecked

who is picked up just in time. These sensations,

which I find difficult to translate into a language

which cannot capture these ideas and images,

were all simultaneous... Everything is dominated

by the Presence… of Him of Whom I would

never be able to write His name without fear of

harming its tenderness, of Him before Whom I

have had the good fortune to be a forgiven child

who wakes up to discover that everything is a

gift… God existed and was present... one thing

only surprised me: The Eucharist! Not that it

seemed incredible, but it amazed me that Divine

Charity would have come upon this silent way to

communicate Himself, and above all that He

would choose to become bread, which is the

staple of the poor, and the food preferred by

children… O Divine Love, eternity will be too

short to speak of You.”

André Frossard

Hans Friers, The living cross, Fribourg