Restaurant
L'Eau Vive di Roma: un'anellitto della catena di Ristoranti L'Eau Vive nel mondo.
Living Water
is God giving himself.
Living Water
is the gift of God,
and this gift,
this priceless present
is Himself.".
Father Marcel Roussel
"I would like to bring you to a haven of peace…
This haven of peace is all you can expect of a restaurant and also all you do not expect of it. If you know it, you return to it; and if you do not know it, you are surprised. Never are you disappointed. And why is this? Because here there are reminders of what can be found in the Gospel, in the life of Our Lord. These convergences do not surprise us in His Life; they do however when they occur in our existences. Here the human converges with the divine, mankind’s action with God’s Grace, the event with the invisible, and the sharing of Creation with the irruption of Redemption.
This restaurant is called “L’Eau Vive” (Living Water). The personnel are Missionary Workers of the Immaculate. They come from all continents. The atmosphere is very cosmopolitan, always relaxed. Music – Bach, Mozart or even sometimes Moricone – makes a discreet and pleasant background.
L’Eau Vive is incomprehensible without reference to the Samaritan woman who, coming to Jacob’s Well found Jesus, tired, at midday; he asked her for a drink, while his disciples were getting food. Even before this woman could satisfy the request of her unexpected guest, he revealed to her a Living Water which appeases all thirst and wells up into eternal life. And so this Samaritan woman, preoccupied with her home, having come to fetch water for that home, discovered an unexpected relationship between feeding a hungry man and the gift of Living Water. The midday hour that brought them together more than the hour of shared water: it was the hour of an encounter with Christ whom she was seeking.
The “Eau Vive” in Rome lives out this passage from the Gospel. They live it every day, as they also live the passage on Cana, in which the wine poured out becomes a path of faith; as they also live the feeding of the five thousand prefiguring the Eucharist already; as they live the experience of the disciples on the road to Emmaus where the stranger breaking bread at the inn reveals himself to be the Risen Christ present on our way; as they live the scene of the Lake of Tiberias where, in the misty dawn of empty and then suddenly full nets, the apostles discover their Lord grilling fish for a humble meal.
Do you understand why “l’Eau Vive” is not a restaurant like the others? You are not welcomed… you are awaited… and the tables served are tables of friends! No maids, no white aprons, but the daughters of the 44th Psalm serving in Asian tunics, brightly coloured bubu gowns and pareos, from the five continents. For they all are aware that they belong to the King and fulfil a royal service on His behalf, among those who come to their tables and do not always know their vocation is to be a king or queen of heaven.
They are not nuns, but like to introduce themselves as “Missionary Workers of the Immaculate”, Christian virgins gathered together in a spiritual family and offering themselves to God’s Merciful Love. Of their own accord, they accept to live in a community composed of different races and they endeavour to spread the light of Faith in the different expressions of our modern and industrialised society. In order to do this, they aim to use the restaurants they run, open to all and called “Eau Vive: Living Water” in remembrance of Jesus’ words to the Samaritan woman. In this way, they aim to participate in the evangelisation of the world by means of prayer and the testimony of their lives.
And the cuisine, you might well ask? I would answer that the spiritual quality of these women is not limited merely to their culinary abilities, but it brings them to seek competence with the constant concern to please.
I have not yet told you about a surprising and essential activity in all the Eau Vive around the world. I have kept it for the end, because it takes place at the end of the day, towards the end of supper. It suddenly bursts out, like music surprising you and carrying you along: like a heavenly word which is also close and friendly, and then you recognise something like the bells in Lourdes, revealing that our Mother Mary has something to say. Yes, here you are in her home and here is where she gathers her children. The singing of the Ave Maria! And suddenly the guests are invited to catch a word, to answer a call and find themselves praying and singing with children’s hearts, sometimes hurt by the circumstances of their lives… and the emotion is such that many people’s best memory of l’Eau Vive is, beyond the art they appreciate, that of a new way of life, living to the full, and in this way of life the sum and substance is welcomed and shared.
That is no doubt what makes their restaurant so successful… Where Living Water flows, man remembers that he is not to live on bread alone.”A friend of l’Eau Vive