Today, in the dioceses of the United States, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi). We recall the Lord's Institution of the Eucharist on Holy Thursday and the Eucharist's central role to our liturgical, spiritual, and everyday lives.
Hail our Savior's glorious Body, Which his Virgin Mother bore; Hail the Blood which, shed for sinners, Did a broken world restore; Hail the sacrament most holy, Flesh and Blood of Christ adore! To the Virgin, for our healing, His own Son the Father sends; From the Father's love proceeding Sower, seed and word descends; Wondrous life of Word incarnate With his greatest wonder ends. | On that paschal evening see him With the chosen twelve recline, To the old law still obedient In its feast of love divine; Love divine, the new law giving, Gives himself as bread and wine. By his word the Word alright Makes of bread his flesh indeed; Wine becomes his very life-blood; Faith God's living Word must heed! Faith alone may safely guide us Where the senses cannot lead. Pange lingua gloriosi - Thomas Aquinas (1227-1274) tr. James Quinn, SJ (b.1919) (c) 1969 |