Laud, O Zion, your salvation,
Laud with hymns of exultation,
Christ, your king and shepherd true:

Bring him all the praise you know,
He is more than you bestow.
Never can you reach his due.

Special theme for glad thanksgiving
Is the quick’ning and the living
Bread today before you set:

From his hands of old partaken,
As we know, by faith unshaken,
Where the Twelve at supper met.

Full and clear ring out your chanting,
Joy nor sweetest grace be wanting,
From your heart let praises burst:

For today the feast is holden,
When the institution olden
Of that supper was rehearsed.

Here the new law’s new oblation,
By the new king’s revelation,
Ends the form of ancient rite:

Now the new the old effaces,
Truth away the shadow chases,
Light dispels the gloom of night.

What he did at supper seated,
Christ ordained to be repeated,
His memorial ne’er to cease:

And his rule for guidance taking,
Bread and wine we hallow, making
Thus our sacrifice of peace.

This the truth each Christian learns,
Bread into his flesh he turns,
To his precious blood the wine:

Sight has fail’d, nor thought conceives,
But a dauntless faith believes,
Resting on a pow’r divine.

Here beneath these signs are hidden
Priceless things to sense forbidden;
Signs, not things are all we see:

Blood is poured and flesh is broken,
Yet in either wondrous token
Christ entire we know to be.

Whoso of this food partakes,
Does not rend the Lord nor breaks;
Christ is whole to all that taste:

Thousands are, as one, receivers,
One, as thousands of believers,
Eats of him who cannot waste.

Bad and good the feast are sharing,
Of what divers dooms preparing,
Endless death, or endless life.

Life to these, to those damnation,
See how like participation
Is with unlike issues rife.

When the sacrament is broken,
Doubt not, but believe ’tis spoken,
That each sever’d outward token
doth the very whole contain.

Nought the precious gift divides,
Breaking but the sign betides
Jesus still the same abides,
still unbroken does remain.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven, says the Lord;
whoever eats this bread will live forever.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Jesus said to the Jewish crowds:
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give
is my flesh for the life of the world.”

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying,
“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
Jesus said to them,
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,
you do not have life within you.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
has eternal life,
and I will raise him on the last day.
For my flesh is true food,
and my blood is true drink.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
remains in me and I in him.
Just as the living Father sent me
and I have life because of the Father,
so also the one who feeds on me
will have life because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven.
Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died,
whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

An exceptionally good tour guide was giving a tour of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome to a group of Japanese tourists.  One of the tourists pointed to the Blessed Sacrament chapel near the great Pieta of the Blessed Mother by Michelangelo; this chapel is shielded by a heavy curtain to keep out the noise. “What is in there?” the tourist inquired.

The tour guide replied, “Oh, yes! There, the Faithful adore the very Body of Christ placed in the Monstrance, appearing there as merely a round piece of Bread.  But this appearance is only accidental, for the substance of Christ Himself is really there.  When a priest says the words of consecration at Mass, there is a change — no longer just bread but the very Body of Christ Himself!”

The tourist considered this for a moment. “If what you are saying is true, then what is in that chapel is a greater work and more precious than anything else in St. Peter’s Basilica.”

The great, thirteenth century theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas said that the Mass must be the center of our spiritual life.  Rarely would he get through celebrating the Mass without tears, so much aware of the sacred mysteries he was handling. He would typically serve the Mass of another priest after his Mass for greater devotion. He would pray before the Sacrament, wrestling for inspiration, often even resting his head against the Tabernacle.

The Pope Urban VIII asked St. Thomas Aquinas to compose some special hymns  to celebrate the Feast Corpus Christi; some of Aquinas’s hymns in response include today’s sequence of the Mass Laud O Sion, the great Pange Lingua Gloriosi, the O salutaris, the Tantum Ergo.

Corpus Christi is a great mystery — all previous rituals, all previous sacrifice, even the sacrifice of Isaac are rendered obsolete when Bread and Wine is changed — now the Body and Blood of the Lord, His Great Majesty, now present on the Altar and in the Tabernacle, for us, until the end of time, and when the day comes when we will see Him revealed unveiled, face-to-face.

The bishops of our nation have directed our parishes to stress that the Body of Christ, at the center of the Mass, be the very center of our lives today and onward throughout this year. It is an essential goal, our longed-for Heavenly banquet.

Let’s together do everything we can — as pastor, as deacons, as lay leaders, as societies, as the Faithful — to make the Mass the center of our spiritual life, a center of renewal, a center of Eucharistic revival, where our Heavenly King sits unveiled, Who feeds us from His endless mercy. “With your hallowed saints unite us, To your heavenly banquet bring; There will we, forever feasting, ‘Amen! Alleluia!’ sing.”

Monsignor Michael J. Cariglio, Jr., Pastor, Our Lady of Mount Carmel Basilica – Saint Anthony Parish

Moses said to the people:
“Remember how for forty years now the LORD, your God,
has directed all your journeying in the desert,
so as to test you by affliction
and find out whether or not it was your intention
to keep his commandments.
He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger,
and then fed you with manna,
a food unknown to you and your fathers,
in order to show you that not by bread alone does one live,
but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the LORD.

“Do not forget the LORD, your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
that place of slavery;
who guided you through the vast and terrible desert
with its saraph serpents and scorpions,
its parched and waterless ground;
who brought forth water for you from the flinty rock
and fed you in the desert with manna,
a food unknown to your fathers.”

R. (12) Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Glorify the LORD, O Jerusalem;
praise your God, O Zion.
For he has strengthened the bars of your gates;
he has blessed your children within you.
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
or:
R. Alleluia.
He has granted peace in your borders;
with the best of wheat he fills you.
He sends forth his command to the earth;
swiftly runs his word!
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
or:
R. Alleluia.
He has proclaimed his word to Jacob,
his statutes and his ordinances to Israel.
He has not done thus for any other nation;
his ordinances he has not made known to them. Alleluia.
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
or:
R. Alleluia.

Brothers and sisters:
The cup of blessing that we bless,
is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?
The bread that we break,
is it not a participation in the body of Christ?
Because the loaf of bread is one,
we, though many, are one body,
for we all partake of the one loaf.

It has long been a Catholic understanding that when circumstances prevent one from receiving Holy Communion, it is possible to make an Act of Spiritual Communion, which is a source of grace. Spiritual Communion is an ardent desire to receive Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament and lovingly embrace him at a time or in circumstances when one cannot receive Him in sacramental Communion. The most common reason for making an Act of Spiritual Communion is when a person cannot attend Mass. Acts of Spiritual Communion increase our desire to receive sacramental Communion and help us avoid the sins that would make us unable to receive Holy Communion worthily.

Spiritual Communion Prayer

My Jesus, I believe that you are present in the Most Holy Sacrament.

I love you above all things and I desire to receive you in my soul.

Since I cannot at this moment receive you sacramentally,

Come at least spiritually into my heart.

I embrace you as if you were already there

And unite myself wholly to you.

Never permit me to be separated from you.

Amen.