Magnificent sequence in the Mass of Corpus Christi, written by Saint Thomas Aquinas, this dogmatic poetry praises the new and true Sion, the Church. Benoit XVI said of this Mass: “These are texts that make the waves of the heart vibrate, while the intelligence, penetrating with wonder into the mystery, recognizes in the Eucharist the living and true presence of Jesus, of his Sacrifice of love that reconciles us to the Father and gives us salvation.”
Praise, Sion, your saviour, praise your leader and your pastor, with hymns and canticles.
As much as you can, dare to sing it, because it exceeds all praise, and you are not enough to praise it.
A special subject of praise is proposed to us today: it is the living and life-giving bread.
The bread that at the meal of the Holy Communion, Jesus really gave to the troop of the twelve brothers.
Let the praise be full and sonorous;
may it be joyful and beautiful, the jubilation of the soul. For today is the solemnity that recalls the first institution of this Supper.
At this table of the new King, the new Passover of the new law ends the ancient Passover.
The old rite is chased away by the new, the shadow by the truth;
the light dissipates the night. What Christ did at the Last Supper, he ordered to be done in memory of him.
Instructed by his holy orders, we consecrate the bread and the wine in the host of salvation.
It is a dogma given to Christians that bread becomes flesh and wine becomes meaning.
What you do not understand or see, living faith attests against the course of events.
Beneath various appearances, simple signs and non-realities, hide sublime realities.
The flesh is food, the blood drink;
however Christ remains whole on one and the other species. By whoever receives it, it is not broken or broken or divided, but received whole.
Only one receives it, a thousand receive it: each as much as the others;
taken as food, it is not destroyed. The good guys take it, the bad guys take it, but for a different fate: Life or death!
Death for the wicked, life for the good: see how different the outcome is from the same take.
If finally the sacrament is broken, do not be troubled, but remember that there is under each particle as much as the whole covers.
No scission of reality occurs: of the sign alone there is a rupture, and it diminishes neither the state nor the magnitude of the reality signified.
Here is the bread of the angels which has become food for travellers: it is truly the bread of children, which must not be thrown to the dog.
It is signified in advance by figures: the immolation of Isaac, the lamb set apart for the passover, the manna given to our fathers.
Good Shepherd, true bread, Jesus, have mercy on us: feed us, keep us, show us the real good in the land of the living.
You who know and can do everything, who feed here below the mortals that we are: make us up there your commensals, the co-heirs and the companions of the holy citizens of heaven.
