Saturday, June 09, 2007

Corpus Christi: The Christian Thanksgiving




Tantum Ergo Sacramentum

Down in adoration falling,
Lo! The Sacred Host we hail.
Lo! o'er ancient forms departing,
Newer rites of Grace prevail:
Faith for all defects supplying,
Where the feeble senses fail.

To The Everlasting Father
And The Son Who reigns on high,
With The Spirit blessed proceeding
Forth, from Each eternally,
Be salvation, honor, blessing,
Might and endless majesty.

Amen.

- Thomas Aquinas

Our words about the offering of the Body and Blood of our Lord in the Mass only makes Christian sense if we speak and enact it in the broader context of God's love for the world and his desire to heal it. The rite itself seeks to make sense of our own lives as part of God's action of self-giving love.

If we fail to attend to the Mass with reverence and fear, our lives will unravel from Christian meaning - as the rite binds us to Christ's sacrifice, so it also teaches us to re-imagine our own lives in the four-fold action of taking, blessing, breaking, and giving.

Check out Matt's meditation.

See also "On the Eucharistic Life"

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