The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

He fed you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known | Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14b-16a

Moses said to the people: ‘Remember how the Lord your God led you for forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, to test you and know your inmost heart – whether you would keep his commandments or not. He humbled you, he made you feel hunger, he fed you with manna which neither you nor your fathers had known, to make you understand that man does not live on bread alone but that man lives on everything that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

  ‘Do not become proud of heart. Do not forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery: who guided you through this vast and dreadful wilderness, a land of fiery serpents, scorpions, thirst; who in this waterless place brought you water from the hardest rock; who in this wilderness fed you with manna that your fathers had not known.’

O praise the Lord, Jerusalem! or Alleluia! | Psalm 147:12-13, 14-15, 19-20

O praise the Lord, Jerusalem!

  Zion, praise your God!

He has strengthened the bars of your gates

  he has blessed the children within you.

O praise the Lord, Jerusalem! or Alleluia!

He established peace on your borders,

  he feeds you with finest wheat.

He sends out his word to the earth

  and swiftly runs his command.

O praise the Lord, Jerusalem! or Alleluia!

He makes his word known to Jacob,

  to Israel his laws and decrees.

He has not dealt thus with other nations;

  he has not taught them his decrees.

O praise the Lord, Jerusalem! or Alleluia!

That there is only one loaf means that, though we are many, we form one body | 1 Corinthians 10:16-17

The blessing-cup that we bless is a communion with the blood of Christ, and the bread that we break is a communion with the body of Christ. The fact that there is only one loaf means that, though there are many of us, we form a single body because we all have a share in this one loaf.

Sequence

Sing forth, O Zion, sweetly sing

The praises of thy Shepherd-King,

  In hymns and canticles divine;

Dare all thou canst, thou hast no song

Worthy his praises to prolong,

  So far surpassing powers like thine.

Today no theme of common praise

Forms the sweet burden of thy lays –

  The living, life-dispensing food –

That food which at the sacred board

Unto the brethren twelve our Lord

  His parting legacy bestowed.

Then be the anthem clear and strong,

Thy fullest note, thy sweetest song,

  The very music of the breast:

For now shines forth the day sublime

That brings remembrance of the time

  When Jesus first his table blessed.

Within our new King’s banquet-hall

They meet to keep the festival

  That closed the ancient paschal rite:

The old is by the new replaced;

The substance hath the shadow chased;

  And rising day dispels the night.

Christ willed what he himself had done

Should be renewed while time should run,

  In memory of his parting hour:

Thus, tutored in his school divine,

We consecrate the bread and wine;

  And lo – a Host of saving power.

This faith to Christian men is given –

Bread is made flesh by words from heaven:

  Into his blood the wine is turned:

What though it baffles nature’s powers

Of sense and sight? This faith of ours

  Proves more than nature e’er discerned.

Concealed beneath the two-fold sign,

Meet symbols of the gifts divine,

  There lie the mysteries adored:

The living body is our food;

Our drink the ever-precious blood;

  In each, one undivided Lord.

Not he that eateth it divides

The sacred food, which whole abides

  Unbroken still, nor knows decay;

Be one, or be a thousand fed,

They eat alike that living bread

  Which, still received, ne’er wastes away.

The good, the guilty share therein,

With sure increase of grace or sin,

  The ghostly life, or ghostly death:

Death to the guilty; to the good

Immortal life. See how one food

  Man’s joy or woe accomplisheth.

We break the Sacrament, but bold

And firm thy faith shall keep its hold,

Deem not the whole doth more enfold

  Than in the fractured part resides

Deem not that Christ doth broken lie,

’Tis but the sign that meets the eye,

The hidden deep reality

  In all its fullness still abides.

– – – – – –

*Behold the bread of angels, sent

For pilgrims in their banishment,

The bread for God’s true children meant,

  That may not unto dogs be given:

Oft in the olden types foreshowed;

In Isaac on the altar bowed,

And in the ancient paschal food,

  And in the manna sent from heaven.

*Come then, good shepherd, bread divine,

Still show to us thy mercy sign;

Oh, feed us still, still keep us thine;

So may we see thy glories shine

  In fields of immortality;

*O thou, the wisest, mightiest, best,

Our present food, our future rest,

Come, make us each thy chosen guest,

Co-heirs of thine, and comrades blest

  With saints whose dwelling is with thee.

Amen. Alleluia.

Gospel Acclamation

Alleluia, alleluia!

I am the living bread which has come down from heaven, 

says the Lord.

Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever.

Alleluia!

John 6:51

My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink | John 6:51-58

Jesus said to the crowd:

‘I am the living bread which has come down from heaven.

Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever;

and the bread that I shall give is my flesh,

for the life of the world.’

Then the Jews started arguing with one another: ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ they said. Jesus replied:

‘I tell you most solemnly,

if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,

you will not have life in you.

Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood

has eternal life,

and I shall raise him up on the last day.

For my flesh is real food

and my blood is real drink.

He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood

lives in me

and I live in him.

As I, who am sent by the living Father,

myself draw life from the Father,

so whoever eats me will draw life from me.

This is the bread come down from heaven;

not like the bread our ancestors ate:

they are dead,

but anyone who eats this bread will live for ever.’

'Scripture readings taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published and copyright 1966 by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd, and used by permission of the publishers'