Lauda Sion

Greetings on this the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
Readings: Ex 24:3-8; PS 116:12-13, 15-16, 17-18; Heb 9:11-15; Lauda Sion; Mk 14:12-16, 22-26
Note: Late writing. Homily already given. Five Masses this weekend.

Rather than give you the homily a few brief notes. Instead I have the content of Lauda Sion for you to consider and contemplate. The Eucharistic gift, the transubstantiation of the ordinary to the divine is a contemplation of the heart and mind for all time.

Holy Eucharist – Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ.

Body – the elements. The natural world components that make us, our soma. Jesus divinizes the body in his body. He feeds us his body to transform, transubstantiates us.

Blood – from ancient time is was understood that the Breath of God is within the blood. Even the blood of animals are considered taboo because it is the life blood of mysterious origins – the Divine. Jesus cites Pilate having a perverse use of blood: At that time some people who were present there told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices (LK 13:1). Jesus divinizes the Blood beyond the natural life blood presence to the divine life force in its fullest.

Soul – The soul is the place of decision and choice (basics: Vegetative, the Sensitive, and the Intellectual/Rational). Most significantly, the soul is the seat of the affect, emotions and our ability to communicate the temporal with the eternal.

Jesus improves our souls to be able to more perfectly accept the presence of the divine.

I have met many a frustrated theologians and right/left zealots who cannot really understand soul.

Suffice to say they cannot handle cases such as Abby and Brittany Hensel where the soma is conjoined to two heads/Souls. Most systematic theology finds itself paralyzed in thought by these natural situations. Frequent valid reception of the Eucharist allows the soul to grow and accept the insights of the Holy Spirit.

The Eucharist changes us. It performs, day by day, a transubstantiation of sorts of our being.

Divinity – this is the incarnation in the first case and the find end in our case.

Holy Eucharist, the Real Presence, is the material, efficient, formal and final cause making of us one Body in Christ.

The Sequence

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.

Lo! the angel’s food is given
To the pilgrim who has striven;
see the children’s bread from heaven,
which on dogs may not be spent.

Truth the ancient types fulfilling,
Isaac bound, a victim willing,
Paschal lamb, its lifeblood spilling,
manna to the fathers sent.

Very bread, good shepherd, tend us,
Jesu, of your love befriend us,
You refresh us, you defend us,
Your eternal goodness send us
In the land of life to see.

You who all things can and know,
Who on earth such food bestow,
Grant us with your saints, though lowest,
Where the heav’nly feast you show,
Fellow heirs and guests to be. Amen. Alleluia.

Peace be with you,
Deacon Gerry