June 18, 2006> 10:48 PM
corpus christi The feast of Corpus Christi - the Body and Blood of our Lord - today. I'm a little sad that I'm a bit removed from that now. And we did the unforgiveable today and didn't "have church." It was a bit more of a day of rest. After Liz and I prayed our Morning Prayer this morning out back, which was the standard Sunday week 3 deal, I read a reading from the Corpus Christi Office of Readings from St. Thomas Aquinas. Good stuff. I'll share that with you now.
O precious and wonderful banquet! "Since it was the will of God's only begotten Son that men should share in his divinity, he assumed our nature in order that by becoming man he might make men gods. Moreover, when he took our flesh he dedicated the whole of its substance to our salvation. He offered his body to God the Father on the altar of the cross as a sacrifice for our reconciliation. He shed his blood for our ransom and purification, so that we might be redeemed from our wretched state of bondage and cleansed from all sin. But to ensure that the memory of so great a gift would abide with us for ever, he left his body as food and his blood as dri8nk for the faithful to consume in the form of bread and wine."
"O precious and wonderful banquet, that brings us salvation and contains all sweetness! Could anything be of more intrinsic value? Under the old law it was the flesh of calves and goats that was offered, but here Christ himself, the true God, is set before us as our food. What could be more wonderful than this? No other sacrament has greater healing power; through it sins are purged away, virtues are increased, and the soul is enriched with an abundance of every spiritual gift."
Know that in this bread is the body of Christ which is hung on the cross, and in this cup, the blood of Christ which flowed from his side. Take, therefore, and eat his body; take and drink his blood, –and you will become members of his body.
Eat this sacred food, so that your bond of unity with Christ may never be broken. Drink this sacred blood, the price he paid for you, so that you may never lose heart because of your sinfulness. –And you will become members of his body.
June 18, 2006
> 10:48 PM
The feast of Corpus Christi - the Body and Blood of our Lord - today. I'm a little sad that I'm a bit removed from that now. And we did the unforgiveable today and didn't "have church." It was a bit more of a day of rest. After Liz and I prayed our Morning Prayer this morning out back, which was the standard Sunday week 3 deal, I read a reading from the Corpus Christi Office of Readings from St. Thomas Aquinas. Good stuff. I'll share that with you now.
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