The Rites of Maundy Thursday

At The Chrism Mass

Renewal of Vows

The Bishop addresses the people in these words

Dear friends, the ministry we share is none other than the sacrificial ministry of Christ, who gave himself up to death on the cross for the salvation of the world.  By his glorious resurrection he has opened for us the way of everlasting life. By the gift of the Holy Spirit he shares with us the riches of his grace.

We are called to proclaim his death and resurrection, to administer the Sacraments of the New Covenant which he sealed with his blood on the cross, and to care for his people in the power of the Spirit.

Do you here, in the presence of Christ and his Church, renew your commitment to your ministry, under the pastoral direction of your bishop?

etc ....

Following the postcommunion prayer, the Bishop says

Dear Friends in Christ: In the beginning, the Spirit of God hovered over the creation; and, throughout history, God, by the gift of the Holy Spirit, has empowered his people to serve him.  As a sign of that gift, the priests and kings of Israel were anointed with oil; and our Lord Jesus Christ was himself anointed with the Holy Spirit at his Baptism as the Christ, God's own Messiah.  At Baptism, Christians are likewise anointed by that same Spirit to empower them for God's service.  Let us now set apart this oil to be the sign of that anointing.

Let us pray. (Silence)

Eternal Father, whose blessed Son was anointed by the Holy Spirit to be the Savior and servant of all, we pray, you to consecrate this oil, that those who are sealed with it may share in the royal priesthood of Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever.  Amen.

At The Eucharist (in the evening):

Fellow servants of our Lord Jesus Christ: On the night before his death, Jesus set an example for his disciples by washing their feet, an act of humble service. He taught that strength and growth in the life of the Kingdom of God come not by power, authority, or even miracle, but by such lowly service.  We all need to remember his example, but none stand more in need of this reminder than those whom the Lord has called to the ordained ministry.

Therefore, I invite you [who have been appointed as representatives of the congregation and] who share in the royal priesthood of Christ, to come forward, that I may recall whose servant I am by following the example of my Master.  But come remembering his admonition that what will be done for ou is also to be done by you to others, for "a servant is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them."

When those who were set apart on Ash Wednesday to be signs of continual conversation within the fellowship of believers and are preparing to renew their baptismal vows at the Easter Vigil, the priest says 

N. N., you have been setting an example for us of that true turning to God which lies at the heart of our Christian calling.  Tonight, we welcome you to join us as disciples of Jesus Christ by imitating his example and dedicating ourselves to service among us in this community.  Christ Jesus came among us not to be served but to serve.  Tonight we wash your feet as a sign of that servanthood to which Christ has called us and we ask you in turn to join us in this symbol of our discipleship.  N. N., are you prepared to join us in our life of service?

Candidates:  We are prepared. 

The Church, Mystical Body of Christ

Some General Thoughts

The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ.  

The Holy Eucharist expresses the covenant relationship (I-Thou) 
between Christ and his people nurtured within the ecclesia.

Karl Rahner "On Holy Baptism"

Baptism ... the sacrament of incorporation into the Church.    ...    This incorporation, as adherence in faith to the sacred community of the Lord, in which the protestatio fidei is from the first not the enunciation of an individual and private view of the world, but the proclamation of acceptance of the Church's belief, ahherence to a belief already there and manifestly exercised in the Church, is not only one effect in fact of baptism, but is itself a sacrament, a sign of the other effects of the grace of baptism.

To be incorporated into the Church is, therefore sacramentum et res in tis sacrament of Christian initiation. That full membership of the Church as the Body of Christ is vivified by the Spirit, provided no obstacle is put in the way of the influence of the Spirit of the Church, can bring with it all the other effects of baptism, so that this membership can therefore be regarded as sacramentum et res, needs no lengthy proof after what we have said about the nature of the Church.  It should also be remembered that in the old testament and in the new, the subject of redemption to which God's mercy is addressed is in the first place always the people, the nations, the Church as the partner in the covenant (which the individual as such cannot be), and the individual only shares in grace as a member of such a people of the promise.  

It is sufficient to ask why through the baptismal character a human being shares in the priesthood of Christ and how this participation can be distinguished from the one that derives from grace.  The answer must surely be that it belongs to a man in as much as he is a member of the church and remains in relation to the Church: because the Church as the visible Church in the world of space and time (not only in the depth of the conscience sanctified by grace)  continues the priestly funciton of Christ the high-priest.  

Karl Rahner, The Church and The Sacraments, 1963

Karl Rahner "On The Eucharist"

Communion is a deeper incorporation into the mystical Body of Christ, because the redeemer has left his real Body to his Church, through which he wished to ahve all Christians joined together.

We can and must say that participation in the phyiscal Body of Christ by the reception of this sacrament imparts the grace of Christ to us in so far as this partaking on one bread (1 Cor 10-14;18) is an efficacious sign of the renewed, deeper, and personally ratified participation and incorporation in that Body of Christ in which one can share in his Holy Spirit, that is to say, the Church.

The celebration of the eucharist is an absolutely central event in the Church.

For faith tells us that the mass is always the Church's sacrifice .....  Communion is a deeper incorporation into the mystical Body of Christ, because the redeemer has left his real Body to his Church, through which he wished to have all Christians joined together. 

... the participation in the physical Body of Christ by the reception of this sacrament imparts grace of Christ to us in so far as this partaking of one bread (1 Cor 10:14-18) is an efficacious sign of the renewed, deeper, and personally ratified participation and incorporation in that Body of Christ in which one can share in his Holy Spirit, that is to say, the Church. 

Karl Rahner,  The Church and The Sacraments, New York, Herder and Herder, 1963

[ Sacrifice - 

When, therefore, the Apostle had exhorted us to present our bodies as a sacrifice, living, holy, pleasing to God - our spiritual service - and not to be conformed to this world but be transformed in the newness of our minds, that we might discern what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, he went on to remind us that it is we ourselves who constitute the whole sacrifice:   ....... For just as in one body we have many members, yet all the members have not the same function, so we, the many, are one body in Christ, but severally members one of another.  But we have gifts differing according to the grace that has been given us. (Rom 12:3-6 )  Such is the sacrifice of Christians: We, the many, are one body in Christ."  This is the Sacrifice, as the faithful understand, which the Church continues to celebrate in the sacrament of the altar, in which it is clear to the church that she herself is offered in the very offering she makes to God.

Augustine, The City of God, Book 10, Chapter 6.  

.. didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption; who made there, by his one oblation of himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world.

.... we, thy humble servants, do celebrate and make here before thy divine Majesty, with these thy holy gifts, which we now offer unto thee, the memorial thy Son hath commanded us to make; having in remembrance his blessed passion and precious death, his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension; rendering unto there most hearty thanks for the innumerable benefits procured by the same. 

And we earnestly desire thy fatherly goodness mercifully to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; ....

And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls, and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee; humbly beseeching thee that we, and all others, who shall be partakers of this Holy Communion, may worthily receive the most presence Body and Blood of thy Son Jesus Christ ....

He stretched out his arms upon the cross, and offered himself, in obedience to your will, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world. 

We celebrate the memorial of our redemption, O Father, in this sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. Recalling his death, resurrection, and ascension, we offer you these gifts.

Karl Rahner "On The Church"

[ Note:  Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ, gives expression, not only to the Blessed Sacrament, but also the Body of those called out of the world in Holy Baptism, into the ecclesial reality. Thus, the Feast of Corpus Christi is a feast, first of all the Church, and second of all, pariticipation of the faith in the very life of Christ's own Body and Blood.]

The Church is not merely a religious institution, established to meet religous needs.

.... by a consecration of the whole of mankind which took place in the incarnation and death on the cross of the eternal Word of the Father.

As the people of God socially and juridically organized, the Chruch is not a mere eternal welfare institute, but the continuation, the perpetual presence of the task and function of Christ in the economy of redemption, his contemporanceous presence in history, his life, the Church in the full and proper sense.


Christ is the primal sacramental word of God, uttered in the one history of mankind, in which God made known his irrovacable mercy that cannot be annulled by God or man, and did this by effecting it in Christ, and effected it by making it known.

The Church is th abiding presence of that primal sacramental word of definitive grace, which Christ is in the world, effecting what is uttered by uttering it in sign.  By the very fact of being in that way the enduring presence of Christ in the world, the Church is truly the fundamental sacrament, the well-spring of the sacraments in the strict sense.  From Christ the Church has an intrinsically sacramental structure.

(Christ) does not abaondon the Church, and cannot do so, since he himself wills to remain forever in the flesh of the one human family.

The abiding presence of Christ in the Church is the sign that God in his merciful love identifies himself in Chirst with the world.  And because the Church is the sign of the grace of God definitively trumphant in the world in Chirst, this sign can never - as a real possibility - become a meaningless symbol.

The Church is the official presence of the grace of Christ in the public history of the one human race. ... And wneh we examine what this one reallity implies, it means a presence, as it were an incarnation, of the truth of Christ in the Church through Scripture, tradition, and magisterium ....

... the Church is the primal and fundamental sacrament.

Karl Rahner,  The Church and the Sacraments

The Propers of a Feast

The Collect of the Day

O God, who under a wonderful Sacrament has left us a memorial of your Passion; grant us, so to venerate the sacred mysteries of your Body and Bllod that we may ever feel within us the fruit of your Redemption ....  (Roman Catholic)

God our Father, whose Son our Lord Jesus Christ in a wonderful Sacrament has left us a memorial of his passion: Grant us so to venerate the sacred mysteries of his Body and Blood, that we may ever perceive within ourselves the fruit of his redemption ... (Episcopal, Thursday, Votive)

O God, who in this wonderful Sacrament have left us a memorial of your Passion, grant us, we pray, so to revere the sacred mysteries of your Body and Blood that we may always experience in ourselves the fruits of your redemption.  (New Roman Missal)

Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you that in this wonderful Sacrament you have give us a memorial of your passion: grant us so to reverence the sacred mysteries of your body and blood that we may know within ourselves and show forth with our live the fruit of your redemption ... (Church of England)

Almighty God, your Son our Lord Jesus Christ gave us the wonderful sacrament of his body and blood to represent his death and to celebrate his resurrection: strengthen our devotion to him in these holy mysteries and through them renew our unity with him and one another .... (Church of South Africa)

O GOD, who in a wonderful Sacrament hast ordained unto us a Memory of thy Passion: grant us, we beseech thee, so to worship the sacred mysteries of thy Body and Blood, that we may ever know within ourselves the fruits of thy redemption ....  (Anglican Missal)

SECRET /  We beseech thee, O Lord, that like as we in these our oblations do shew forth in a mystery the unity and concord of thy Church: so thou wouldest ever mercifully bestow upon her these thy blessings .... (Anglican Missal)

The Readings

Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14b-16a  (New Roman Missal, Year A)

Exodus 24:3-8 (New Roman Missal, Year B)

Genesis 14:18-20 (New Roman Missal, Year C)

Genesis 14:18-20  (Church of England)

Deuteronomy 8:2-3  (Church of South Africa)

Exodus 24:2-8  (Church of Australia)

1 Corinthians 11:23-29  (Roman and Anglican Missal)

1 Corinthians 11:23-26 (Church of England)

1 Corinthians 10:16-17 (Church of South Africa)

1 Corinthians 10:14-21  (Church of Australia)

1 Corinthians 10:16-17 (New Roman Missal, Year A)

Hebrews 9:11-15  (New Roman Missal, Year B)

1 Corinthians 11:23-26 (New Roman Missal, Year C)

Psalm 144  (Roman and Anglican Missal)

Psalm 116:10-17  (Church of England)

Psalm 147 (Church of South Africa)

Psalm 116 (Church of Australia)

John 6:56-69  (Roman)

John 6:51-58  (Anglican Missal, Church of England, Church of South Africa)

Mark 14:`2-`6 (17-21) 22-26   (Church of Australia)

John 6:51-58 (New Roman Missal, Year A)

Mark 14:12-16,22-26 (New Roman Missal, Year B)

Luke 9:11-17  (New Roman Missal, Year C)

The Solemnity of Corpus Christi (Body of Christ), now celebrated in the Latin Church on the Sunday following Trinity Sunday, commemorates the institution of the Holy Eucharist. Formerly celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, it paralleled Maundy Thursday (Holy Thursday), which also commemorates Our Lord's institution of the Eucharist. Because Holy Thursday is in Holy Week, a season of sadness, the celebration of Corpus Christi was introduced so that the faithful would not lose sight of the institution of the Holy Eucharist.

Corpus Christi became a mandatory feast in the Roman Church in 1312. But nearly a century earlier, Saint Juliana of Mont Cornillon, promoted a feast to honor the Blessed Sacrament. From early age Juliana, who became an Augustinian nun in Liége, France, in 1206, had a great veneration for the Blessed Sacrament, and longed for a special feast in its honor. She had a vision of the Church under the appearance of the full moon having one dark spot, which signified the absence of such a solemnity. She made known her ideas to the Bishop of Liége, Robert de Thorete, to the Dominican Hugh who later became cardinal legate in the Netherlands, and to Jacques Panaléon, at the time Archdeacon of Liége and who later became Pope Urban IV. Bishop Robert de Thorete ordered that the feast be celebrated in his diocese.

Pope Urban IV later published the Bull Transiturus (September 8, 1264), in which, after having extolled the love of Our Savior as expressed in the Holy Eucharist, ordered the annual celebration of Corpus Christi on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. More than four decades later, Pope Clement V published a new decree which embodied Urban IV's decree and ordered the adoption of the feast at the General Council of Vienna (1311). Pope John XXII, successor of Clement V, urged this observance.

The processions on Corpus Christi to honor the Holy Eucharist were not mentioned in the decrees, but had become a principal feature of the feast's celebration by the faithful, and became a tradition throughout Europe. These processions were endowed with indulgences by Popes Martin V and Eugene IV.

Saint Thomas Aquinas was given the task of composing hymns for the celebration of Corpus Christi by Pope Urban IV. These are among the best known (and beloved) of all Latin hymns, because they were traditionally sung by the people during regular Eucharistic Devotions, as well as by the choir on Holy Thursday and Corpus Christi.

The Feast of Corpus Christi

DRAFT NOTES

In creation, God spoke, the Logos, the Word, brought order out of chaos; this same Word brought freedom out of captivity, Torah, the Prophets; and this same Word, incarnate surrenders itself into the hands of sinful humanity. 

The Real Presence of Christ in the bread and the wine is not an abstaction but the flowering of the mystery of our Lord's death and resurrection within the soul of the called, covenanted, and gathered community of the baptized.  

To be commented upon:


Corpus Christi & the Church of England

From at least the fourteenth century in the West and thus within the Ecclesia Anglicana the Feast of Corpus Christi was held on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday. Usually there were processions through the streets headed by the Blessed Sacrament. 

In the middle of the 16th century, the reformed Catholic Church of England ceased to keep the Feast because of doctrinal considerations; but the Roman Catholic Church has continued to keep it to this day and recently has given it the new name, Corpus et Sanguis Christi (Body & Blood of Christ). And, somewhat surprisingly, the Church of England has set in motion the revival of the Feast by making it a part of the Christian Year/Calendar in Common Worship 2000 (her new Directory of worship which is an alternative to The Book of Common Prayer of 1662) and providing a Collect and readings for it. 

In origin Corpus Christi was inextricably associated with the doctrine of transubstantiation, the view that the whole bread is changed in the act of consecration in the Mass into the true Body of Christ. Thus, this Body is not only to be consumed as Bread from heaven but also adored as Christ present amongst his people. Because of their rejection of the medieval doctrine of the Mass, it was inevitable that the Reformers should also reject this Feast. Thus there is no sign of it within The Book of Common Prayer. 

Common Worship (volume 1) informs us on page 407 that “the Thursday after Trinity Sunday may be observed as ‘The Day of Thanksgiving for the Institution of Holy Communion (Corpus Christi)’.” The liturgical colour is white, the Collect is addressed to “Lord Jesus Christ” and the Post Communion Prayer to “our God and Father”. The Epistle is 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 and the Gospel is John 6:51-58. 

In a Reformed Catholic Church, one wonders why this celebration is necessary since if Holy Week is kept there is a suitable recognition of the institution of this Sacrament on Maundy Thursday. It is true that some Anglo-Catholics have long kept this day but this is because they are committed to the doctrine of transubstantiation, which they freely accept has never been the doctrine of the reformed Church of England. 

Apparently the liturgists responsible for Common Worship thought it would be good to follow the modern Roman Catholic festival of “The Body and Blood of Christ” but to soften it by giving it a generalised and apparently harmless title. However, the Collect (though based on an original said to be by St Thomas Aquinas) is somewhat vague and may be taken as either validating the doctrine of transubstantiation or simply stating a very high view of this Sacrament in terms of the value of the consecrated elements. 

“Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you that in this wonderful sacrament you have given us the memorial of your passion: grant us so to reverence the sacred mysteries of your body and blood that we may know within ourselves and show forth in our lives the fruits of your redemption;…” 

The opening declaration is fine. The petition introduces the idea of reverencing the consecrated elements as “the sacred mysteries of your body and blood”. To reverence the elements is presumably to attribute to them divine content or quality or character. But on the basis of which C of E doctrine is this done? 

This Collect is a revised form of the Latin Collect for the medieval festival of Corpus Christi. In 1929 the Scottish Episcopal Church provided a similar Collect as an additional Collect for Maundy Thursday and in 1979 the American Episcopal Church did the same, stating that it was especially suitable for use on any Thursday. More recently several Provinces of the Anglican Communion have included “Thanksgiving for Holy Communion” in their Calendars for the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. 

In origin the doctrine of transubstantiation led to the festival of Corpus Christi. Now it seems a love of festivals and a desire to imitate Rome by liturgists are causing the revival of the festival under a new name and without the doctrine of transubstantiation to support it. Thus it hangs in vague space to be blown by any wind that touches it.

The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)

Communal verses Association
Incarnation verses voluntary response
real presence verses receptionism

Quotes to find:

In the Mass Christ comes to a place where he already is; the body of Christ given to the body of Christ.  (AUGUSTINE)

___________

Saint Augustine of Hippo, Sermon on the Eucharist


What you see on God's altar, you've already observed during the night that has now ended. But you've heard nothing about just what it might be, or what it might mean, or what great thing it might be said to symbolize. 

For what you see is simply bread and a cup - this is the information your eyes report. But your faith demands far subtler insight: the bread is Christ's body, the cup is Christ's blood. Faith can grasp the fundamentals quickly, succinctly, yet it hungers for a fuller account of the matter. 

As the prophet says, "Unless you believe, you will not understand." [Is. 7.9; Septuagint] So you can say to me, "You urged us to believe; now explain, so we can understand." Inside each of you, thoughts like these are rising: "Our Lord Jesus Christ, we know the source of his flesh; he took it from the virgin Mary. Like any infant, he was nursed and nourished; he grew; became a youngster; suffered persecution from his own people. To the wood he was nailed; on the wood he died; from the wood, his body was taken down and buried. On the third day (as he willed) he rose; he ascended bodily into heaven whence he will come to judge the living and the dead. There he dwells even now, seated at God's right. 

So how can bread be his body? And what about the cup? How can it (or what it contains) be his blood?" My friends, these realities are called sacraments because in them one thing is seen, while another is grasped. What is seen is a mere physical likeness; what is grasped bears spiritual fruit. 

So now, if you want to understand the body of Christ, listen to the Apostle Paul speaking to the faithful: "You are the body of Christ, member for member." [1 Cor. 12.27] If you, therefore, are Christ's body and members, it is your own mystery that is placed on the Lord's table! It is your own mystery that you are receiving! You are saying "Amen" to what you are: your response is a personal signature, affirming your faith. 

When you hear "The body of Christ", you reply "Amen." Be a member of Christ's body, then, so that your "Amen" may ring true! But what role does the bread play? We have no theory of our own to propose here; listen, instead, to what Paul says about this sacrament: "The bread is one, and we, though many, are one body." [1 Cor. 10.17] Understand and rejoice: unity, truth, faithfulness, love. "One bread," he says. What is this one bread? Is it not the "one body," formed from many? Remember: bread doesn't come from a single grain, but from many. When you received exorcism, you were "ground." When you were baptized, you were "leavened." When you received the fire of the Holy Spirit, you were "baked." Be what you see; receive what you are. This is what Paul is saying about the bread. So too, what we are to understand about the cup is similar and requires little explanation. In the visible object of bread, many grains are gathered into one just as the faithful (so Scripture says) form "a single heart and mind in God" [Acts 4.32]. And thus it is with the wine. Remember, friends, how wine is made. Individual grapes hang together in a bunch, but the juice from them all is mingled to become a single brew. This is the image chosen by Christ our Lord to show how, at his own table, the mystery of our unity and peace is solemnly consecrated. All who fail to keep the bond of peace after entering this mystery receive not a sacrament that benefits them, but an indictment that condemns them. So let us give God our sincere and deepest gratitude, and, as far as human weakness will permit, let us turn to the Lord with pure hearts. With all our strength, let us seek God's singular mercy, for then the Divine Goodness will surely hear our prayers. God's power will drive the Evil One from our acts and thoughts; it will deepen our faith, govern our minds, grant us holy thoughts, and lead us, finally, to share the divine happiness through God's own son Jesus Christ. Amen!

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011

New Liturgical Movement

The Institution of the Feast of Corpus Christi

BY GREGORY DIPIPPO

From the life of St. Juliana of Mont-Cornillon, sometimes called Juliana of Liège, according to the 1791 Breviary of Liège.

The Most High God, who chooses the weak things of this world, wondrously deigned to elect (this) humble virgin, endowed with a singular grace, to obtain a special feast of His Body. For as she lay prostrate daily before the most august Sacrament of the Eucharist, she learned by divine revelations that a special solemnity of the Body of Christ was to be instituted. When she declared these revelations to certain holy and learned men, the matter was examined in due time, and they judged that such a solemnity would be useful to further the glory of God and the devotion of Christ’s faithful towards the most holy and august Sacrament of the Eucharist; and so they and she induced the bishop to institute the feast. The first to do so was Bishop Robert of Liège in the year 1246, who commanded that it be celebrated throughout his diocese; at the behest of the Blessed Eve, the companion of Juliana, Urban IV afterwards gave his approval, and extended the feast to the universal church.

St. Juliana died in the year 1252, nine years before the former archdeacon of her native city, Jacques Pantaléon, was elected to the papacy with the name Urban IV; he is one of the “learned men” referred to above who were consulted on the propriety of adding a feast to the Temporal Cycle of the liturgical year. The vision to which Juliana’s legend refers was one of a full moon with a dark spot on it, which appeared to her both day and night over many years; the meaning of it was imparted to her by the Lord Himself, namely, that something was missing from the liturgical year, since there was no special feast to honor the Blessed Sacrament.

The Vision of St. Juliana, by Philippe de Champaigne, ca. 1650.

In his homily for the office of Corpus Christi, written at the request of Urban IV, St. Thomas Aquinas notes that:

(a)lthough on the day of the (Lord’s) Supper, when we know the Sacrament to have been instituted, a special mention is made of this fact in the solemn Mass, nevertheless, all the rest of the day’s services pertains to Christ’s Passion, which the Church is concerned to venerate at that time. In order that the faithful may once again honor the institution of so great a Sacrament with its own service, the Roman Pontiff Urban IV, moved by his devotion to It, piously decreed that the memory of this institution should be celebrated by all the faithful on the first Thursday after the Octave of Pentecost, so that we who make use of this Sacrament throughout the year unto our salvation, may specially honor Its institution at that time when the Holy Spirit taught the hearts of the disciples to know the mysteries thereof; for at the same time did the Sacrament begin to be frequented by the faithful.

The bull “Transiturus” by which Pope Urban established the feast in 1264, the last year of his short pontificate, was in some places read in the Divine Office for the lessons of Matins during the octave of Corpus Christi; this was the custom in the medieval use of Prague, and in the post-Tridentine uses of Liège and of the Carthusian Order.

Bishop Urban, servant of the servants of God, to his venerable brethren the archbishops and their suffragans, greetings and apostolic blessing. When Our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, was about to pass from this world to the Father, as the time of His Passion drew nigh, having taken supper, He instituted unto the memory of His death the most exalted and magnificent Sacrament of His Body and Blood, giving His Body to eat and His Blood to drink. For however so often we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim the death of the Lord. In the institution of this saving Sacrament, He said to the Apostles, “Do this in memory of Me”, so that this august and venerable Sacrament might be the special and particular memorial of the exceptional love with which He loved us: this memorial, I say, wondrous and astounding, full of delight, sweet, most secure, and precious above all things, in which signs are renewed and wonders changed, in which is contained every delight and the enjoyment of every savor, and the very sweetness of the Lord is tasted, by which we do indeed obtain the support of our life and salvation. This is the memorial most sweet, most sacred, most holy, profitable unto salvation, by which we recall the grace of our redemption; by which we are drawn away from evil and strengthened in good, and advance to the increase of virtues and graces, by the bodily presence of the Savior.