Sunday 06 June – claretonline

The Body and Blood of Christ

1. My Body and Blood for You

2. The Blood of the Covenant

Greeting (see Second Reading)

Christ has come,
and in his own blood
he took us up in God’s love
in a new and lasting covenant.
May he keep us united with God
and be always with you. R/ And also with you.

Introduction by the Celebrant

1. My Body and Blood for You

We admire great men and women who dedicated their lives to the good of others and were even willing to die for them. This is precisely what we celebrate whenever we come together for the Eucharist. We celebrate Jesus’ life and death for us, but also his resurrection, for he is alive here among us, in his Church, in our world. But when we do what he told us to do, “Do this in memory of me,” we must also learn to give ourselves to God and to people, the way Jesus gave himself. In this Eucharist he gives us this disposition.

2. The Blood of the Covenant

Many bodies are broken today through the use of brute force and torture; much blood is shed of innocent people and children. Violence leads to hatred and more violence. Today we hear of Someone whose broken body brought us peace, who shed his blood to bring us God’s forgiveness and love. “This is my body given for you. This is my blood of the everlasting covenant. Every Eucharist is a message of hope that the love of God is with us now and for ever. Let us thank the Father today for the great gift of Jesus’ Eucharist.

Penitential Act

Do we commit ourselves to the good of others,
even when the cost is high?
Let us examine ourselves before the Lord.
(pause)
Lord Jesus, you said:
‘‘This is my body, this is I myself
who give myself for you.”
Lord, have mercy. R/ Lord, have mercy.

Jesus Christ, you said:
‘‘This is my blood of the covenant
shed for you and for all people”:
Christ, have mercy. R/ Christ, have mercy.

Lord Jesus, you said,
‘‘This is my body for the life of the world.
Anyone who eats this has eternal life.”
Lord, have mercy. R/ Lord, have mercy.

Have mercy on us, Lord,
and let the Eucharist bring us
the forgiveness of all our sins
and lead us to everlasting life. R/ Amen.

Opening Prayer

1. My Body and Blood for You

Let us pray that we may offer this Eucharist
with the commitment of Jesus.
(pause)
Lord our God,
you do not accept our soulless sacrifices
if we do not commit ourselves to you and each other.
We stand before you without any other sacrifice
than that of your beloved Son
who shed his blood out of love.
Fill us with his Spirit,
that we too may live for you
and for one another
with a generous, self-forgetting love
that unites all, loves all, serves all.
We ask this in the name of Jesus the Lord. R/ Amen.

2. The Blood of the Covenant

Let us pray to God
that we may encounter him in his Son
(pause)
Living God of the covenant,
you have chosen us to make us for ever
blood relatives of you
and brothers and sisters of one another
through the blood of Jesus, your Son.
Let us encounter you
and bind us closely to you
through him who is our food of unity
and our drink of joy,
Jesus Christ, your Son and our Lord,
who lives with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. R/ Amen.

First Reading: Blood Relatives of God

God chooses himself a people and shares its destiny. He unites it to himself by ties of blood and by eating and drinking with them.

Reading 1: EX 24:3-8

When Moses came to the people
and related all the words and ordinances of the LORD,
they all answered with one voice,
“We will do everything that the LORD has told us.”
Moses then wrote down all the words of the LORD and,
rising early the next day,
he erected at the foot of the mountain an altar
and twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel.
Then, having sent certain young men of the Israelites
to offer holocausts and sacrifice young bulls
as peace offerings to the LORD,
Moses took half of the blood and put it in large bowls;
the other half he splashed on the altar.
Taking the book of the covenant, he read it aloud to the people,
who answered, “All that the LORD has said, we will heed and do.”
Then he took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, saying,
“This is the blood of the covenant
that the LORD has made with you
in accordance with all these words of his.”

Responsorial Psalm: Ps 116:12-13, 15-16, 17-18

R. (13) I will take the cup of salvation, and call on the name of the Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
How shall I make a return to the LORD
for all the good he has done for me?
The cup of salvation I will take up,
and I will call upon the name of the LORD.
R. I will take the cup of salvation, and call on the name of the Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Precious in the eyes of the LORD
is the death of his faithful ones.
I am your servant, the son of your handmaid;
you have loosed my bonds.
R. I will take the cup of salvation, and call on the name of the Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
To you will I offer sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and I will call upon the name of the LORD.
My vows to the LORD I will pay
in the presence of all his people.
R. I will take the cup of salvation, and call on the name of the Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.

Second Reading: God’s New People in the Blood of Christ

By shedding his blood for us, Christ has transfused new life into God’s people. Now we are capable of freedom from sin and of lasting faithfulness to God.

Reading 2: HEB 9:11-15

Brothers and sisters:
When Christ came as high priest
of the good things that have come to be,
passing through the greater and more perfect tabernacle
not made by hands, that is, not belonging to this creation,
he entered once for all into the sanctuary,
not with the blood of goats and calves
but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.
For if the blood of goats and bulls
and the sprinkling of a heifer’s ashes
can sanctify those who are defiled
so that their flesh is cleansed,
how much more will the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God,
cleanse our consciences from dead works
to worship the living God.

For this reason, he is the mediator of a new covenant:
since a death has taken place for deliverance
from transgressions under the first covenant,
those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.

Sequence

Lauda Sion

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.

The shorter form of the sequence begins here.

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.

Alleluia: JN 6:51

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven,
says the Lord;
whoever eats this bread will live forever.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel: The Meal of our Covenant

Jesus renews the covenant with us when he shares his body and blood with us in every Eucharistic celebration.

Gospel: MK 14:12-16, 22-26

On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread,
when they sacrificed the Passover lamb,
Jesus’ disciples said to him,
“Where do you want us to go
and prepare for you to eat the Passover?”
He sent two of his disciples and said to them,
“Go into the city and a man will meet you,
carrying a jar of water.
Follow him.
Wherever he enters, say to the master of the house,
‘The Teacher says, “Where is my guest room
where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”‘
Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready.
Make the preparations for us there.”
The disciples then went off, entered the city,
and found it just as he had told them;
and they prepared the Passover.
While they were eating,
he took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, gave it to them, and said,
“Take it; this is my body.”
Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them,
and they all drank from it.
He said to them,
“This is my blood of the covenant,
which will be shed for many.
Amen, I say to you,
I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine
until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
Then, after singing a hymn,
they went out to the Mount of Olives.

Intercession

Let us pray with the fullest trust to God our Father, for he has chosen us as his partners in life set free by the blood of his Son. Let us say: