SOLEMNITY OF THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST

A holy hour before the blessed sacrament
Eucharistic and Marian Year
2005

Part I

Let us Adore the Lord!

Hymn(Stand)

Introductory Prayers (Kneel)

Leader: Who has the right to climb the mountain of Yahweh,
who has the right to stand in his holy place?
He whose hands are clean, whose heart is pure,
whose soul does not pay homage to worthless things,
and who never swears to a lie.
The blessing of Yahweh is his, and vindication from God, his saviour.
Such are the people who seek him,
who seek your presence, God of Jacob! (Ps 24:3-6)

(Moment of silent adoration and examination of conscience)

Come, let us adore(Ps 95:1-9) (Stand)

Leader: Come, let us adore Jesus in the Eucharist!

All: Come let us adore Jesus in the Eucharist!

Leader: Come, ring out our joy to the Lord, hail the God who saves us.
Let us come before him, giving thanks;
with song, let us hail the Lord!

All: Come, let us adore Jesus in the Eucharist!

Leader: A mighty God is the Lord,
a great king above all gods.
In his hands are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his.
To him belongs the sea, for he made,
and the dry land shaped by his hands.

All: Come, let us adore Jesus in the Eucharist!

Leader: Come in! Let us bow and bend low;
let us kneel before the Lord who made us, for he is our God,
and we the people who belong to his pasture,
the flock that is led by his hand.

All: Come, let us adore Jesus in the Eucharist!

Leader: O that today you would listen to his voice:

"Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as on that day at Massah in the desert,
when your fathers put me to the test;
when they tried me, though they saw my work.”

All: Come, let us adore Jesus in the Eucharist!

Act of Adoration (Kneel)

Leader: Jesus, our God,

All: We adore you,
here present in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar,
where You wait day and night, to be our comfort
while we look forward to Your unveiled Presence in heaven.
Jesus, our God, we adore You in all places
where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved,
especially where You are less honored,
and where sins are committed against this Sacrament of Love.
Jesus, our God, we adore You for all time,
past, present and future, for every soul that ever was, is,
or shall be created.
Jesus, our God, who for us has endured hunger and cold,
labor and fatigue, we adore You.
Jesus, our God, who for our sake has deigned to subject Yourself
to the humiliation of temptation,
to the perfidy and defection of friends,
to the scorn of Your enemies, we adore You.
Jesus, our God who for us has endured the buffetings of your Passion,
the scourging, the crown of thorns,
the heavy weight of the cross, we adore you.
Jesus our God, who for our salvation,
and that of all mankind was cruelly nailed to the Cross,
hung thereon for three long hours in bitter agony we adore.
Jesus, our God, who for love of us,
did institute this Blessed Sacrament does offer Yourself
daily for the sins of men, we adore You.
Jesus, our God, who in Holy Communion becomes
the food of our souls, we adore You.
Jesus, I live for you, Jesus, I die for you, Jesus,
I am yours, in life and in death. Amen

Reading(All Sit Down)

Ez 34:11-16

A reading from the book of the Prophet Ezekiel

Thus says the Lord God: I myself will look after and tend my sheep. As a shepherd tends his flock when he finds himself among his scattered sheep, so will I tend my sheep. I will rescue them every place where they were scattered when it was cloudy and dark. I will lead them out from among the peoples and gather them from foreign lands; I will bring them back to their own country and pasture them upon the mountains of Israel (in the land’s ravines and all its inhabited places). In good pastures will I pasture them, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing ground. There they shall lie down on good grazing ground, and in rich pastures shall they be pastured on the mountains of Israel. I myself will pasture my sheep; I myself will give them rest, says the Lord God. The injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal (but the sleek and the strong I will destroy), shepherding them rightly.

The word of the Lord.

All: Thanks be to God.

(Some moments of silent reflection)

Hymn: (All Stand)

Ang Panginoon ay Aking Pastol

KORO: Ang Panginoon ang aking Pastol,
Pinagiginhawa akong lubos.

1. Handog n’yang himlaya’y sariwang pastulan,
ang pahingahan ko’y payapang batisan.
Hatid sa kaluluwa ay kaginhawan,
sa tumpak na landas, siya ang patnubay. (KORO)

2. Madilim na lambak man ang tatahakin ko,
wala akong sindak, siya’y kasama ko.
Ang hawak n’yang tungkod ang siyang gabay ko,
Tangan n’yang pamalo, sigla’t tanggulan ko. (KORO)

Part II

Meditating on the Mystery of the Eucharist

Gospel (All Stand)

Jn 13:1-17

Now he showed how perfect was his love

+ A reading from the holy Gospel according to John

Before the feast of Passover, Jesus realized that the hour had come for him to pass from this world to the Father. He had loved his own in this world, and would show his love for them to the end. The devil had already induced Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, to hand Jesus over; and so, during the supper, Jesus — fully aware that he had come from God and was going to God, the Father who had handed everything over to him — rose from the meal and took off his cloak. He picked up a towel and tied it around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet and dry them with the towel he had around him. Thus he came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You may not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter replied, “You shall never wash my feet!” “If I do not wash you,” Jesus answered, “you will have no share in my heritage.” “Lord,” Simon Peter said to him, “then not only my feet, but my hands and head as well.” Jesus told him, “The man who has bathed has no need to wash [except for his feet]; he is entirely cleansed, just as you are; though not all.” (The reason he said, “Not all are washed clean,” was that he knew his betrayer.)

After he had washed their feet, he put his cloak back on and reclined at table once more. He said to them:

"Do you understand what I just did for you?
You address me as ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’
and fittingly enough,
for that is what I am.
But if I washed your feet –
I who am Teacher and Lord –
then you must wash each other’s feet.
What I just did was to give you an example:
as I have done, so you must do.
"I solemnly assure you,
no slave is greater than his master;
no messenger outranks the one who sent him.
Once you know all these things,
blest will you be if you put them into practice.

The Gospel of the Lord.

R. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

REFLECTION (All sit down)

Ecclesia de Eucharistia

The presider may give a brief reflection, or the following reflection may be read, or, in place of the reflection, a prayerful silence may be observed.

Let us listen to the Encyclical Letter, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, of Pope John Paul II on the Eucharist in its Relationship to the Church

"The Lord Jesus on the night he was betrayed” (1 Cor 11:23) instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of his body and his blood. The words of the Apostle Paul bring us back to the dramatic setting in which the Eucharist was born. The Eucharist is indelibly marked by the event of the Lord’s passion and death, of which it is not only a reminder but the sacramental re-presentation. It is the sacrifice of the Cross perpetuated down the ages. This truth is well expressed by the words with which the assembly in the Latin rite responds to the priest’s proclamation of the “Mystery of Faith”: “We announce your death, O Lord”.

The Church has received the Eucharist from Christ her Lord not as one gift however precious among so many others, but as the gift par excellence, for it is the gift of himself, of his person in his sacred humanity, as well as the gift of his saving work. Nor does it remain confined to the past, since “all that Christ is all that he did and suffered for all men participates in the divine eternity, and so transcends all times.”

When the Church celebrates the Eucharist, the memorial of her Lord’s death and resurrection, this central event of salvation becomes really present and “the work of our redemption is carried out.” This sacrifice is so decisive for the salvation of the human race that Jesus Christ offered it and returned to the Father only after he had left us a means of sharing in it as if we had been present there. Each member of the faithful can thus take part in it and inexhaustibly gain its fruits. This is the faith from which generations of Christians down the ages have lived. The Church’s Magisterium has constantly reaffirmed this faith with joyful gratitude for its inestimable gift. I wish once more to recall this truth and to join you, my dear brothers and sisters, in adoration before this mystery: a great mystery, a mystery of mercy. What more could Jesus have done for us? Truly, in the Eucharist, he shows us a love which goes “to the end” (cf. Jn 13:1), a love which knows no measure.

This aspect of the universal charity of the Eucharistic Sacrifice is based on the words of the Saviour himself. In instituting it, he did not merely say: “This is my body”, “this is my blood”, but went on to add: “which is given for you”, “which is poured out for you” (Lk 22:19-20). Jesus did not simply state that what he was giving them to eat and drink was his body and his blood; he also expressed its sacrificial meaning and made sacramentally present his sacrifice which would soon be offered on the Cross for the salvation of all. “The Mass is at the same time, and inseparably, the sacrificial memorial in which the sacrifice of the Cross is perpetuated and the sacred banquet of communion with the Lord’s body and blood”.

The Church constantly draws her life from the redeeming sacrifice; she approaches it not only through faith-filled remembrance, but also through a real contact, since this sacrifice is made present ever anew, sacramentally perpetuated, in every community which offers it at the hands of the consecrated minister. The Eucharist thus applies to men and women today the reconciliation won once for all by Christ for mankind in every age. “The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice”. Saint John Chrysostom put it well: “We always offer the same Lamb, not one today and another tomorrow, but always the same one. For this reason the sacrifice is always only one... Even now we offer that victim who was once offered and who will never be consumed”.

The Mass makes present the sacrifice of the Cross; it does not add to that sacrifice nor does it multiply it. What is repeated is its memorial celebration, its “commemorative representation” (memorialis demonstratio), which makes Christ’s one, definitive redemptive sacrifice always present in time. The sacrificial nature of the Eucharistic mystery cannot therefore be understood as something separate, independent of the Cross or only indirectly referring to the sacrifice of Calvary.

(Silent Reflection)

ACCLAMATION(Jn 6:35, 53-58) (Stand)

Leader: I am the bread of life.

All: I am the bread of life.

Leader: He who comes to me will never be hungry;
he who believes in me will never thirst.

All: I am the bread of life.

Leader: 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.

All: I am the bread of life.

Leader: Anyone who does eat my flesh
and drink my blood,
has eternal life,
and I shall raise him up on the last day.

All: I am the bread of life.

Leader: For my flesh is real food,
and my blood is real drink.

All: I am the bread of life.

Leader: He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood
lives in me, and I live in him.

All: I am the bread of life.

Leader: As I, who am sent by the living Father,
myself draw life from the Father,
so whoever eats me will draw life from me.

All: I am the bread of life.

Leader: This is the bread come down from heaven:
anyone who eats this bread will live for ever.

All: I am the bread of life.

(Silent Reflection)

Part III

An Offering of Prayers

(Stand)

Leader: Let us pray that our presence here
may be acceptable to God the Almighty Father.

All: May the Lord, who has called us to his
presence, welcome us, listen to our prayers,
and bring us closer to himself.

HYMN (Stand)

Isang Pagkain, Isang Katawan, Isang Bayan

1. Katulad ng mga butil na tinitipon,
upang maging tinapay na nagbibigay-buhay.
Kami nawa’y matipon din at maging bayan mong giliw

KORO: Iisang Panginoon, iisang Katawan,
Isang bayan, isang lahing sa ’yo’y nagpupugay. (Ulitin)

2. Katulad din ng mga ubas na piniga at naging alak:
sino mang uminom nito: “may buhay na walang hanggan.”
Kami nawa’y maging sangkap sa pagbuo nitong bayang liyag. (KORO)

THE NEW COMMANDMENT (Sit)

Leader: “I give you a new commandment:
love one another.
Just as I have loved you,
You also must love one another” (Jn 13:34).

All: I give you a new commandment.

Leader: “Do not judge,
and you will not be judged” (Mt 7:1).
"Do not condemn,
and you will not be condemned” (Lk 6.37).

All: I give you a new commandment.

Leader: “Why do you observe the splinter
in your brother’s eye,
and never notice the plank in your own?” (Mt 7:3)

All: I give you a new commandment.

Leader: “If you forgive others their failings,
your heavenly Father
will forgive you yours” (Mt 6:14).

All: I give you a new commandment.

Leader: “Love your enemies, and pray
for those who persecute you” (Mt 5:44).

All: I give you a new commandment.

Leader: “If you only love those who love you,
what right have you
to claim any credit?” (Mt 5:46)

All: I give you a new commandment.

Leader: “Always treat others
as you would like them to treat you” (Mt 7:12).

All: I give you a new commandment.

Leader: “If you are bringing your offering to the altar,
and there remember that your brother
has something against you,
leave your offering there before the altar,
go and be reconciled with your brother first,
and then come back
and present your offering” (Mt 5:23-24).

All: I give you a new commandment.

Leader: “Be compassionate
as your Father is compassionate” (Lk 6:36).

All: I give you a new commandment.

Leader: “In so far as you did this
to one of the least of these brothers of mine,
you did it to me” (Mt 25:40).

All: I give you a new commandment.

Leader: “By this love you have for one another
everyone will know that you are my disciples” (Jn 13:35).

All: I give you a new commandment:
love one another.
Just as I have loved you,
you also must love one another.

* INTERCESSORY PRAYERS (Stand)

Leader: “If you ask for anything in my name,
I will do it” (Jn 14:14).
In the spirit of the new commandment,
and in the name of Jesus, let us now pray
for the needs of the world and of the Church.