'We are the Body of Christ' A Meditation before the Blessed Sacrament

 

‘We are the body of Christ’

 

Jesus, we honour your body, incarnate, risen and glorified, your Body present with us now in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.

 

By baptism and grace, we, your Church, are your Body on earth, bound together, as limbs and members, by the one Spirit who you breathed upon your disciples in the Upper Room.

 

That same Holy Spirit overshadowed your mother, Mary, who said ‘let it be to me according to your word’ (Luke 1.38b).

 

You took flesh in the body of Mary. As St Augustine reminds us, your blessed Mother  ‘conceived [you] in her heart before she conceived [you] in her womb’.

 

Jesus, may you be conceived in our minds, and fill our bodies with your life.

 

From Mary’s body you were born in time and place, in Bethlehem, a town whose name means ‘House of Bread’.

 

In this church, this House of Bread, the Bread of Your Presence, we feed on your Body to become your body.

 

In your Incarnation, becoming human, you hallow matter and our bodies: our bodies matter to you.

 

We pray this night for the wounded, hungry, thirsty and abused bodies of men, women and children in Ukraine, Afghanistan, of Tigray and Ethiopia and in this country and community.

 

Jesus, in your body we find healing of our bodies, our minds, our spirits. Be to us the food for our journey.

 

May all your people find their souls satisfied and may we be led to the banquet of heaven.

 

Jesus, by your grace we are your body; help us each to grow into the full stature of your love.

 

Silence

 

Blessed be God.

Blessed be his holy name.

Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true man.

Blessed be the name of Jesus.

Blessed be his most Sacred Heart.

Blessed be his most Precious Blood.

Blessed be Jesus in the most holy Sacrament of the altar.

Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.

Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most Holy.

Blessed be her holy and immaculate Conception.

Blessed be her glorious assumption.

Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother.

Blessed be St Joseph, her spouse most chaste.

Blessed be God in his angels and in his saints.