Communicating, and celebrating the most sacred day, on which Our Lord, Jesus Christ, was betrayed. Thou, o Lord, didst command us to be partakers of Thy Son, sharers of Thy kingdom, dwellers in Paradise, companions of the Angels; ever provided we keep the sacraments of the heavenly army with pure and undefiled faith. And what may we not hope of Thy mercy, we who received so great a gift, that we might merit to offer Thee such a Victim, namely, the Body and Blood of Our Lord, Jesus Christ? Who for the redemption of the world gave himself up to that holy and venerable Passion; Who instituting the form of the perennial sacrifice of salvation, first offered Himself as the Victim, and first taught that It be offered. But also venerating the memory etc. (
The Communicantes
of the Mass of the Lord’s Supper in the Ambrosian Rite.)
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| The Last Supper, by Domenico Ghirlandaio, 1486, in the Dominican church of St Mark in Florence. |
Communicantes, et diem sacratissimum celebrantes, quo traditus est Dominus noster, Jesus Christus. Tu nos, Domine, participes Filii tui, tu consortes regni tui, tu incolas paradisi, tu angelorum comites esse iussisti, si tamen illaesa et intemerata fide, caelestis militiae sacramenta servamus. Haud quid desperare de tua misericordia possumus, qui tantum munus accepimus, ut talem tibi hostiam offerre mereremur, Corpus scilicet et Sanguinem Domini nostri Jesu Christi, qui se pro mundi redemptione piae illi ac venerandae tradidit passioni: qui formam sacrificii salutis perennis instituens hostiam se primus obtulit et primus docuit offerri. Sed et memoriam venerantes etc.
