Lauda Sion Salvatorem

Sion, lift thy voice, and sing;
Praise thy Saviour and thy King;
Praise with hymns thy Shepherd true:
Strive thy best to praise Him well;
Yet doth He all praise excel;
None can ever reach His due.

See to-day before us laid
The living and life-giving Bread!
Theme for praise and joy profound!
The same which at the sacred board
Was, by our Incarnate Lord,
Giv’n to his Apostles round.

Let the praise be loud and high;
Sweet and tranquil be the joy
Felt to-day in every breast;
On this Festival divine,
Which records the origin
Of the glorious Eucharist.

On this Table of the King,
Our new Paschal offering
Brings to end the olden rite;
Here, for empty shadows fled.
Is Reality instead;
Here, instead of darkness, Light.

His own act, at supper seated,
Christ ordain’d to be repeated.
In His Memory divine;
Wherefore now, with adoration,
We the Host of our salvation
Consecrate from bread and wine.

Hear what holy Church maintaineth,
That the bread its substance changeth
Into Flesh, the wine to Blood.
Doth it pass thy comprehending?
Faith, the law of sight transcending,
Leaps to things not understood.

Here, beneath these signs, are hidden
Priceless things, to sense forbidden;
Signs, not things, are all we see;
Flesh from bread, and Blood from wine;
Yet is Christ, in either sign,
All entire, confess’d to be.

They too, who of Him partake,
Sever not, nor rend, nor break,
But entire, their Lord receive.
Whether one or thousands eat.
All receive the self-same meat,
Nor the less for others leave.

Both the wicked and the good
Eat of this celestial Food;
But with ends how opposite!
Here ’tis life; and there ’tis death;
The same, yet issuing to each
In a difference infinite.

Nor a single doubt retain,
When they break the Host in twain,
But that in each part remains
What was in the whole before;
Since the simple sign alone
Suffers change in state or form,
The Signified remaining One
And the Same for evermore.