O Sacred Feast

With the inclusion of the hymns “Now, My Tongue, the Mystery Telling” (Lutheran Service Book 630) and “Thee We Adore, O Hidden Savior” (LSB 640) in the 2006 hymnal of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, it would appear that St. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274) is gaining a foothold in his contribution to Lutheran sacramental piety. Still missing from our hymnic repertoire, however, is perhaps his finest contribution, “O Sacred Feast”:

O sacred feast,
At which Christ is consumed,
The memory of His passion
            is renewed,
The mind is filled with grace
And a pledge of future glory
            is given to us, alleluia.

O sacrum convivium
in quo Christus sumitur:
recolitur memoria passionis ejus:

​mens impletur gratia:
et futurae gloriae
            nobis pignus datur, alleluia.
​                                    (Liber Usualis, p. 959)​

The text dates from the last decade of Thomas’s life, when Pope Urban IV declared Corpus Christi (“[The Feast of the] Body of Christ”) to be an official feast of the Western Church, which was celebrated on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday. In some Catholic countries, Corpus Christi is still celebrated with processionals through the city streets, in which the Eucharistic Body of Christ displayed in a large monstrance. Urban IV also commissioned Thomas to write the official prayers for the feast, consisting of hymns, sequences, and varieties of poetry. Though originally sung as an antiphon to the Magnificat for the Vespers of Corpus Christi, “O Sacred Feast” has taken on a life of its own because of its profound theology in short and palatable terms.
 
Biblical foundations for the text are numerous and varied. It is rooted primarily in the Words of Institution and related texts, as the following parallels to Luke’s Passover Narrative (22:14-23) demonstrate: 

O Sacrum Convivium

O sacred feast


at which
Christ is


received


The memory

of His passion



is renewed

The mind is
filled with grace


​and a pledge of future glory
​is given to us.

St. Luke 22:14-23

Jesus reclined at table and (22:14)
“I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover” (22:15)

“This is My body” (22:19)
“This cup . . . is the new covenant in my blood” (22:20)
“Take this [cup], and divide it among yourselves” (22:17)

​“Do this in remembrance of me” (22:19)
“The hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table” (22:21)
“The Son of Man goes [to His Passion] as it has been determined” (22:22)
“Do this in remembrance of me” (22:19)

“when [Jesus] had given thanks [gratias]” (22:19)

“I will not eat [the Passover] until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God” (22:16)
​​“I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes” (22:18)

In addition to these Lukan parallels, one could marshal other texts from the Sacred Scriptures that serve as foundations for O Sacrum Convivium. The concept of feasting (convivium is the root of our word “conviviality”) recalls numerous feasting stories in the Scriptures, perhaps most notably the only two New Testament uses of convivium in the Vulgate: Levi’s banquet (Lk 5:29) and The Parable of the Great Banquet (Lk 14:24). St. Paul’s admonition to the church at Corinth is perhaps the best verse to thematically coordinate with the title: “Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (I Cor 5:8).  "The mind is filled with grace" recalls what one recent book calls the “self-donation” of God, i.e., His gracious giving of His own self, both on the cross and in the Sacrament. The pledge of future glory is probably adapted from the kingdom predictions in St. Luke 22:16-18 (cited above) and I Corinthians 11:26, “As often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim the Lord’s Death until He comes.” In addition to this Pauline admonition, some scholars might add an echo of the promise of eternal life in St. John 6:51-58, which was the appointed Gospel Lesson for Corpus Christi.
 
Musical settings of O Sacrum Convivium abound (the catalogue of the Vienna Nationalbibliothek lists 80 settings), including chants, motets, and anthems. As with most Medieval texts, the foundational musical form is plain chant. In the following excerpt, try to follow the melody in Gregorian notation:

​Did you hear some harmony along the way? This processional dates from the sixteenth century, when harmony was sometimes added to plain chants, producing an early form of organum. The basic harmony, coupled with the melody remaining in the top voice, allows the melody to prevail for the sake of carrying the text.
 
The florid lines of plain chant, combined with more complex harmony, flowered in the Renaissance as the motet, including the following setting by Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611). Follow the translation provided at the bottom of the screen and hear how the music changes with each new phrase of the text. As for the music itself, take your pick of six interdependent, florid lines, each one a beautiful and florid melody that sounds as if it is weaving its way to heaven:

​The value of O Sacrum Convivium has not been lost on living composers. Listen to a challenging yet captivating setting by Lithuanian composer, Vytautus Miškinis (b. 1954). He begins with clustered sounds in the men’s voices. Having established this foundation, he layers on lovely chants in the women’s voices, eventually sending them into the stratosphere. And yet, the men remain anchored in the lower register, finally arriving on a low D-flat as the piece settles to a close. May I suggest the effect is one of coming home, of time and eternity intersecting as believers receive the joys of heaven even now?

​The most fitting liturgical context for “O Sacred Feast” in the Lutheran tradition is Maundy Thursday, although its use as a chant during distribution is fitting for every celebration of the Lord’s Supper. (A genuine, Lutheran Corpus Christi festival includes the consecration, distribution, and reception of the Blessed Sacrament, not the parading of the Sacrament down Main Street.) If the pastor chooses to plan the Maundy Thursday service around the “O Sacred Feast” theme, then its inclusion in the musical planning is a necessity. In addition to the settings explored in this column, church musicians might consider settings by Thomas Tallis (circa. 1505-1585), Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594), and Franz Liszt (1811-1886). A three-part sermon emerges quite naturally from the text, with its three-fold view of the past, present, and future aspects of the presence of Christ. The pastor might consider using the entire poem as the Acclamation of Christ after the Words of Institution, as the Proclamation of Christ during the elevation of the Priest Host and Chalice, or as a prayer before self-communing during the Agnus Dei.
 
To be sure, it will remain for our children and grandchildren to lay claim to numerous texts by Thomas and other early and Medieval fathers that are edifying in a Lutheran context. For example, check the index to authors in any Lutheran hymnal printed on American soil. Charles Wesley generally has about 8-12 texts (9 in LSB), while Thomas is conspicuously absent from most Lutheran hymnals! (Recall that a hymn must be Lutheran in its content, not necessarily in its name, to be considered for inclusion in a Lutheran hymnal.) Reality suggests that Thomas will not catch up with Wesley in my lifetime. Nevertheless, the presence of two texts by Thomas in LSB, along with the occasional use of “O Sacred Feast,” is a tremendous stride forward in our sacramental piety. As another hymn by Thomas puts it:

Now, my tongue, the myst’ry telling / Of the glorious body sing,
And the blood, all price excelling, Which the Gentiles’ Lord and King
Once on earth, among us dwelling, Shed for this world’s ransoming. (LSB 630.1)