A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John (6:44-50)

 

Jesus said, 'No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, “And they shall all be taught by God.” Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.

 

 

Ah! O charity, at the hour of death let your words better than wine. Refresh me and let your lips gentler than honey and the honey comb console me. And may you yourself be the way for me that I may then not stray along the wrong way, but, aided by you, O queen, may come without hindrance to the radiance and fatness of the divine desertland where I may gladly deserve thoroughly to enjoy the mellifluous presence of my spouse, God and Lamb. May all things say Amen.

 

Ah! O love, may your cherishing-love consummated in me be my end and consummation. When the evening approaches, show me the agreement of the nuptial contract that my heart now has entered into with you. In the countenance of my dearest God, you [are] the light of the evening star. At the time of my death, deign to appear to me, O my dear and very bright evening, that in you I may have the wished-for evening of this my sojourn, pleasantly falling asleep and resting on your breast ( [which is] full of all gentleness).

 

O love, O my dearest evening, at the hour of death let me see you with merriment and gladness. Let that holy flame that continuously burns in you in the fiery vigor of divinity truly purge every spot from my soul.

 

O God, love, star of stars. In you, O dear love, I will be snatched from the temptation of this death. Unworried and exultant, stepping over the wall of my body into you, God, my lover, I will see you there, in truth, face to face, without any obscurity.

 

At the hour of death receive me into yourself, calling me to you with your own mouth, saying: "Today you will be with me'” Now come forth from exile to the solemn tomorrow of unfading eternity. There you will find me, Jesus, the true today of divine brightness, who am the beginning and the end of all creation. And for you no longer will a tomorrow follow in this mutability; but in me, the true today, you will have a sempiternal today, so that just as I live you may live in me, Jesus, God, your lover, in the happiest exultation without end. Let all forces, senses and movements of my body and soul say Amen.

 

 

 

So I found my beloved in the mountains

On the lonely and far distant isles

O'er resounding waters

I heard the whispering of love's breezes

To heal my broken heart

 

Oh tranquil evening, silent music

And the sounding solitude of the rising dawn

It is there that I hear You

There that I taste of You

In love's banquet to fill my heart

 

 

And there you gave to me

There you taught me, O so well

And I drank of your sweet spiced wine

The wine of God

And there I gave to You

Keeping nothing for myself

And I promised You forever

To be your bride

 

So I have abandoned

All I ever sought to be

And in dying

My spirit has been released