Eucharistic Meditations

Twenty Three

  1. In palaces of gleaming bronze and marble,
    And clapboard huts with corrugated sheets,
    In smokey towns, choking on fumes of carbon,
    In villages, hooves echoing in their streets
    Your precious self of servant, priest and king,
    Is held on high in daily offering.
  2. As You gave up Your sacred flesh incarnate,
    Without a precondition or a price,
    Without cautious or limiting disclaimer,
    Yours is the democratic sacrifice:
    Your gracious love both human and divine
    Makes us all equal in the Bread and Wine.
  3. The bishop, clerk or peasant who caress You,
    The tycoon and the labourer who receive,
    Shed all our poor pretensions at Your altar,
    United by the fact that we believe:
    Oblivious of our mundane earthly state,
    Rapt in the Godhead that we venerate.
  4. Would that this fellowship in Christ would linger,
    With Eucharistic mercy in our Courts,
    With generosity in all our dealings,
    And simple love of playing in our sports:
    How can such gifts as Yours so ebb away
    Too often not sustained throughout one day?