MANDUCAT DOMINUM

sitting in a room alone on a quiet summer evening playing panis angelicum in a loop ... not feeling stoic but attending to the admiration you feel for the voice singing ... extending the feeling to the music ... by franck in 1872? ... then through the wonders of the internet to read the latin and its translation ... and therein to stumble across a miraculous thing ... the bread of angels becomes the bread of men ... is it not the primal lie to confuse the human spirit for the Holy Spirit ... but suppose I could take a pill which had the effect of making me holy ... or better than a pill a delicious dinner that put me right not only by myself and with my friends but with all of creation so that bymyself no longer can be but all of creation is beside me and all of it my friend ... and still this could not be ... this beautiful thing of the senses ... the bread ... never can be surpassed


notes:

on the primal lie cf balthasar, the glory of the lord, vol one, seeing the form, p 317m and section b, 307 to 321 in general;  panis angelicum, the bread of angels, the title of a hymn written by thomas aquinas;  manducat dominum, the lord is eaten, the sixth line of the hymn