From the Dedication Anniversary primer: Hymn before Communion: “Draw Near and Take the Body of the Lord” (LSB 637) The legend attached to this hymn is the best in the hymnal. St. Sechnall accused St. Patrick of short-changing Christian charity in his preaching, and Patrick answered by driving over him with his chariot. God protected Sechnall, and when the two made peace in a churchyard they heard angels singing this hymn: Sancti venite, Christi corpus sumite, “Come, ye saints, receive the body of Christ.” The documented history is nearly as remarkable. The text is Irish, probably sixth or seventh century, and the oldest copy stands in the Bangor Antiphonary, written between 680 and 691 at the monastery in County Down, headed “a hymn for when the priests commune.” It is one of the earliest chants composed for Communion and, unlike the prose chants that followed, it is metrical. Columbanus is said to have carried it to Bobbio in Italy, from which it reached Milan, where the manuscript still rests. Neale, who translated it in 1851, called it rugged and unpoetical and said its pious simplicity made it well worth keeping. “Himself the victim and Himself the priest” renders the Latin carefully: offered once, not offered again.
Sung at Our Saviour
2026