O Christ, in your presence we discover who we are.

You wash our feet,

and we learn how reluctant we are

to serve one another and the world around us. 

We are so like your disciples,

who looked to their own self-centered interests

even as you prepared to give yourself

for the sake of the whole world. 

Our love scarcely suffices for those closest to us,

and yet you invite us to join all creation at your feast.

Forgive us,

and help us treasure your presence more deeply,

that we may find this night

a celebration of overflowing joy.

Dylan Thomas – This Bread I Break

This bread I break was once the oat
This wine upon a foreign tree
Ploughed in its fruit;
Man in the day or wine at night
Laid the crops low, broke the grape’s joy.

Once in this wine the summer blood
Knocked in the flesh that decked the wine
Once in this bread
The oat was merry in the wind;
Man broke the sun’ pulled the wind down.

This flesh I break, this blood you let
Make desolation in the vein
Were oat and the grape
Born of the sensual root and sap;
My wine you drink, my bread you snap.