Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us
Ascending with Him through the praise of Doxology, we arrive at this summit of everything from where we acquire the fruitful reward of His entire Eucharistic work, which is peace and mercy, the source of life, liberty and happiness.
As during the Confiteor, but with a deeper awareness of our utter lack of correspondence and a greater obligation against the imminence of our hypostatic union, we plead for mercy as we sense the consequential judgement that weighs upon us.
We say:
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
The Eucharist is our kept part of God’s covenant, mercy is the obligatory part of the Father’s. Mercy is the same covenant promised to our fathers, to Abraham and his seeds forever (Lk 1:72). It is where we see the perfect orderliness of our lives, even amid discomforts and woes.
Mercy starts with forgiveness of sins, but broadens by making the whole cosmos and creation happen because of us and as a reference to us. It is an irreducible positivity which lies outside the scope of judgement. It is impossible to judge mercy for, mercy is the judge of judgement.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, grant us peace.
Once, by trust we grasp the mercy which grants freedom from bondage and bestows success to the works of our hand, we see how it is the ultimate anathema of the evil one, and how Peace is the very source of this reality. Trust is what bestows peace and mercy.
Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sins of the world, happy are we -unworthy though we are- who are called to the supper of the Lord.
But Who can be worthy? To whom shall we go (Jn 6:68)? Only the Lamb that was slain is worthy (Rev 5:12). He alone has the capacity to do this work and He beckons that we partake of this mystery by maintaining the desire and awe around the Eucharistic summit of the altar. Do not dance to the ‘Agnus Dei’, it bothers on sacrilege.
While with the Centurion we beseech Him to heal us by saying the word (Mt 8:8), with the Virgin Mary we should seek this primordial union by reminding Him to ‘Behold His handmaid’ (Lk 1 : 38).
A beggar’s position is what gains the victory. Agnus Dei is the perfect time to ask for whatever we need and get away with it.
