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— AGNUS DEI Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis. Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis. Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem. Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.

The Agnus Dei, Latin for ‘Lamb of God’ designates the liturgical texts sung or said at the rite when the is broken and a small portion is added to the . After the Lord’s Prayer, the Agnus Dei is the Invitation to which begins, “Behold the Lamb of God…”. It sounds the themes of sacrifice and of adoration. Thus, it unites the sacrifice of the Liturgy to the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, as the Lamb of God, and calls to mind the sacrifice of the lamb in the Old Testament.

This should be a moment of awe, when we profess that the real presence of Christ in the and the is made available to us only when the host is broken for us.

The first part of the invocation is essentially a quote from John 1:29, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” These are the words spoken by Saint when he sees Christ baptizing repentant sinners.

‘Lamb of God’ — by using this term to identify Christ, John the Baptist affirmed the redemptive Sacrifice Christ would make for the salvation of all people. The lamb is an image associated with the Passover feast and the Exodus event, when God told the Israelites to sacrifice a spot- less lamb and smear its blood on the doorposts of their houses to be spared from the tenth plague, the death of the firstborn of each house- hold. This image also fulfills the Suffering Servant prophecies in Isaiah, which portray the protagonist as an innocent lamb sacrificed to atone for the sins of others.*

The Agnus Dei lyrics need to be supported by music that communicates the power of this moment. After all, this is a truly important moment, in the earliest days of the Church, it was this moment that gave the entire celebration its name, The Breaking of the Bread.

The phrase “Lamb of God” shows up in other parts of the liturgy and in the history of the . Almost the same exact phrase turns up in the Glory to God (Gloria in Excelsis), where it is used as a title for . The image of the Lamb also shows up in the Easter Proclamation (Exsultet), which is sung in the light of the , where Jesus is acclaimed as the Lamb that is slain for our Passover. The image of the Lamb shows up in over 35 other places in the , but perhaps the most interesting is that it is part of the Entrance Antiphon on the feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. Christ rules as king because he feeds us all; he is true king because he serves us all.

Sources: https://www.ocp.org/en-us/blog/entry/agnus-dei-lamb-of-god * The Didache Bible with commentaries based on the Catechism of the ; Ignatius Bible Edition