It’s shoddy poetry and even worse music. Get it in a boxed set with a rainbow stole.

If the local pastor insisted/commanded (against better judgment) that it be included in a Catholic Mass, I would recommend the poor director of music strongly advise it ought not be as a communion hymn but rather as an offertory hymn to follow the Liturgy of the Word.

I saw this post and thought this would be a good opportunity to test my The Parish Inheritance and particularly the Hymn Analysis Template I developed for my parish of St. Mary's. The template is an internal tool for liturgical and doctrinal evaluation of hymn lyrics. I developed a C1-C4 category system, C1 being Catholic Liturgical, C2: Catholic Devotional, C3: Protestant Origin, and C4: Not Suitable for Catholic Liturgy. I have attached the complete analysis.

In summary, the analysis of Ricky Manalo’s “Spirit and Grace” using the “A Parish Inheritance” framework reveals significant doctrinal ambiguities regarding Eucharistic Realism. While the hymn correctly utilizes the corporate, ecclesial voice of the assembly rather than resorting to unauthorized first-person divine speech, its sacramental theology is highly problematic.

By shifting the focus of transformation away from the sacrificial conversion of the bread and wine onto the spiritualized gathering of the assembly (e.g., "Gather this drink and form us in Christ"), the text treats the elements primarily as functional symbols of a communal meal. Because it obscures the objective reality of the Real Presence in favor of a subjective, therapeutic focus on the community, the hymn fails to meet Catholic liturgical standards and is classified as Category C4 (Not Suitable for Catholic Liturgy).

Because it obscures the objective reality of the Real Presence

it’s far worse than that… what it more importantly obscures is that The Mass is a sacrifice in propitiation for sin… sin which is daily committed… especially blasphemy and the unkept holy day of our Lord… God has revealed to us that these are the two things that offend heaven greatly, and “Veronicas are Required” to make amends.

But as far as the content of the text itself is concerned, I do not think it contradicts what the Church teaches about the Eucharist.

I disagree. It’s ambiguous and requires one to do mental gymnastics at best to come to that. In a parish where a large number of the congregation don’t have a particularly good catechesis on anything, particularly the Eucharist, as well as don’t have a sufficient grasp of English to understand metaphors, it’s problematic. It also violates the Diocesan directive that was issued when the corrected translation of the Roman Missal came out to not use hymns that refer to the Eucharist as bread and wine.

Doesn’t that directive go against the teaching of the Church? In de Roman Missal as well as the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Eucharist is being referred to as ‘bread’ (‘panis’ in Latin). Should the hymn ‘Panis angelicus’ be banned?

It’s about the way reference is being made to bread and wine. This song does that with the adjectives ‘blessed’ and ‘broken’, both making clear this isn’t just bread.

Comparing "Spirit and Grace" to "Panis Angelicus" doesn’t really work. Calling the Eucharist “Bread of Angels” is very different from pointing to the altar and singing “this bread… this wine.” The word “this” refers to the physical object present, and calling the consecrated Host “bread” can suggest it remains merely blessed bread—a view closer to Protestant theology.

As Catholics, we believe the bread and wine cease to exist after consecration; it is truly the Body of Christ. For that reason, Communion hymns should avoid language that could confuse the faithful at such a sacred moment.

The USCCB’s guidance on hymnody is not rejecting tradition but ensuring modern texts clearly express Catholic teaching. As I note in A Parish Inheritance, every parish’s musical tradition deserves respect, but we are also called to discern whether our hymns fully reflect the faith—honoring what is good and refining what needs clarity.

Doesn’t that directive go against the teaching of the Church?

If I remember correctly, and I usually do, the bishop made it clear he wasn’t referring to traditional terms of piety and devotion, etc.

I can’t find the document on my Diocese’s web site anymore, but in the document on the Diocese’s implementation of Redemptionis Sacramentum, the bishop at the time also wrote that we are to refrain from referring to the Blessed Sacrament and Precious Blood after the consecration as “bread” and “wine”, making a particular note that this is in great need of improvement, particularly among EMHC.

Considering I found our Lord on the floor in my parish and multiple people would have had to walk over Him to get to the pews they were in and was on the floor all day and nobody recognized Him and thought to go to the office and say something all day, I’m going to reiterate and stand firm on the importance of using clear and unambiguous language when referring to the Blessed Sacrament.

Bread is not blessed… that is a protestant rubric. Bread is transformed.

@Continuousbass, you make a fair point about the historical roots of the Last Supper, but there is a crucial liturgical distinction we have to look at here.

The prayers you mentioned—blessing God for the fruits of the earth—take place during the Offertory, when we are still dealing with ordinary bread and wine. But a Communion hymn is sung after the Consecration has already taken place.

The issue with the phrase 'this bread, blessed, broken and shared' during Communion is that it limits the action to a historical reenactment of a meal. In Catholic theology, the priest doesn't just bless bread so it can be shared; by the power of the Holy Spirit, the substance of bread completely ceases to be.

When a text focuses heavily on 'wheat, vine, bread, and wine' right as people are approaching the altar, it keeps the focus entirely horizontal on the physical creation, rather than vertical on the miraculous change that just occurred. As francis noted, our focus at Communion shouldn't be on bread that was blessed, but on Christ who has transformed the elements into Himself. It’s a subtle shift in language, but pastorally, it changes how the parish perceives the Real Presence.

I appreciate the encouragement, but I think we may be talking past each other a bit, so I want to clarify what I am—and am not—arguing. I’m not denying the role of the Holy Spirit in the Eucharist, nor am I claiming that the language of “blessing” has no place in Catholic theology, especially in reference to the Last Supper. Those points are well established.

The concern I’m raising is a different one: not whether a phrase can be interpreted in an orthodox way, but whether it communicates Eucharistic doctrine clearly and unambiguously in the specific context of the Communion rite.

At the moment of Communion, the Church is not simply recalling the Last Supper or describing the preparation of the gifts—we are encountering the fully consecrated Eucharist, which is no longer bread and wine in substance, but the Body and Blood of Christ. Because of that, the language used at that moment carries a particular weight.

When a hymn uses demonstrative language like “this bread… this wine”, especially in the present tense, it can reasonably be heard as referring to what is physically before us. In a setting where Eucharistic catechesis is already weak, that kind of phrasing risks reinforcing the idea that the elements remain bread and wine in more than appearance.

So my critique isn’t that the text is explicitly heretical, but that it is pastorally and liturgically imprecise for use during Communion. A hymn can be theologically defensible in isolation and still be unsuitable in that specific liturgical moment if it introduces ambiguity where the Church intends clarity.Liturgical song must always explicitly mirror the lex orandi (the law of prayer) of the Rite.

That’s the basis for my classification in the analysis.

Don… very well put. Patient and charitable in your exegesis. Thank you.

Protestant theology has no place in the Mass… before or after transubstantiation. Why? Because it introduces doubt, ambiguity and confusion in the Rite that has no place for such.

This is a significant weakness of the NO. It introduces all three. This hymn would never be sung in or near the Traditional Rite for any reason. The music also carries a certain theological relationship to these kind of ambiguous texts, although, that is more difficult to explain in the limited scope of forum commentary.

And the Apostles thought they were merely going to a Seder...I'm suprised it's not a Valse Ranchero yet. The Holy Spirit and giving thanks to God (grace) are the essential dialouge we have at mass. We don't let other faiths dictate how we express our universal one.

I'm not saying that hymns should be simplistic catechesis or shouldn't be thought-provoking; they just shouldn't be confusing or misleading.