[Kneel]
P:        Beloved and most holy word of God! You enlighten the hearts of the faithful, You satisfy the hungry and console the afflicted.                                                                   
All:     We adore You, most holy Lord Jesus Christ, here and in all Your churches which are in the whole  world, and we bless You,/ because by Your holy cross You have redeemed the world.
               
All:       And this bread is the Uncreated Word and the Incarnate Word.  
P:        Truly, we eat this bread on our journey Sacramentally; but in the celestial homeland we will eat spiritually, face to face:                 
All:      for the Word Himself declares, “If anyone eats of this Bread, he will live forever.”       
P:      “I  ask you again, my brothers and sisters, tell me what you think is greater, the body of Christ or the word of God? If you wish to answer truly you must say that the word of God is not less than the body of Christ. He is no less guilty who hears the word of God carelessly than he who allows the body of Christ to fall on the ground through his own negligence.”         
All:     God’s words sanctify numerous objects, and it is by the power of the words of Christ that the sacrament of the altar is consecrated. P:         Behold, days are coming, says the Lord of hosts, when I will send a famine on the land, not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, but rather for hearing the words of the Lord. All:     The more this Bread is eaten, the more we hunger for it; the more we drink of this fountain, the more we thirst for it.   
P:        When I found Your words, I devoured them. They became  my joy and the happiness of my heart.                                                               
READING
[Sit]                                                                                                                                                      
(Deuteronomy 8:2-4.     Isaiah 55:9-11 may also be used.)

And you shall remember all the way through which the Lord your God brought you for forty years through the desert, to afflict you and to prove you, and that the things that were in your heart might be made known, whether you would keep his commandments or not.

He afflicted you with want, and gave you manna for your food… to show that not in bread alone does man live, but in every word that comes from the mouth of God. Your raiment, with which you were covered, has not decayed with age.

PERIOD OF SILENT PRAYER
HOMILY

[Kneel]

P:      The Lady Clare  heeded the saying of the  Prophet: O daughter, listen, incline your ear,    forget your father’s house.  Turning to things ahead and forgetting things behind, she listened  readily to holy discourse.                                               
All:      She did not delay in fulfilling immediately what she had heard.  
P:        This woman set up a garden of humility in the domain of the Church, bound by immense needs.                           
All:     Here she produced a great abundance in the area of religion, where a wide refreshment of spiritual nourishments was served.              
P:        [Clare]  provided for her children, through dedicated preachers, the food of the Word of God.                                                         
All:     When she heard a holy sermon, she delighted at such a remembrance of her Jesus.              
P:       When Clare was sick [the bishop] nourished her with the Sacrament of the Body of the     Lord, and fed her Sisters with the encouragement of his word.               
All:      The Lord will be with me on my journey, giving me bread to eat and clothing to wear.