I am the bread of life

I am the Bread of Life. Suzanne Toolan* (1927- ). Written in 1966 for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco, and published in Music for the Requiem Mass (San Francisco, 1966). The stanzas are taken from John 6: 35 and 44 (stanza 1); John 6: 51 (stanza 2); John 6: 53 (stanza 3); John 11: 25 (stanza 4) and John 11: 27 (stanza 5). The refrain, ‘And I will raise him up’ (‘them up’ in many recent books) makes the song very appropriate for a Requiem Mass or a funeral service. It is one of the most successful of recent compositions, known all over the world in English or in its Spanish version, ‘Yo soy el Pan de Vida’, and translated into many other languages. The music was written by...