Adoro Te Devote
Godhead Here in Hiding
Saint Thomas Aquinas's hymn of adoration before the hidden God of the Eucharist, where faith supplies for the senses.
Adoro te devote, latens Deitas,
quae sub his figuris vere latitas;
tibi se cor meum totum subicit,
quia te contemplans totum deficit.
Visus, tactus, gustus in te fallitur,
sed auditu solo tuto creditur;
credo quidquid dixit Dei Filius:
nil hoc verbo veritatis verius.
In cruce latebat sola Deitas,
at hic latet simul et humanitas;
ambo tamen credens atque confitens,
peto quod petivit latro paenitens.
Plagas, sicut Thomas, non intueor;
Deum tamen meum te confiteor;
fac me tibi semper magis credere,
in te spem habere, te diligere.
O memoriale mortis Domini,
panis vivus vitam praestans homini,
praesta meae menti de te vivere,
et te illi semper dulce sapere.
Pie pellicane, Iesu Domine,
me immundum munda tuo sanguine,
cuius una stilla salvum facere
totum mundum quit ab omni scelere.
Iesu, quem velatum nunc aspicio,
oro fiat illud quod tam sitio:
ut te revelata cernens facie,
visu sim beatus tuae gloriae. Amen.
Devoutly I adore Thee, O hidden Godhead,
truly hidden beneath these appearances;
my whole heart submits itself to Thee,
for, contemplating Thee, it wholly fails.
Sight, touch, and taste in Thee are each deceived;
yet by hearing alone is it safely believed;
I believe whatsoever the Son of God hath spoken:
nothing is truer than this word of Truth.
Upon the Cross the Godhead alone lay hidden,
but here the Manhood lieth hidden too;
yet believing and confessing both,
I ask what the repentant thief once asked.
Thy wounds, as Thomas did, I do not behold;
yet Thee my God I do confess;
make me ever believe in Thee the more,
in Thee have hope, and Thee alone to love.
O memorial of the death of the Lord,
living Bread that giveth life to man,
grant that my soul may live on Thee,
and ever taste Thy sweetness.
O loving Pelican, O Jesus Lord,
cleanse me, the unclean, in Thy Blood,
of which one drop hath power to save
the whole world from all its sin.
O Jesus, whom now veiled I gaze upon,
I pray that what I thirst for so may come:
that beholding Thee with Thy face unveiled,
I may be blessed in the sight of Thy glory. Amen.
Translation source: www.preces-latinae.org/thesaurus/Hymni/AdoroTe.html
About this prayer
Adoro Te Devote, "Devoutly I adore Thee," is among the most cherished of the Eucharistic hymns of Saint Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, composed in the thirteenth century as a private prayer of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. Unlike his hymns for the Office of Corpus Christi, it was written not for public chant but for personal devotion, and the Church later gave it a place in the Missal as a thanksgiving after Mass.
Its theme is the hiddenness of God: upon the Cross the Godhead alone was veiled, but in the Sacrament both the Godhead and the Manhood lie hidden under the appearances of bread and wine. Where sight, touch, and taste are deceived, the soul believes on the word of the Son of God, than which nothing is truer; with the good thief it makes its act of faith, with doubting Thomas its confession, and it longs at the last to behold unveiled the glory it now adores in figure. The hymn calls Christ the loving Pelican, who in the old symbol feeds her young with her own blood, one drop of which can cleanse the whole world of sin.