Adoro Te Devote

There is something very beautiful about not understanding beautiful words, pace boomers. It gives a sense of something transcendental, something greater than the common, something even angelic.

This is why it is so applicable to speak about the Eucharist in Latin—what is more transcendental, more above-common, more angelic than the Bread of Angels? Nobody has ever written, nor probably will ever write, about the Eucharist with such beauty and understanding as did St. Thomas Aquinas in his Eucharistic Hymns.

Adoro te devote, latens deitas, / Quæ sub his figuris vere latitas; / Tibi se cor meum totum subicit, / Quia te contemplans totum deficit.

The numerous translations of this song (which for sake of the word limit I will not attach here) that I’ve found sound stilted and overbaked, which is rather inevitable with this sort of thing. In both the English and Latin, however, one thing comes through clear and bright—the love of their author for our Lord.

You can imagine St. Thomas in Adoration, literally receiving the inspiration for this song. The language isn’t at all affected, it reads poetically, but is at the same time natural and flowing.

Visus, tactus, gustus in te fallitur, / Sed auditu solo tuto creditur. / Credo quidquid dixit Dei Filius; / Nil hoc verbo Veritatis verius.

The second stanza, especially the second half, holds in it Aquinas’s concept of faith, “I believe that which the Son of God has said, nothing is more true than this word”. For him, faith is not some groundless assertion, but something logical. We believe what we believe because these things are true and because we have proof—we believe because nothing is more true, not because we want to believe it.

In Cruce latebat sola Deitas, / At hic latet simul et Humanitas, / Ambo tamen credens atque confitens, / Peto quod petivit latro pœnitens.

The third verse gives us a model for how we should approach the Lord. Aquinas says, “I ask for what the penitent thief asked”, which is, of course, mercy. We ought to be like the repentant tax collector who beats his breast asking for mercy, not daring to raise his eyes to heaven, not comfortable in our own perceived holiness like the pharisee.

Plagas, sicut Thomas, non intueor: / Deum tamen meum te confiteor. / Fac me tibi semper magis credere, / In te spem habere, te diligere.

This model is continued in the fourth verse, where he asks for faith, hope, and love. It seems strange to ask for belief from someone that you believe in (if you didn’t have belief you wouldn’t ask for it), but what Thomas is doing is following in the footsteps of the father of the young boy in the Gospel who says, “I believe, help my unbelief!”

O memoriale mortis Domini, / Panis vivus, vitam præstans homini, / Præsta meæ menti de te vívere, / Et te illi semper dulce sapere.

The next verse isn’t theologically dense, but there’s something beautiful in that. First, it shows that Thomas Aquinas, who is probably the greatest theologian who ever lived or ever will live, was able to still see Jesus. He didn’t let his theology turn his plain, good old-fashioned love into a science, as is the temptation for those in theology. The verses seem like the words of love that old friends tell each other, even though they know that the other knows that they love them. It is fond and natural, but still fiery with passion.

Pie Pelicane, Jesu Domine, / Me immundum munda tuo Sanguine: / Cujus una stilla salvum facere / Totum mundum quit ab omni scelere.

The penultimate stanza compares Jesus to a pelican, which was believed to cut its breast when there was no more food so that its children could be sustained off its blood. Jesus, similarly, gives his own blood to sustain us, since there are no other foods on earth which can give us what we need.

Jesu, quem velatum nunc aspicio, / Oro, fiat illud quod tam sitio: / Ut te revelata cernens facie, / Visu sim beatus tuæ gloriæ. Amen.

The ending speaks for itself, describing every saint’s desire for the heavenly homeland, so it’d be criminal to say write anything but the best translation findable:

Jesus, whom I see now veiled, / I pray that this might happen that I so thirst for, / That seeing you face to face revealed, / I may be blessed by the glory of your sight. Amen.