Thomas Aquinas’ Eucharistic Heart and Hymn

Brother Reginald, the personal assistant to St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1275), once spied the great theologian in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. According to Brother Reginald’s account, Thomas was agonizing over whether he had written accurately of the central mystery of our faith, the Eucharist, and was presenting his concerns to the Lord.

At that very moment a voice came from the crucifix above the altar: “Thomas, you have written well of me. What do you desire?”

“Nothing but you,” replied the saint.

There is no other reply to such a question, is there? No gift or blessing could equal God Himself.

Such is the Catholic belief in the Eucharist. After the words of consecration, pronounced by the priest at Mass, the bread and wine are transformed (the technical term is “transubstantiated”) into the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ. Catholics call this a miracle, but no outward sign accompanies it as normally occurs in a miracle. We must see this miracle with the eyes faith.

This central mystery of our faith is ours to partake of every day, and no human being, even one with the intelligence of a Thomas Aquinas, can ever fathom the grace. We can, however, dispose ourselves to receive it in a manner fitting its very name: Eucharist means “thanksgiving”.

While the Church has believed in the divine nature of the Eucharist since the apostolic age, a singular pope in the Middle Ages had an enormous effect on the teaching during a reign that was to last only three years. Pope Urban IV, a Frenchman, established the feast of Corpus Christi to bring to greater fruition the Church’s teaching that the Eucharist is the “real presence” of Christ, the very Body and Blood of Christ Himself, hidden under the species of bread and wine.

In 1264, Urban officially authorized the creation of a Mass and liturgical festival to promote these truths as well as the practice of worship of the Eucharist outside of Mass, a trend that had been growing in the heart of the Church for centuries. It had been strongly promoted by a Belgian nun, Juliana of Liege, during the previous fifty years. The Pope then tapped the famous Dominican friar, Thomas of Aquino, to write the prayers and hymns for the festival.

What a blessed decision that was! The prayers we say at Mass to this day on the Feast of Corpus Christi are the very same ones that Thomas dictated to Reginald in some lonely Dominican priory in the 13^th century. Among the hymns Thomas wrote are some familiar names to those who make Eucharistic Adoration a regular practice: Pange lingua, Tantum ergo, and Panis angelicus.

No doubt St. Thomas would have been overcome with deep emotion hearing his countryman, Luciano Pavarotti, some seven centuries later, sing the Panis Angelicus for the successors of Pope Urban at papal ceremonies.

Thomas’ exquisite seven-verse Latin poem called the Adoro Te Devote is in itself a sublime short-course on the spirituality of the Eucharist. We may call it St. Thomas Aquinas’ own Eucharistic Prayer. Scholars seem to think that it was a private prayer that Thomas himself prayed in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament before it ever became a part of the Corpus Christi liturgy.

What follows are two performances of the Latin hymn, Adoro Te Devote, the second being that of a group in Chile that filmed an inspiring Eucharistic procession as the background to their singing. The first is straight Gregorian Chant, as St. Thomas would have sung it to himself in the privacy of his chapel.

Below the videos are two versions of the hymn: the Latin original of the prayer written by Thomas and a worthy translation into English by the 19^th century Jesuit poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Sublime worship flows out of the lives of saints like Thomas Aquinas as naturally as speaking and breathing. We would do well to spend time with the lyrics of this great Eucharistic hymn to see what images and sentiments motivated Thomas’s love for Christ. Our prayer should be to take those truths into hear hearts and make them our own.

Above all, go to Mass early every Sunday. Take the words of this hymn with you. Sit with the prayer in silence and reflection. Let its truth lead you into total adoration of your Lord, Jesus Christ, in the Eucharist.