Given the recent Eucharistic Congress that was organized by the United States Catholic Bishops, I’d like to share this beautiful devotional prayer written by the Dominican and Doctor of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas. You will also see the video below. This video features a musical composition written by the Catholic composer William Byrd around the year 1600AD. I took his musical setting and adapted it, while adding the words of the prayer of St. Thomas. The words and the music are very moving and commend us to increase our devotion to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament…a mystery that will always draw us to deeper faith.
By the way, before finding this prayer, I had never heard of Jesus referred to as a Pelican, as he is by St. Thomas in this prayer. The reason for this is, apparently, is that a Pelican mother sometimes pierces her own side so that the blood which emerges can nourish her offspring. This obviously is a symbol of Christ’s blood flowing from the cross and given to us in the Sacrament. You will see an image of this Pelican in the video.
O Godhead hid, devoutly I adore Thee, Who truly art within the forms before me; To Thee my heart I bow with bended knee, As failing quite in contemplating Thee. Sight, touch, and taste in Thee are each deceived; The ear alone most safely is believed: I believe all the Son of God has spoken, Than Truth’s own word there is no truer token. God only on the Cross lay hid from view; But here lies hid at once the Manhood too: And I, in both professing my belief, Make the same prayer as the repentant thief. Thy wounds, as Thomas saw, I do not see; Yet Thee confess my Lord and God to be: Make me believe Thee ever more and more; In Thee my hope, in Thee my love to store. O thou Memorial of our Lord’s own dying! O Bread that living art and vivifying! Make ever Thou my soul on Thee to live; Ever a taste of Heavenly sweetness give. O loving Pelican! O Jesu, Lord! Unclean I am, but cleanse me in Thy Blood; Of which a single drop, for sinners spilt, Is ransom for a world’s entire guilt. Jesu! Whom for the present veil’d I see, What I so thirst for, O vouchsafe to me: That I may see Thy countenance unfolding, And may be blest Thy glory in beholding. Amen.
