Adoro Te Devote
Humbly I adore you, hidden Deity,
truly veiled beneath these appearances:
my whole heart submits to you,
for contemplating you it wholly fails.
Sight, touch, and taste in you are all deceived;
the ear alone is safely to be believed.
I believe whatever God’s Son has spoken —
nothing is truer than the word of Truth itself.
On the Cross only the Godhead was hidden,
but here the manhood is hidden also:
yet believing and confessing both,
I ask what the penitent thief once asked.
Your wounds, like Thomas, I do not see;
yet you are my God, and so I confess.
Make me ever more believe in you,
hope in you, and love you.
O memorial of the Lord’s death!
Living Bread, giving life to man:
grant my soul to live by you,
and always to taste your sweetness.
O loving Pelican, Lord Jesus,
cleanse me, the unclean, in your blood:
one drop of which would have power
to save the whole world from all its crimes.
Jesus, whom now I see hidden,
I beseech you to grant what I so long for:
that beholding you with face unveiled,
I may be happy in the vision of your glory. Amen.
In Latin
Adoro te devote, latens Deitas,
quæ 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 pœnitens.
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 præstans homini:
præsta meæ 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 tuæ gloriæ. Amen.