Much of prayer is poetry and so during this National Poetry Month, I thought it would be beneficial to look at a piece of Catholic poetry and examine the depths behind it to help us in our own prayer life. For our purposes, we will look at the poem/hymn Pange lingua and meditate on the source of inspiration of this poem, the Most Holy Eucharist, and will help us prepare for the great feast of Corpus Christi.
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While Saint Thomas Aquinas is widely known for his ground breaking theological work, the Summa Theologiae, his devotion and love of the Most Holy Eucharist was one of the greatest passions in his life. One explicit example of his love of the Most Blessed Sacrament can be found in the liturgy for the feast of Corpus Christi that he composed under the commission of Pope Urban IV in the thirteenth century.
Within the liturgy, Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote the following: the sequence Lauda Sion, the hymn for Matins Sacris Solemnis, the Lauds hymn Verbum Supernum Prodiens and the Vesper hymn Pange Lingua. The final stanzas of the Pange Lingua and Verbum Supernum Prodiens also became hymns for Eucharistic Benediction. These various hymns are still in use today and are among the most popular hymns used even outside the feast of Corpus Christi.
Even more so his Eucharistic devotion was ratified by a heavenly voice after he completed his treatise on the Eucharist, whereby God spoke to Thomas and said, “Thou hast written well of me, Thomas.”
Among his various works, the hymn Pange Lingua has proven to be a great summary of Aquinas’ teaching on the Holy Eucharist. After a careful study of this hymn, it can be shown that the various stanzas are packed with theological meaning and summarize the Church’s beliefs concerning the Most Blessed Sacrament.
In the next few weeks we will see how each stanza refers not only to various articles within Aquinas’ vast array of theological works, but also to the Church’s teaching in general, which can be found in a number of official Church documents as well as in works compiled by various theologians. We will witness through a theological commentary of the Pange Lingua how Aquinas’ devotion and love of the Eucharist is firmly rooted in the teachings of the Church and how his own beliefs concerning the Blessed Sacrament permeate the poetry that he wrote for the feast of Corpus Christi.
To begin, the first two stanzas of the Pange Lingua are the starting point both for the hymn as well as for the Church’s theological beliefs on the Eucharist. These first two stanzas are focused on the mystery of the Incarnation, which lays the foundation for belief in the Eucharist. It can rightly be said that without the Incarnation, there would be no Eucharist. The first stanza begins with an invitation to proclaim the beauty and glory of the Incarnation:
Tell, tongue, the mystery
Of the glorious Body
And of the precious Blood,
Which, for the price of the world,
the fruit of a noble Womb,
the King of the Nations poured forth.
In particular, this stanza starts by recognizing that the reality of the Incarnation is a great “mystery.” Aquinas in his articles repeatedly refers to the Incarnation as “the mystery of the Incarnation” and often uses those exact words to introduce a particular belief. Similarly, the Catechism of the Catholic Church constantly refers to the Incarnation as a “mystery” and calls it “the mystery of our religion.” What this points to is the simple fact that the Incarnation is a mystery; it is something that we cannot immediately comprehend and is beyond the scope of what occurs in the natural realm. Therefore, it is important when trying to understand the reality of God becoming man to know that it is a mystery and is not something immediately comprehensible. As it will be seen below, this mysterious reality applies in a similar way to the Eucharist.
The second part of this first stanza recounts the “glorious Body” and “precious Blood” that was “poured forth” for the “price of the world.” Already within the first stanza we are directed both to the origins of the Incarnation (“fruit of a noble womb”), but also to the end for which Christ came into the world; to be “poured forth” for the “price of the world.” This refers to the passion of Christ and is again a fundamental basis for belief in the Eucharist. Christ underwent much agony and suffering on the cross to atone for the sins of the world and to undo the sin of Adam and Eve. In reference to Christ’s sacrifice, Aquinas explains that a sacrifice is a necessary part of atonement for a wrongdoing. The Angelic Doctor writes, “[h]e properly atones for an offense who offers something which the offended partly loves equally, or even more than he detested the offense.” Yet, Aquinas continues, “by suffering out of love and obedience, Christ gave more to God than was required to compensate for the offense of the whole human race.” As a result, Christ was “poured forth” for the “price of the world” and made the perfect atonement for sin.
Yet Christ did not desire for His supreme act of love to only have merits in 33 AD, so He instructed His disciples to celebrate His passion “in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19 RSV). This ceremony of “remembrance” was celebrated and passed on to the next generation by the Apostles and became a way that the faithful throughout time could participate in Christ’s passion, where he was “poured forth” for the “price of the world.” Indeed, “[t]his purchase [made by Christ on the Cross]…[did] not immediately have its full effect; since Christ, after redeeming the world at the lavish cost of His own blood, still must come into complete possession of the souls of men.” Saint Paul affirms this connection when writing to the Corinthians, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16-18) The Council of Trent also affirmed this belief when it states,
Christ left “His Bride the Church a ‘visible sacrifice by which the bloody sacrifice which He was once for all to accomplish on the Cross would be represented, and its memory perpetuated until the end of the world and its salutary power applied for the forgiveness of sins which we daily commit.’”
Saint John Paul II asserts that the sacrifice of Christ on the cross “is so decisive for the salvation of the human race that Jesus Christ offered it and returned to the Father only after he had left us a means of sharing in it as if we had been present there” (John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia (2003), 11.)
It is in the celebration of Mass that the “central work of salvation becomes really present and ‘the work of our redemption is carried out.’” The first stanza then lays the foundation for belief in the Eucharist, pointing to the reality of the Incarnation as well as Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.
Next week, we will look at the packed meaning behind the second stanza.