Devoutly I Adore Thee (Adoro te devote)

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.