Eucharistic
Ave Verum Corpus (Hail to Thee! True Body Sprung)
Catholic prayer
A short medieval Eucharistic hymn, greeting the true Body born of the Virgin and sacrificed on the Cross, long sung at the elevation and at Benediction. Its authorship is unknown; the cited page attributes it to Saint Thomas Aquinas, but the hymn is generally dated to the fourteenth century.
Hail to Thee! True body sprung From the Virgin Mary’s womb! The same that on the cross was hung And bore for man the bitter doom. Thou Whose side was pierced and flowed Both with water and with blood; Suffer us to taste of Thee In our life’s last agony. O kind, O loving One! O Jesus, Mary’s Son! Amen.
When it is prayed
- adoration
- benediction
- corpus-christi
- after-communion