Notre Dame de Rouen. The façade of the Gothic Church in France. Photographer: Hippo1947. Licence: SHUTTERSTOCK.

Saturday 27 January 2024

“Anima Christi”. Beautiful Communion Hymn And Prayer.




“Anima Christi”.
Beautiful Communion Hymn and Prayer.
Available on YouTube



When was the last time you heard this beautiful Hymn 
during Mass at Communion ?

Why not ask your Parish Priest, Pastor, Choir Master, or Director of Music, to include it during Mass next Sunday ?

An Indulgence of 300 days 
each time this Prayer is said or sung.

An Indulgence of seven years 
if said or sung after Holy Communion. 


If said every day during the month, a Plenary Indulgence, subject to the usual conditions (* see, below), on any day chosen. [Blessed Pope Pius IX, 1854].

(* Confession, Holy Communion,
and Prayers for the Pope’s intentions.)


“Anima Christi”.
A beautiful Communion Hymn and Prayer.
Available on YouTube

Anima Christi, sanctifica me.
Corpus Christi, salva me.
Sanguis Christi, inebria me.
Aqua lateris Christi, lava me.

Passio Christi, conforta me.
O bone Iesu, exaudi me.
Intra tua vulnera absconde me.
Ne permittas me separari a te.
Ab hoste maligno defende me.

In hora mortis meæ voca me.
Et iube me venire ad te,
Ut cum Sanctis tuis laudem te
In sæcula sæculorum.


Amen.



Soul of Christ, sanctify me.
Body of Christ, save me.
Blood of Christ, inebriate me.
Water from The Side of Christ, wash me.

Passion of Christ, strengthen me.
O Good Jesu, hear me.
Within Thy Wounds, hide me.
Suffer me not to be separated from Thee.
From the malicious enemy, defend me.

In the hour of my death, call me.
And bid me to come unto Thee.
That with Thy Saints I may praise Thee.
For ever and ever.

Amen.


The following Text is from Wikipedia - the free encyclopædia.

Anima Christi is a Mediæval Prayer to Jesus 
in the Tradition of The Catholic Church.

The sequence of sentences, in Anima Christi, have rich associations with Catholic concepts that relate to The Holy Eucharist (Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, of Christ), Baptism (Water) and The Passion of Jesus (Holy Wounds).

Jean-Baptiste Lully composed a Motet called Anima Christi, and musicians such as Giovanni Valentini performed it.


As it was once mistakenly attributed to Saint Ignatius Loyola, who included it in his “Spiritual Exercises”, it is sometimes referred to as the “Aspirations of Saint Ignatius Loyola”.

This well-known Catholic Prayer dates to the 
Early-14th-Century and was possibly written by Pope John XXII, but its authorship remains uncertain. The Prayer takes its name from its first two words in Latin. Anima Christi means “The Soul of Christ”.



The Anima Christi was popularly believed to have been composed by Saint Ignatius Loyola, as he put it at the beginning of his “Spiritual Exercises” and often refers to it. 

This is a mistake, as has been pointed out by many writers, since the Prayer has been found in a number of Prayer Books printed during Ignatius’ youth and is in Manuscripts which were written a hundred years before his birth (1491).

James Mearns, the English Hymnologist, found it in a Manuscript of The British Museum which dates back to about 1370. In the Library of Avignon, there is preserved a Prayer Book of Cardinal Peter De Luxembourg, who died in 1387, which contains the Anima Christi in practically the same form as we have it today.


It has also been found inscribed on one of the gates of The Alcazar of Seville, which brings us back to the times of Don Pedro the Cruel (1350 - 1369).

This Prayer was so-well-known, and so popular, at the time of Saint Ignatius, that, in the first edition of his “Spiritual Exercises”, he merely mentions it, evidently supposing that the “Exercitant”, or Reader, already knew it. 

In the later editions, it was printed in full. It was by assuming that everything in the book was written by Saint Ignatius, that it came to be looked upon as his composition.


Illustration of Anima Christi.
Contained in an Article, by Gregory Dipippo, in 

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