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Pange Lingua Gloriosi Corporis Mysterium is a Latin hymn written by Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) for the Feast of Corpus Christi. It is also sung on Maundy Thursday during the procession from the church to the place where the Blessed Sacrament is kept until Good Friday. The last two stanzas (called, separately, Tantum Ergo) are sung at Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The hymn expresses the doctrine that the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ during the celebration of the Eucharist.
It is often sung in English as the hymn Of the Glorious Body Telling, to the same tune as the Latin.
The opening words recall another famous Latin sequence, from which this hymn is derived: Pange Lingua Gloriosi Proelium Certaminis by Venantius Fortunatus.
Text
There are many English translations, of varying rhyme scheme and metre. The following is the Latin text with a doxology, and an English translation by Fr. Edward Caswall:. The third column is a more literal rendering.
Pange Lingua may refer to either of two Mediaeval Latin hymns of the Roman Catholic Church:
One by St. Thomas Aquinas and one by Venantius Fortunatus (530-609) which extols the triumph of the Cross. He wrote it for a procession that brought a part of the true Cross to Queen Radegunda in 570. This hymn is used on Good Friday during the Adoration of the Cross and in the Liturgy of the Hours during Holy Week and on feasts of the Cross. The concluding stanza was not written by Fortunatus, but was added later. When used in the Liturgy the hymn is often broken into smaller hymns such as: Lustra sex qui iam peregit, En acetum, fel, arundo, and Crux fidelis inter omnes.
There is a charming ancient legend that is hinted at in the second verse of this hymn. According to this legend, the wood of the Cross upon which Christ was crucified was taken from that tree which was the source of the fruit of the fall in the Garden of Eden. When Adam died, the legend states, Seth obtained from the Cherubim guarding the Garden a branch of the tree from which Eve ate the forbidden fruit. Seth planted this branch at Golgotha (the place of the skull), which is so named because Adam was buried there. As time went on, the Ark of the Covenant, the pole upon which the bronze serpent was lifted, and other items were made from this tree.
Pange is a commune in the Moselle department in Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-Lorraine in north-eastern France.