Home/The Chants/Ave Verum Corpus
Hail, True Body
Hail, true Body, born of the Virgin Mary — a hymn of the real presence.
Ave verum Corpus, natum
de María Vírgine:
vere passum, immolátum
in cruce pro hómine:
cujus latus perforátum
fluxit aqua et sánguine:
esto nobis prægustátum
in mortis exámine.
O Jesu dulcis! O Jesu pie!
O Jesu, fili Maríæ. Amen.
Hail, true Body, born of the Virgin Mary, who truly suffered and was sacrificed on the Cross for man; from whose pierced side flowed water and blood: be for us a foretaste in the trial of death. O sweet Jesus! O holy Jesus! O Jesus, Son of Mary. Amen.
Medieval, 14th century or earlier — the complete hymn
Ave Verum Corpus is a short medieval hymn addressed directly to the Body of Christ present in the Eucharist — 'true Body', vere, insisting on the reality against every reduction to symbol. In a few lines it gathers the Incarnation, the Passion, the pierced side of Calvary, and the hope of a holy death.
The turn of the hymn is its petition: that this true Body, received now, may be esto nobis prægustatum — a foretaste — 'in the trial of death.' The Eucharist is prayed as viaticum before the fact, the bread that will one day be the last companion of the dying.
The hymn arose in the late Middle Ages — a fourteenth-century manuscript from Reichenau credits it to a 'Pope Innocent', though which one is uncertain — in the flowering of Eucharistic devotion around the feast of Corpus Christi, and was sung at the elevation of the Host at Mass and, later, at Benediction. Its brevity made it universal.
Its plainchant setting is the root, but the text has drawn some of the most tender settings in all of sacred music — most famously by Mozart and Byrd — precisely because it is so small and so exact a confession of love before the Sacrament.
Ave Verum Corpus is sung at Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, during the distribution of Holy Communion, and on Corpus Christi. It suits any moment of Eucharistic adoration.
Prayed slowly, its closing cries — O Jesu dulcis, O Jesu pie — turn doctrine into affection, ending not in statement but in the naming of a beloved.
Questions
It means 'Hail, true Body.' The hymn greets the true Body of Christ, born of Mary and crucified, present in the Eucharist.
At Benediction, during Communion, and on Corpus Christi — at moments of Eucharistic adoration.
The word vere ('truly') insists on the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, against any view that reduces it to a mere symbol.
Repertorium