Pange lingua gloriosi corporis mysterium

A stained glass image of Thomas Aquinas holding a book with an excerpt from the Pange lingua.
Thomas Aquinas is shown here holding a book with an excerpt from the Pange Lingua.

"Pange lingua gloriosi corporis mysterium" (Ecclesiastical Latin: [ˈpandʒe ˈliŋɡwa ɡloriˈosi ˈkorporis miˈsteri.um]) is a Medieval Latin hymn attributed to Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) for the Feast of Corpus Christi.[1] 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.

  1. ^ Fassler 2014, p. 174.

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