O salutaris hostia


"O salutaris hostia", is a section of one of the Eucharistic hymns written by St Thomas Aquinas for the Feast of Corpus Christi. He wrote it for the Hour of Lauds in the Divine Office. It is actually the last two stanzas of the hymn Verbum supernum prodiens, and is used for the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. The other two hymns written by Aquinas for the Feast contain the famous sections Panis angelicus and Tantum ergo.

Text

Local usage

As a liturgical text, the hymn is usually sung in Latin. There are however some cases in which it is found sung in the vernacular.
In Notre Dame, Paris, France a middle stanza is inserted, localising the text:
Latin TextLiteral Translation

A verse rendering of the song is used during the Wednesday Novena Service to Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Baclaran Church, Parañaque, Philippines. Rev. Teofilo Vinteres, C.Ss.R and Alfredo Buenavista are credited with the music and the arrangement, respectively, and both also produced a Filipino translation, Handóg na Tagapágligtás :
Filipino TextLiteral Translation

Musical settings

composed six settings, O Saluraris hostia H 236, O Saluraris hostia H 262, O Salutaris à 3 dessus H 261, O Saluraris hostia H 36, O Saluraris hostia H 248, and O Saluraris hostia H 249. Gioachino Rossini inserted the hymn as a movement in his Petite messe solennelle. Vytautas Miškinis composed a setting of the first stanza for mixed choir a cappella, O salutaris hostia, in 1991.
The first stanza is also inserted as part of the Sanctus of Robert Schumann's Mass in C minor, Op. posth. 147.
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