Today, especially, let us all ATONE for the offenses against the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, praying and meditating of the beautiful hymn “Adoro Te Devote,” composed by St Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century.

 

I devoutly adore you, O hidden Deity,

Truly hidden beneath these appearances.

My whole heart submits to you,

And in contemplating you, It surrenders itself completely.

 

Sight, touch, taste are all deceived in their judgment of you,

But hearing suffices firmly to believe.

I believe all that the Son of God has spoken;

There is nothing truer than this word of truth.

 

On the cross only the divinity was hidden,

But here the humanity is also hidden.

Yet believing and confessing both,

I ask for what the repentant thief asked.

 

I do not see the wounds as Thomas did,

But I confess that you are my God.

Make me believe more and more in you,

Hope in you, and love you.

 

O memorial of our Lord's death!

Living bread that gives life to man,

Grant my soul to live on you,

And always to savor your sweetness.

 

Lord Jesus, Good Pelican,

wash my filthiness and clean me with your blood,

One drop of which can free

the entire world of all its sins.

 

Jesus, whom now I see hidden,

I ask you to fulfill what I so desire:

That the sight of your face being unveiled

I may have the happiness of seeing your glory. Amen.

 

The voice Jesus continues to cry out in the desert of the consciences of so many men, calling them to conversion, attracting them to his love. But the Jews did not understand him. Will we understand him today?