St. Thomas Aquinas wrote many beautiful and famous prayers in honour of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament. He is well known for the hymns that adorn the Mass of Corpus Christi and the Office of the Blessed Sacrament. But some of his prayers to the Blessed Sacrament are less well known to the faithful. And some of them present a side of St. Thomas Aquinas that few Catholics know of. I would like to present to you one such prayer. It can be found in a marvellous work of the Angelic Doctor entitled, The Bread of Life or On the Adorable Sacrament of the Altar. The following prayer is taken from the 1879 English edition of that work. The original prayer was, of course, written in Latin.
O Jesus, Lamb of God, hidden in the darkness, give me grace to come to Thee.
O Jesus, Thou art God and man, miraculously conceived, miraculously born; give me light that I may know Thee.
O Jesus, conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, give me strength to come to Thee.
O Jesus, Thou art in this most Holy Sacrament with Thy Body and Soul and Godhead; give me grace to find Thee and love Thee.
My Saviour, give me true sorrow for sin as I draw near to Thine Altar, seeking for Thee.
My Saviour, take from me all pride, all malice, all wickedness; that in newness of life, without guile and without vain-glory, I may give Thee the praise of my life, and draw near to Thine Altar, seeking Thee.
My Saviour, sprinkle me with Thy Precious Blood, lead me in the way of Thy Passion, and keep me beneath the shadow of Thy Cross, that I may draw near to Thine Altar, seeking Thee.
O Most Holy Jesus, purify my soul from all uncleanness and from every spot displeasing to Thee, that in holiness of heart I may feed upon this Bread of God.
O Most Holy Jesus, keep me from every wound of sin, and lead me in the right way, that I may walk in the footsteps of those who loved Thee, and feed now upon this Bread of God.
O Most Holy Jesus, give me an upright heart and a just heart, that I may love Thee, the King in Jerusalem, and wait for Thy coming, and feed now upon this Bread of God.
O Jesus, Incarnate Word, my King and my Spouse, I come to Thee. Hungry and thirsty, my spirit fainteth within me; and I cry to Thee, O Thou Lover of my soul. Thou, my Jesus, art the Giver of Bread: set a table for me in the wilderness. Thou, my Jesus, art the Giver of Drink: let me slake my thirst with living water from the rock.
Draw me, my Lord and my God; then I will come to Thee. Speak to me, my Brother and my Friend; then I will listen to Thee and follow in Thy steps.
Fasten me, O sweetest Jesus, to Thyself with a chain of gold which will not break, and let me rest upon Thine Heart. In the everlasting Home feed me with Thy beauty, with the vision of Thy Face, with the vision of the Face of God.
O Jesus! O Jesus! O Jesus!
The work that I mentioned above (The Bread of Life or On the Adorable Sacrament of the Altar) is a very deep theological treatise on the Most Blessed Sacrament. I have never come across a more profound or more complete theological work on all things pertaining to the Holy Eucharist. It covers the mystery of the Mass, the Sacrifice, the Real Presence. It shows the Eucharist to be a sacred meal and the food of immortality, the atoning Sacrifice of Calvary, and a foretaste and pledge of eternal glory. The treatise itself is quite theologically dense, as one would expect from the writings of the Angelic Doctor. But there are parts of the work that show another side of St. Thomas Aquinas: not St. Thomas the intellectual genius of theological rigour, but instead St. Thomas the saint and lover of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus.
The above prayer shows this fervent heart of the Angelic Doctor, and while it is certainly rich in theological language, it also contains the noble simplicity of a man whose heart is in love with God. Our Lord is invoked in the prayer under several beautiful titles. Jesus is called as the Lamb of God, True God and man, the one conceived of by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary. He is called My Saviour, Most Holy Jesus, the King of Jerusalem, and the Bread of God. He is invoked as the Incarnate Word (the Word-made-flesh), My Spouse, the Giver of Bread and of Drink who satisfies my hunger and thirst. Finally, He is prayed to as My Lord and My God — the very same words used by that first St. Thomas to whom Our Lord first appeared risen from the dead on the Octave Day of Easter (St. Thomas the Apostle).
This prayer shows the Angelic Doctor crying out to God, seeking God, nourishing his humger and quenching his thirst for God in the Blessed Sacrament. The Eucharistic Presence is invoked by the saint as Brother and Friend, and as the place where he may rest ("Let me rest upon Thine Heart"). And St. Thomas invites Jesus to fasten him to the Blessed Sacrament "with a chain of gold," which is Divine Charity or the supernatural love of Christ.
But perhaps the most touching part of St. Thomas Aquinas' prayer is at the very end wherein he asks Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament to lead him to the Eternal Home (the Kingdom of Heaven) and to feed him there with the beauty of His Holy Face. Saint Thomas knows that to behold the Holy Face of Jesus is to see the Face of God Himself. And this is his ultimate desire.
What a rich and beautiful prayer this is! We should meditate on each and every word of it regularly, and use this prayer to sharpen the desire of our own soul to behold the Face of God for all eternity! That same Holy Face, which is the perfect reflection of the holiness of God the Son, can already be contemplated in this world in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Tabernacle and of the Altar.
In the everlasting Home feed me with Thy beauty, with the vision of Thy Face, with the vision of the Face of God. O Jesus! O Jesus! O Jesus!