Since this Sunday has a Eucharistic theme – see Father Marco Testa’s reflection today – I thought we would post Mozart’s Ave Verum, one of the most beautiful hymns to the Real Presence, which he composed (in the middle of writing the Magic Flute!) in June of 1791 six months before his death, for the feast of Corpus Christi, and for his friend, Anton Stoll, a fellow church musician. (There are similarities to his last work, the Requiem). This motet is four minutes and forty-six bars of simple, profound beauty, in this rendition conducted by the great Leonard Bernstein.
Here is the Latin text:
Ave, verum corpus natum de/ex Maria Virgine:
vere passum, immolatum in cruce pro homine:
cuius latus perforatum unda fluxit et sanguine:
esto nobis praegustatum, in mortis examine.
(source: Wikipedia.org)