Veni Creator Spiritus: The Ancient Ordination Hymn
The silence of the ordination service is heavy with expectation, especially when the ordinand lowers his body to the ground. He has been examined by the bishop, and soon he will kneel under the bishop’s hands. Though he has just made lofty vows, he knows, like Isaiah, that he is a man of unclean lips. And so he lies prostrate before God in earnest and necessary prayer.
Into this most heavy silence, the people sing Veni Creator Spiritus, the Church’s ancient hymn of ordination. In a moment when the ordinand can hardly speak, the people pray for him:
Sponsored
Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire,
and lighten with celestial fire.
Origins of Text and Tune
Veni Creator Spiritus is a Latin hymn composed by Rabanus Maurus, a 9th-century Frankish Benedictine. The text is in tetrameter, with four lines per stanza. Here is the first stanza:
Veni Creator Spiritus,
Mentes tuorum visita,
Imple superna gratia
Quae Tu creasti pectora
Rabanus had been a student of Alcuin, the Anglo-Saxon scholar whom Charlemagne brought to France to lead the educational reformation of the church. Rabanus probably wrote the hymn when he was the Abbot of Fulda, a monastery founded during Boniface’s mission, which also housed the relics of Boniface after his martyrdom.
We can only conjecture to explain how the hymn became popular. Fulda housed an influential school, so perhaps church leaders trained there brought the hymn with them to other parts of Europe. It is also possible that, because the hymn reflected Maurus’ teaching on the double procession of the Holy Spirit, it gained currency through theological debate.
Widespread Popularity
By the 11th century, it was being sung at Pentecost, both in Rome and throughout the Western church. Soon it was sung at other occasions associated with the Holy Spirit, especially ordinations, coronations, and even the papal conclave (see video of recent conclave rendition below). We know Veni Creator Spiritus was especially beloved in England, since the text appears in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts even before the Norman Conquest. Below is a photo from the Portiforium of St. Wulfstan, from around 1060-1065.
Notice that the text, in this manuscript, includes rudimentary musical notation. Remarkably, the tune is the same as one of the chants we sing today, indicating a very early association of the text and the tune (even before modern musical notation!). This means the Veni Creator Spiritus is one of the longest-running text-tune combinations in the history of the Church.
Quite the Catchy Tune
The quality of the tune is yet another reason for the wide adoption of the Veni Creator Spiritus. Though we sometimes think of chant as difficult to sing, Westermeyer explains the accessible shape of the Veni Creator Spiritus:
This tune is profoundly congregational, organized in four phrases that balance each other in the shape of one question with its answer, followed by another question and its answer.
Let the People Sing: Hymn Tunes in Perspective, p. 28
In modern notation (of Cosin’s translation), the chant looks like this:
Veni Creator Spiritus in the Book of Common Prayer
The Veni Creator Spiritus was translated by Thomas Cranmer into English and included in the 1550 ordinal for the first Book of Common Prayer. The translation was Cranmer’s only attempt at metrical poetry, and you can tell; it sounds most like one of Cranmer’s collects. Here are Cranmer’s first two stanzas:
Come, Holy Ghost, eternal God,
Proceeding from above,
Both from the Father and the Son,
The God of peace and loveVisit our minds, into our hearts
Thy heavenly grace inspire
That truth and godliness we may
Pursue with full desire
Notice that Cranmer’s translation follows the basic form of the collect: address, attribution, the ask, and finally the aspiration. As a prose collect, this would be lovely, but the effect is maladapted to poetry.
Anglican clergyman John Cosin, observing this problem, made his own translation for the occasion of the coronation of King Charles I in 1627. Cosin’s first line—Come Holy Ghost, our souls inspire—is more powerful than Cranmer’s first two stanzas!
By 1662, Cosin had become a bishop and was involved in the preparation of the Book of Common Prayer. Cosin’s translation, therefore, became an additional option in the 1662 BCP. In the image below from the 1662 Prayer Book, notice the two options. The first is by Cosin, the second by Cranmer.
With time, Cosin’s translation became the standard form for liturgical use, especially at ordinations. Many other poets have made their own translations, including an especially fine version by John Dryden (also find renditions by Herebert and Bridges here). These have sometimes become successful hymns in their own right.
Veni Creator Spiritus in the 2019 BCP
Classic prayer books, including the 1662, appointed the Veni Creator Spiritus only for the ordination of priests and consecration of bishops. Most modern Prayer Books, including the 2019 Book of Common Prayer, also appoint the Veni Creator Spiritus as an option for the ordination of a deacon (479).
For those who are unfamiliar with the tune, the BCP 2019 does allow that the hymn may be “sung or said” (492, 505). My hope is that this article, together with the videos below, might inspire each of us to learn the music and participate in this glorious ancient hymn.
Hymn Reflection, Verse By Verse
It’s also helpful to think a bit more deeply about the content of the hymn. Because Cosin’s translation is now the standard Anglican liturgical form, I use his translation.
Verse 1
Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire,
And lighten with Celestial fire.
Thou the anointing Spirit art,
Who dost thy seven-fold gifts impart.
The hymn opens with an appeal to the Holy Spirit to give light and inspiration. It references especially the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Though the scriptures refer in multiple places to the gifts of the holy Spirit, what is in view here are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit listed in Isaiah 11:1-3. This connection to Isaiah is especially appropriate in light of the use of the hymn in an ordination service.
Verse 2
Thy blessed unction from above,
Is comfort, life, and fire of love.
Enable with perpetual light,
The dulness of our blinded sight.
The key idea here is that the Holy Spirit is not impersonal, but rather an anointing of personal love, like the love of the Father on the Son at his baptism. This identification of the Holy Spirit with love reflects Saint Augustine’s theology of the Holy Spirit. Augustine argued that “love” should be considered an alternative proper predication (proper name) of the Holy Spirit, because love reveals the relation between the Father and the Son.
Verse 3
Anoint and chear our soiled face
With the abundance of thy grace.
Keep far our foes: Give peace at home.
Where thou art guide, no ill can come.
This verse, together with the previous reference to our dulness, acknowledges our own sin. Because of our sin, we have a soiled face. As Isaiah said, “Woe is me! For I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5). Yet with God’s abundant grace, we may be cheered. For indeed we know with God there is peace and healing.
Verse 4 & Doxoloy
Teach us to know the Father, Son,
And Thee, of Both, to be but one.
That through the Ages all along.
This may be our endless song:Praise to thy eternal Merit,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The final verse asks the Holy Spirit, given freely by God, to bring us ever more deeply into the mystery of the knowledge of God. This God is the Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three persons, yet forever one in substance and the relation of their love.
Singing in the Communion of Saints
Whenever I attend an ordination, the singing of Veni Creator Spiritus reminds me of the communion of the saints. With profound gratitude, I sing and join millions of fellow Christians across space and time. Though divided by language and culture, by era and sometimes denomination, we sing together in humble reliance upon God.
And consider the ordinand. Already humbled in body, now he is humbled in spirit. Lying prostrate on the ground, he hears the prayers of the people he is appointed to serve, serving him already as they pray for him before God.
How beautiful, and how fitting! For without God, what can we do in this world and this spiritual battle? Certainly nothing by our own power. But when we are in Christ, and we receive his Holy Spirit, what can stand against us?
—
Author’s Note: I dedicate this article to the Rev’d Daniel Gullotta, on the occasion of his ordination as a priest in the church of God. May your ministry be blessed in the power of the Spirit. Axios!
On Video
The first video features the Latin text with traditional chant, and literal (non-poetic) English translation. The second video is in English chant, from the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. The third rendition, from this year’s Papal conclave, is a choral setting in Latin based on the original tune.
Image: Ordination of John of Matha by Vicente Carducho. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Digitally edited by Jacob Davis.
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