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O divi amoris victima

Hymn to St. Francis of Assisi (O divi amoris victima)

Roman Breviary, feast of the Sacred Stigmata; indulgenced by Leo XIII, 13 September 1893

'O victim of divine love, marked with five bleeding wounds' — the Breviary hymn of the Stigmata, asking that the fire which burned in him be lit in us.

The Prayer · Multiple Versions
Latin · Original
O divi amoris victima,
Quino cruenta vulnere,
Francisce, qui vivam crucis
Christi refers imaginem.

Tu caritatis fervidis
Flammis adustus, sanguinem
Christo daturus, barbara
Ter cogitasti littora.

Voti sed impos, non sinis
Languere flammas desides:
Et excitas caelestia,
Flagrans amore incendia.

In prole vivens efferas
Pervadis oras; algida
Gelu soluto, ut ferveant
Ardore sancto pectora.

Sic pertimendis lividum
Armis Avernum conteris;
Virtutis et firmum latus
Templo labenti subicis.

Adsis, Pater, precantibus,
Ignemque, late quo tua
Exarsit ingens caritas,
Accende nostris mentibus.

Sit laus Patri et Filio,
Sit inclyto Paraclito,
Qui nos parentis optimi
Det aemulari spiritum. Amen.
English
O victim of divine love, Francis, red with five wounds, who bearest in thyself the living image of the cross of Christ.

Burnt with the ardent flames of charity, and longing to give thy blood for Christ, three times thou didst set thy mind on the barbarian shores.

But denied thy desire, thou wouldst not let the flames grow slack and idle: burning with love, thou didst kindle heavenly fires instead.

Living on in thy children, thou dost cross the wild coasts; the frozen ice being melted, that hearts may glow with holy ardour.

So with arms to be feared thou dost crush the livid pit of hell; and thou puttest the firm shoulder of thy strength beneath the falling temple.

Be near, O Father, to those who pray, and kindle in our minds that fire with which thy own great charity blazed far and wide.

Praise be to the Father and the Son, praise to the glorious Paraclete, who grant us to imitate the spirit of our best of fathers. Amen.

(Our translation.)
When the Prayer is Said

On 17 September, the Stigmata, and on 4 October; on the Five Sundays kept in honour of the Stigmata.

History & Background

On or about 14 September 1224, praying on Mount La Verna in the Apennines, Francis received in his own body the five wounds of Christ — the first recorded stigmatic in the history of the Church. He hid them for the two years he had left and they were made public only at his death. The feast of the Sacred Stigmata was kept on 17 September.

The hymn compresses the whole life into six stanzas: the man burning to shed his blood for Christ, who three times set out for the lands of the Saracens and three times was turned back; who, denied martyrdom, would not let the flame die down but kindled it in others; whose sons then went out to the frozen ends of the earth; and who propped the falling temple with the strength of his own virtue — the dream Innocent III is said to have had of a poor man holding up the Lateran.

Leo XIII indulgenced it in 1893. The Latin is the Raccolta's of 1910; the English below is our own translation, the Raccolta printing the Latin alone.

Indulgences Attached

One hundred days, once a day — Leo XIII, 13 September 1893 (Raccolta, 1910, no. 336).

Related Saints
St. Francis of Assisi
1181 or 1182 – October 3, 1226
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