The Golden Sequence

The Pentecost sequence, called the loveliest hymn in Latin.

Sung at Mass on Pentecost Sunday before the Gospel, this thirteenth-century sequence has been called the Golden Sequence for eight hundred years. Its images are of what a dry soul needs: water, warmth, light, rest, and something to melt what has gone hard.

In English

Come, Holy Spirit, come!
And from Your celestial home
shed a ray of light divine!

Come, Father of the poor!
Come, source of all our store!
Come, within our bosoms shine!

You, of comforters the best;
You, the soul's most welcome guest;
sweet refreshment here below;

in our labour, rest most sweet;
grateful coolness in the heat;
solace in the midst of woe.

O most blessed Light divine,
shine within these hearts of Yours,
and our inmost being fill!

Where You are not, we have naught,
nothing good in deed or thought,
nothing free from taint of ill.

Heal our wounds, our strength renew;
on our dryness pour Your dew;
wash the stains of guilt away.

Bend the stubborn heart and will;
melt the frozen, warm the chill;
guide the steps that go astray.

On the faithful, who adore
and confess You, evermore
in Your sevenfold gift descend.

Give them virtue's sure reward;
give them Your salvation, Lord;
give them joys that never end. Amen. Alleluia.

In Latin

Veni, Sancte Spiritus,
et emitte caelitus
lucis tuae radium.

Veni, pater pauperum,
veni, dator munerum,
veni, lumen cordium.

Consolator optime,
dulcis hospes animae,
dulce refrigerium.

In labore requies,
in aestu temperies,
in fletu solatium.

About This Hymn

One line is the whole prayer in miniature: on our dryness pour Your dew. Nothing here asks for spiritual fireworks. It asks for water on parched ground, warmth on something frozen, and rest for people who are tired — which is what most people who pray it actually need.