What Does The Prayer (Hymn) Really Say? “Placáre, Christe, sérvulis”

Tonight at Solemn Vespers for the Feast of All Saints, we were treated with a vision of the heavenly court as we sang the hymn after the psalms (the traditional location unlike the post-Conciliar Liturgy of the Hours). The hymn presents angels, the Apostles, the Prophets, the Martyrs, the Confessors, the Virgins, the men and women who sought God in the wilderness. They fought the good fight and, by God’s grace, attained the patria, the heavenly homeland toward which we are still making our pilgrimage.

Let’s drill into the hymn Placáre, Christe, sérvulis… Be appeased, O Christ, toward Thy little servants.

The hymn is comprised of seven four-line stanzas, with eight syllables to each line: 8.8.8.8. Its meter is iambic dimeter, a familiar vehicle of Latin hymnody. An iamb moves from a short to a long syllable (˘ —). Four iambic feet supply the eight syllables of the line. The classical quantitative pattern is important, but the sung hymn also has the accentual rhythms of ecclesiastical Latin. Syllable length and word stress are different things.

There’s an interesting textual history. The older hymn began “Christe, Redemptor omnium, conserva tuos famulos… O Christ, Redeemer of all, preserve Thy servants.” It is sometimes attributed to Rabanus Maurus (+856), though that attribution is uncertain. The editors of the Roman hymns under Urban VIII (+1644), with their narrow taste for classical metrical exactatude, reworked it so extensively that Placáre, Christe, sérvulis is practically a new composition. The older text has been restored to modern forms of the Liturgy of the Hours. Our hymn here is the traditional Roman Breviary version.

Let’s look at the whole hymn. I’ve given an intentionally literal translation rather than attempting an English verse translation. The third column notes some relevant scriptural and theological connections.

There is an interesting movement through these seven stanzas. We begin at the tribunal of Christ with Our Lady asking mercy. Then our singing eyes pass over the angelic orders and the ranks of the blessed, from the foundation stones of Apostles and Prophets through the blood of Martyrs, the steadfast witness of Confessors, and the purity and self-denial of Virgins and hermits. We end by praying that Christ’s flock remain under one Shepherd, and finally in the praise of the Most Holy Trinity. The Church Triumphant intercedes for the Church Militant.

Notice the very first word: Placáre, a present passive imperative of placo, “to appease, to reconcile, to make favorable.” We ask Christ to be graciously disposed toward sérvulis, a diminutive of servus, “little servants.” There is both humility and affection in that diminutive. The opening is also striking for its hyperbaton structure: we have to reach the end of the stanza before the subject patróna Virgo, “the Virgin Patroness,” appears. She asks the Father’s clemency for us “ad tribúnal grátiae… at the tribunal of Christ’s grace”. Tribunal is a judicial word. Compare Hebrews 4:16, which bids us approach the throne of grace with confidence.

The second stanza turns to the nine ranks of blessed spirits. “Per novem distincta gyros agmina” describes the heavenly hosts arranged in nine circles or orders. The traditional enumeration, developed especially in Pseudo-Dionysius and was elaborated by St. Thomas Aquinas (cf. STh I, q. 108). These mighty beings are asked to drive away “antíqua cum praeséntibus, futúra damna… evils past, present and future”. The expression spreads their protective concern across the whole of our embattled earthly life.

Next come the Apostles with the Prophets. They are asked to obtain indulgéntiam “pardon or remission”, before the sevérum Iúdicem, “the stern or exacting Judge”. Note “veris reórum flétibus… the genuine tears of the guilty.”  There must be real repentance. The saints pray that such sinners obtain mercy. The communion of saints cannot make repentance unnecessary.  Rather, their intercession helps sinners to repent and to persevere as they did.

Then comes a great contrast. The Martyrs are purpuráti, clad in purple, in the royal color of blood shed for Christ. The Confessors are candidáti, clothed in gleaming white on account of the reward of their faithful confession. Purple and white. Blood and perseverance. Different forms of witness but one and the same heavenly victory. What do we ask? “Éxsules vocáte nos in pátriam… Call us, exiles, into our homeland.” Think of the  Salve Regina. We are still in exile, though we are already, through baptism, citizens of heaven (Philippians 3:20). I can’t help but think of ancient Roman political and forensic imagery. A man running for office would wear a plain toga, white (candida) from chalk. A senator would wear a white toga with a broad purple stripe. Each indicates service of the patria, which means service to others.

The next stanza introduces the chaste company of Virgins, then those whom the desert sent heavenward. Erémus is the wilderness, the desert, the place where the ancient ascetics fought the devil, themselves, and the disordered appetites of fallen nature. We ask these saints to “locáte nos in sédibus caelitum… to place us among the dwelling places of the heavenly citizens.” Think of John 14:2: “In my Father’s house there are many mansions.”

There is a hard-edged petition in the sixth stanza: Auferte gentem pérfidam credéntium de fínibus. In this context pérfidam means faithless or, depending on the context, treacherous. Read within the hymn’s prayer for the Church’s preservation and unity, the petition asks that what is hostile to faith be removed from the bounds of the faithful. The following lines give its positive object: “Et unus omnes únicum ovíle nos Pastor regat… And may one Shepherd govern us all as one flock.” The allusion is plainly to John 10:16. The final goal is unity under Christ the Shepherd, with all called to enter His fold.

The repeated thought of patria (“fatherland”) is especially fitting on All Saints. Those who have reached heaven are not strangers to us. Patria implies that they are our elder brothers and sisters in the household of God. They know the way because, with grace, they have traveled it. They have fought their battles and now reign with Christ. We are asking them to help us reach the same destination.

The juxtaposted images sevérus Iúdex with tribúnal grátiae are consoling. God is just, so accountability is necessary. But mercy is real, too, and so is the intercession of those who see Him face to face. The Feast of All Saints is therefore a summons to examine our consciences, conversion, an invitation to hope, and a reminder that Heaven is where we are supposed to be going is not to be presumed.

Now that we have pried open the text, let’s hear it.