Anima Christi Prayer: Full Text (English and Latin), Meaning, and History

The Anima Christi is a medieval prayer to Christ, prayed especially after Holy Communion; its name is simply its first two Latin words, “Soul of Christ.” It dates from the first half of the fourteenth century and was enriched with indulgences by Pope John XXII in 1330 — more than a century and a half before the birth of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the saint to whom it is still wrongly attributed. Here is the full text in English and Latin, what each petition asks, and where the prayer actually came from.

The Anima Christi in English

The traditional English text:

Soul of Christ, sanctify me.
Body of Christ, save me.
Blood of Christ, inebriate me.
Water from the side of Christ, wash me.
Passion of Christ, strengthen me.
O good Jesus, hear me.
Within Thy wounds hide me.
Suffer me not to be separated from Thee.
From the malicious enemy defend me.
In the hour of death call me,
And bid me come unto Thee.
That with Thy saints I may praise Thee.
For ever and ever. Amen.

The Anima Christi in Latin

Anima Christi, sanctifica me.
Corpus Christi, salva me.
Sanguis Christi, inebria me.
Aqua lateris Christi, lava me.
Passio Christi, conforta me.
O bone Jesu, exaudi me.
Intra tua vulnera absconde me.
Ne permittas me separari a te.
Ab hoste maligno defende me.
In hora mortis meae voca me,
Et jube me venire ad te,
Ut cum Sanctis tuis laudem te
In saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Where the Prayer Came From

The record is plainer than the legend around it. The Catholic Encyclopedia states that “this well-known prayer dates its origin from the first half of the fourteenth century and was enriched with indulgences by Pope John XXII in the year 1330.” That is the firm ground: a prayer in circulation in the early 1300s, indulgenced by a pope within the same generation.

Who wrote it is a different question, and the honest answer is that no one knows. It may have been John XXII himself, but the Catholic Encyclopedia cautions against settling on that: the pope was falsely credited with other compositions of the same kind, and the man who granted an indulgence is easily confused, in later memory, with the man who composed the lines. The Church kept the prayer; the author's name did not survive.

Why It Is Not the Prayer of St. Ignatius

Ask most Catholics where the Anima Christi comes from and you will hear the name of St. Ignatius of Loyola. The association has a cause: Ignatius placed the prayer at the front of his Spiritual Exercises, and generations of retreatants met it there. But the Catholic Encyclopedia is blunt — “it is a mistake, as the prayer has been found in manuscripts which were written a hundred years before his birth (1491).”

The manuscript evidence is specific. The English hymnologist James Mearns found the prayer in a British Museum manuscript dating to about 1370. The library of Avignon preserves a prayer book of Cardinal Peter de Luxembourg, who died in 1387, containing it in practically the form we pray today. It was inscribed on one of the gates of the Alcazar of Seville, from the time of Don Pedro the Cruel (1350–69).

Ignatius was born in 1491, at the castle of Loyola above Azpeitia in Guipuscoa. A cannon ball struck him at Pamplona on 20 May 1521; at Manresa in 1522 he began the notes that grew into the Spiritual Exercises; he died at Rome on 31 July 1556. The prayer he handed on was already old when it reached him, and that takes nothing from him. Handing men a weapon proven in the field for a century and a half is the greater service.

Line by Line: What the Prayer Asks

The prayer makes no argument and asks for nothing outside of Christ. Every line is a man asking to be acted upon.

Soul of Christ, sanctify me. Body of Christ, save me. Blood of Christ, inebriate me. The opening addresses the whole Christ — body, blood, soul — just received in the Eucharist. That is why the prayer belongs after Communion: the man praying is not calling on someone distant. He is speaking to the One now within him.

Water from the side of Christ, wash me. Passion of Christ, strengthen me. The prayer turns to the Cross and asks for two things a man in combat needs: to be cleaned, and to be made strong. Not comforted. Strengthened.

Within Thy wounds hide me. This is the line that stops men. The safest place in creation is inside the wounds of a crucified God, and this is not a request to be spared the fight. It is a request for cover in it.

From the malicious enemy defend me. The prayer names an enemy and asks for defense against him — the language of a Church that has always understood the Christian life as a campaign, the tradition behind the phrase Militia Christi. This is a soldier's prayer: short, ordered, asking the right things in the right order.

In the hour of death call me, and bid me come unto Thee. That with Thy saints I may praise Thee. The prayer ends where a man's life ends, and asks the only outcome worth having: to be summoned by name, and found in the company of the saints.

Why Men Still Pray It

This prayer has lasted seven hundred years because it is built the way a man's mind works under pressure: no preamble, short lines, each a single request. It can be prayed kneeling after Communion, or in a truck at four in the morning, and it requires no book. It is also a confession of faith disguised as a request — a man who prays Body of Christ, save me has stated what he believes about what he just received without arguing a syllable of it. Wearing the words does the same work.

Wear the Standard

Our Anima Christi — Soul of Christ, Sanctify Me tee carries the prayer's first petition. It is printed to order in the USA on a Bayside 5100 heavyweight blank — 6.1 oz cotton, built to be worn hard — in sizes S through 3XL, $44.99 (2XL $48.99, 3XL $49.99). It stands with the rest of our Catholic t-shirts. Soul of Christ, sanctify me: the whole standard, in five words.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Anima Christi prayer?

It is a medieval prayer to Christ, prayed especially after Holy Communion, named for its first two Latin words, “Soul of Christ.” It petitions Christ's soul, body, blood, the water from His side and His Passion, asking to be hidden within His wounds, defended from the enemy, and called at the hour of death to praise Him with the saints forever.

Who wrote the Anima Christi?

The author is unknown. The prayer dates from the first half of the fourteenth century, and Pope John XXII enriched it with indulgences in 1330. He may have written it, but the Catholic Encyclopedia warns this cannot be established: that pope was falsely credited with similar compositions, and the granter of an indulgence is easily confused with the author.

Did St. Ignatius of Loyola write the Anima Christi?

No. It is commonly but wrongly believed that he did, because he placed the prayer at the beginning of his Spiritual Exercises. The Catholic Encyclopedia calls the attribution a mistake: the prayer appears in manuscripts written about a hundred years before his birth in 1491, among them a British Museum manuscript of about 1370.

When is the Anima Christi prayed?

Especially after Holy Communion, which is where its opening petitions point: they address the soul, body and blood of Christ, the whole Christ present in the Eucharist and just received. It can be prayed from memory at any hour, but its home is the thanksgiving after Mass.

What does “within Thy wounds hide me” mean?

It is a petition to take refuge in the wounds Christ suffered in His Passion. The man praying it is not asking to be removed from the fight — the next lines ask not to be separated from Christ and to be defended from the malicious enemy. He asks that his cover be Christ crucified, and nothing else.

Sources

• https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01515a.htm
• https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/prayers/view.cfm?id=1113
• https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07639c.htm