AUCOTR BEATE SAECULI. – This is the hymn for Matins on the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, composed in 1763 on the occasion of the first granting of the Mass and Office of the Sacred Heart (S. R. Cong., Registrum an. 1763-65, fol. 244). The love that impelled the Word to create the world, to assume human flesh, and to redeem humanity from the wretched state into which Adam’s sin had plunged it, is extolled in a somewhat convoluted and ponderous but nonetheless precise form of expression.
BIBL.: G. G. Belli, Inni del Breviario romano tradotti, Roma 1856, pp. 482-83; U. Chevalier, Repertorium hymnologicum, Lovanio 1889-97, n. 1430; G. Bassi, Gli inni del Breviario romano, versione ritmica, Roma 1919, p. 108; A. Mirra, Gli inni del Breviario romano, Napoli 1947, p. 138. Silveiro Mattei