« COR ARCA LEGEM CONTINENS ». – Hymn of Lauds for the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The heart is the seat of love; in his heart, pierced by the lance, Jesus shows us the wounds of love, from which flowed the water and the blood that washed humanity from sin. The hymn dates from 1847, and only ten years later did Pius IX include it in the Roman Breviary.
BIBL.: C. Albin, La poésie du Breviaire romain, Lyon n. d., p. 277; G. Bossi, Gli inni del Breviario romano, versione ritmica, Rome 1919, p. 111; A. Mirra, Gli inni del Breviario romano, Naples 1947, p. 139. Silverio Mattei