« NUNC SANCTE NOBIS SPIRITUS ». – Hymn of the canonical hour of Terce in the Divine Office, commonly attributed to St. Ambrose.
According to the Acts of the Apostles (3:2), at the third hour the Holy Spirit descended in the form of tongues of fire upon the Apostles gathered in prayer in the Cenacle; for this reason the Church, at the same hour, turns to the Spirit and prays him to descend into the hearts of the faithful and pour into them the treasure of his gifts. The second stanza is an exhortation to confess the presence of the Spirit with the intellect and with all one’s strength, so that, like the Apostles, we too may be transformed into confessors of the faith through the ardor of charity.
BIBL.: G. G. Belli, Gli inni del Breviario romano tradotti, Rome 1856, p. 18; L. Biraghi, Inni sinervi di s. Ambrogio, Milan 1862, p. 121; S. G. Pimont, Les hymnes du Breviaire romain, Paris 1872, I, pp. 99–105; A. Mirra, Gli inni del Breviario romano, Naples 1948, p. 47.