« TE DICIMUS PRAECONIO ». – Hymn of Matins for the feast of the Apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes, composed in 1880 by Leone XIII.
It celebrates the Virgin, immune from original sin insofar as she was destined to crush the head of the evil serpent. She will therefore be the glory and adornment of humanity, because she has erased Eve’s shame. The final stanza is a prayer that she keep the tempter far away and thwart his deceptions and snares.
BIBL.: C. Albin, La poésie du Bréviaire, Lione s. a., pp. 507–509; A. Mirra, Gli inni del Breviario romano, Napoli 1947, p. 164. Silverio Mattei