VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS - Enciclopedia Cattolica, Vol. XII, p. 789

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

«COME, CREATOR SPIRIT» — Hymn of Vespers and Terce in the Office of Pentecost. Of unknown authorship from the end of the 9th century, it is already found in manuscripts from the end of the 10th century and appears in the liturgy in 1049 when Leo IX intoned it at the Council of Reims. It is one of the most common hymns of the Church and is always sung at the beginning of solemn sacred actions.

In the first three strophes the Holy Spirit is invoked with the titles attributed to Him in Scripture; with the fourth begins a supplicatory form in which light is sought for the intellect, fervor for the heart, strength for the will, and fidelity to the grace of the Lord. It concludes with the plea to believe always in Him, the Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

BIBL.: S. G. Piment, Les hymnes du Bréviaire. III. Paris 1884, pp. 125-43; J. Henry, The hymn «V. S.», in Americ. Eccles. Rev., 3 (1897), pp. 573-96; A. Wilmart, L'hymne et la séquence du St. Esprit, in La vie et les arts liturg. 2 (1914), pp. 392-98 (reprinted in Auteurs spirituels et textes dévots du moyen âge latin, Paris 1932, pp. 37-48); A. Mirra, Gli inni del Breviario. Rome, Naples 1947, pp. 128-30.