Beata nobis gaudia

Round roll the weeks our hearts to greet

The Hymns of the Breviary and Missal

Beata nobis gaudia
Anni reduxit orbita,
Cum Spiritus paraclitus
Illapsus est Apostolis.
Ignis vibrante lumine
Linguæ figuram detulit,
Verbis ut essent proflui,
Et caritate fervidi.
Linguis loquuntur omnium,
Turbæ pavent Gentilium:
Musto madere deputant,
Quos spiritus repleverat.
Parata sunt hæc mystice,
Paschæ peracto tempore,
Sacro dierum circulo,
Quo lege fit remissio.
Te nunc Deus piissime
Vultu precamur cernuo,
Illapsa nobis cœlitus
Largire dona Spiritus.
Dudum sacrata pectora
Tua replesti gratia:
Dimitte nostra crimina,
Et da quieta tempora.
Deo Patri sit gloria,
Et Filio, qui a mortuis
Surrexit, ac Paraclito.
In sæculorum sæcula.

Round roll the weeks our hearts to greet,
With blissful joy returning;
For lo! The Holy Paraclete
On twelve bright brows sits burning:
With quivering flame He lights on each,
In fashion like a tongue, to teach
That eloquent they are of speech,
Their hearts with true love yearning.
While with all tongues they speak to all,
The nations deem them maddened,
And drunk with wine the Prophets call,
Whom God’s good Spirit gladdened;
A marvel this—in mystery done—
The holy Paschaltide outrun,
By numbers told, whose reckoning won
Remission for the saddened.
O God most Holy, Thee we pray,
With reverent brow low bending,
Grant us the Spirit’s gifts to-day—
The gifts from heaven descending;
And, since, Thy grace hath deigned to bide
Within our breasts once sanctified,
Deign, Lord, to cast our sins aside,
Henceforth calm seasons sending.
To God the Father, laud and praise,
Praise to the Son be given;
Praise to the Spirit of all grace,
The fount of graces seven—
As was of old, all worlds before,
Is now and shall be evermore,
When time and change are spent and o’er—
All praise in earth and heaven.

Author: Ascribed to St. Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers (d. 368), but on insufficient evidence. Meter: Iambic dimeter. Translation by W. J. Blew. There are about twenty translations. The Annus Sanctus contains three translations, and a fragment of a fourth. Liturgical Use: Hymn for Lauds on Whitsunday and throughout the octave.

“The circle of the year has again brought back to us blessed joys, when the Spirit, the Comforter, came down upon the Apostles.”
“The fire with tremulous flame assumed the shape of a tongue, that they might be eloquent in speech and fervent in charity.” Et apparuerunt illis dispertitæ linguæ tamquam ignis, seditque supra singulos eorum (Acts 2, 3).
“Speaking in the tongues of all, the multitudes of the Gentiles are amazed: they deemed as drunk with new wine, those whom the Holy Ghost had filled.”
“These things were wrought mystically, when the Paschal time was completed, in the sacred circle of days in which by law remission occurred.” Circulo = numero, as in the Original Text. Remissio: The allusion is to the annus remissionis (Ezech. 46, 17), or Year of Jubilee, which in the Old Law occurred every fifty years (cf. Lev. 25). During the Year of Jubilee, debts were remitted, slaves liberated, etc. Read the article on Jubilee, in the Cath. Encycl. Read also the article on Sabbatical Year, as both are referred to in Lev. 25.
“With bowed heads, we now beseech Thee, O most loving God, to bestow upon us the gifts of the Holy Ghost, which were sent down from heaven.” Largire, imper. of largior.
“Formerly Thou didst fill with Thy grace sacred breasts; pardon now our sins and grant us peaceful days.” The first two lines of this stanza may refer either to our own breasts sanctified in Baptism, or to the breasts of the Apostles which were sanctified in so wondrous a manner on the day of Pentecost. Note the elaborate English doxology.