Did St. Ignatius Write the Anima Christi?

For centuries, millions of Catholics have attributed the Anima Christi to St. Ignatius of Loyola. He did not write it. The prayer was already circulating in Europe around 1340, more than a hundred years before the saint was born, and its author has never been identified.

This article tells the real story behind one of the most widely recited prayers after Communion, explains the meaning of each of its invocations, and gives you the complete text in English and in the original Latin.

1. What is the Anima Christi prayer?

The Anima Christi is a short prayer of thanksgiving made up of brief invocations addressed directly to the Lord, to his Body, to his Blood and to his wounds. Its rhythm is simple and repetitive, made to accompany the interior silence that follows Eucharistic Communion.

Several English translations are in use. This is the traditional version, the one found on holy cards and prayer books and the same text carried in the Church’s Manual of Indulgences:

Soul of Christ, sanctify me.
Body of Christ, save me.
Blood of Christ, inebriate me.
Water from the side of Christ, wash me.
Passion of Christ, strengthen me.
O good Jesus, hear me.
Within Thy wounds hide me. Suffer me not to be separated from Thee.
From the malicious enemy defend me.
In the hour of my death call me.
And bid me come unto Thee, That I may praise Thee with Thy saints and with Thy angels Forever and ever.
Amen.

2. What is the original Latin text of the Soul of Christ?

The Latin version, prayed for nearly seven hundred years, reads:

Anima Christi, sanctifica me.
Corpus Christi, salva me.
Sanguis Christi, inebria me.
Aqua lateris Christi, lava me.
Passio Christi, conforta me.
O bone Iesu, exaudi me.
Intra tua vulnera absconde me.
Ne permittas me separari a te.
Ab hoste maligno defende me.
In hora mortis meae voca me.
Et iube me venire ad te,
ut cum Sanctis tuis laudem te
in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Worth remembering: the Anima Christi is an anonymous prayer of medieval piety, and the Church has never been able to identify its author with certainty.

3. Who wrote the Anima Christi?

Legend says St. Ignatius of Loyola. History says otherwise.

St. Ignatius placed the Anima Christi at the opening of his Spiritual Exercises, approved by Pope Paul III in 1548. In the earliest manuscripts, the saint copied only the first words of the prayer, taking for granted that anyone making the Exercises already knew it by heart. It was so popular in his day that writing it out in full would have been pointless. Later printed editions did include the complete text at the front of the book, and that single editorial decision was enough for generations of readers to conclude that St. Ignatius had composed it.

Historical research rules that out. The hymnologist James Mearns identified an early version of the prayer in Harley 2253, a manuscript dated to around 1340 and held today in the British Library, then still part of the British Museum. St. Ignatius would not be born until 1491. That manuscript deserves a moment of its own. Harley 2253 was compiled in Ludlow, in Herefordshire, and is one of the most celebrated codices in medieval English literature, the source of the collection known as the Harley Lyrics. In other words, the earliest known witness to this beloved Eucharistic prayer survives in an English manuscript.
There is more evidence. A prayer book belonging to Blessed Peter of Luxembourg, a cardinal who died in 1387, contains a text almost identical to the one prayed today. In Spain, the prayer is carved into one of the doors of the Royal Alcázar of Seville, the medieval palace in the south of the country, in lettering from the reign of Peter I of Castile, between 1350 and 1369.

Over the centuries the prayer has also been attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas, to Blessed Bernardine of Feltre and to Pope John XXII. That last name explains a good deal of the confusion. In 1330 John XXII granted indulgences to those who prayed it, and in the Middle Ages the pope who attached an indulgence to a prayer was frequently mistaken for the person who wrote it. The conclusion is that nobody knows with certainty who composed the Anima Christi. It simply rose out of the anonymous Eucharistic fervor of the fourteenth century.

4. What does the Soul of Christ prayer mean?

The Soul of Christ unfolds in three clearly marked movements.

The first four invocations

1. Soul of Christ, sanctify me asks that one’s own spirit be filled with the same thoughts, desires and affections that Jesus holds before the Father.
2. Body of Christ, save me connects directly with the Eucharist just received: the Body given on the Cross is the same Body received at the altar moments earlier.
3. Blood of Christ, inebriate me recovers an image used by Church Fathers such as St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, known as sobria ebrietas, the sober intoxication of the Spirit. It describes a fervor so intense that it pulls the soul away from its attachment to worldly things.
4. Water from the side of Christ, wash me points to the account in the Gospel of St. John (Jn 19:34), when blood and water flowed from the opened side of Christ, a symbol of the sacraments born from that same wound.

The heart of the prayer

Passion of Christ, strengthen me and Within Thy wounds hide me are the most characteristic petitions of medieval spirituality. The wounds of Christ are understood here as a refuge, a place where the one praying seeks shelter from personal weakness and from sin. Asking to hide within those wounds is an act of trust: an admission that the strength to face life does not come from oneself, but from Christ’s self-offering on the Cross.

The closing

The final invocations look toward the end of life.

1. Suffer me not to be separated from Thee asks for the gift of perseverance, the kind of fidelity that does not break with the passing years or with one’s own falls.
2. From the malicious enemy defend me acknowledges that the Christian life includes a real spiritual battle.
3. And the closing lines, in the hour of my death call me… that I may praise Thee with Thy saints forever and ever, express the hope that at death the soul will be received by Christ himself and joined forever to the praise of the saints in heaven.

5. When should you pray the Anima Christi?

There is no single prescribed prayer for the moments after Communion. The Church leaves that space to the personal devotion of each of the faithful. Over time, however, the Anima Christi became one of the most recommended formulas for that moment, precisely because its structure accompanies so naturally the silence that follows receiving the Eucharist, while the Body of Christ remains sacramentally present in the one who has just received him.

The Church also attaches a concrete spiritual benefit to this practice. The Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, the official manual of indulgences issued by the Apostolic Penitentiary, grants a partial indulgence to the faithful who make an act of thanksgiving after Communion using a duly approved pious formula, and it names the Anima Christi by name as an example. To receive it you need to be in the state of grace and to have at least the general intention of gaining the indulgence.

Beyond that central moment, the Anima Christi has other uses just as warmly recommended. St. Ignatius proposed it as the customary close of the colloquies in his Spiritual Exercisesthose moments when the retreatant speaks with Christ as one friend speaks with another. It also works beautifully as slow vocal prayer, the kind where each word can be weighed. You can pray it during Eucharistic Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament exposed, and as part of daily personal prayer, especially when you need strength, spiritual protection, or simply a straightforward way of placing yourself in God’s presence.

6. Who sings the Anima Christi?

The prayer has a long musical tradition as well, thanks to a Latin rhythm that lends itself to singing.
Franz Liszt wrote a setting for male choir and organ in 1874, austere and contemplative in tone.

The most widely sung version today is by the Roman priest and composer Marco Frisina, written in 2000 for the Great Jubilee. His melody, in four-part choral polyphony, became the most frequently sung setting in parishes across Europe, the Americas and the English-speaking world, both during the distribution of Communion and at the end of Mass.

In 2023, the British choir Libera recorded an arrangement based on that same harmony for their album Forever, carrying the prayer to new audiences on digital music platforms.

May this centuries-old prayer, born from the anonymous fervor of a medieval believer, still be the simplest way to tell the Lord, after receiving him, what so many told him before: that he would stay with us, that he would not let us drift away through our sins, and that he himself would come looking for us at the final hour, so that at death we might behold his face and adore him with all the angels and saints forever and ever.

Want to learn more about the Eucharist? These articles may help:

• Liturgy of the Eucharist: The Heart of the Holy Mass: The Liturgy of the Eucharist is the heart of the Mass. Jesus offers Himself and renews His sacrifice for our salvation. Meditate on this mystery.
• 4 Tips from a Saint for a Unique Eucharistic Adoration: Do you have your Hour of Eucharistic Adoration and don’t know what to do? Here are four steps to talk to God that will help you.
• Saint Therese’s Quotes on the Eucharist: If you want to draw closer to Jesus the way St. Therese did, start with the simplest thing of all: go to Mass with an open heart.
• 4 Proofs of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist: Is Jesus present in the Eucharist symbolically or really? We present 4 proofs of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.