Here is kept the ancient promise...

Tantum Ergo is part of an ancient hymn.  Written by St Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) for the Feast of Corpus Christi (now called the Solemnity of the Holy Body and Blood of Christ). It is also sung on Maundy Thursday, during the procession from the church to the place where the Blessed Sacrament is kept until Good Friday.  The whole hymn has powerful echos of another hymn, by Venantius Honorius Fortunatus, called Sing, My Tongue, the Glorious Battle (the wonderful hymn for Good Friday).  The Tantum Ergo portion is the final two stanzas.  It is often translated in English as Now, My Tongue, the Mystery Telling (as it is in Lutheran Service Book) or as Of the Glorious Body Telling. 

I want to focus upon a translation by James Quinn, S.J., that I ran across in his little book of hymns called Praise for All Seasons.  Obviously he has adapted poetically the original but the result is a much more fluid and vivid translation that most English renderings.  I am especially captured by the middle two lines.  Here is kept the ancient promise of God's earthly dwelling place.  Wow.  That is powerful writing.  And this is exactly the perspective on the Sacrament of the Altar that is so much missing even though we as Lutherans observe the Eucharist more frequently than at any time in recent history.  Christ's promise to be with us always is no guarantee of some vague, hidden, spiritual companionship but the promise of the means of grace, specifically the promise of the Eucharist.  It seems that this perspective has been obscured by our love of things spiritual and our fear of the material.  But in the Eucharist, God combines them (as in Baptism and the Word).  His presence is not like a cloud drive where you store your computer files on some space out there.  His presence is local, hidden in the material but also very clearly identified there.  Christ is present with us through the Word and the Sacrament.  When these cease to be the regular Sunday fare and when our devotional lives as individuals depart from these means of grace, we are left with an empty, formless, void of a presence which is more feeling than reality, more imagined than received.  I know little of James Quinn but the way he translated those words makes him sound thoroughly Lutheran.  For this is the very vibrant and vivid sacramental reality we find in Luther and in the early Lutherans.  Oh, that we would recover it in the pulpit and in the pew!

Come adore this wondrous presence,
Bow to Christ the source of grace.
Here is kept the ancient promise
Of God’s earthly dwelling place.
Sight is blind before God’s glory,
Faith alone may see his face.

 Below is the original text and translation from Wiki.

Latin text

An English translation

Pange, lingua, gloriosi Corporis mysterium, Sanguinisque pretiosi, quem in mundi pretium fructus ventris generosi Rex effudit Gentium. Nobis datus, nobis natus ex intacta Virgine, et in mundo conversatus, sparso verbi semine, sui moras incolatus miro clausit ordine. In supremae nocte coenae recumbens cum fratribus observata lege plene cibis in legalibus, cibum turbae duodenae se dat suis manibus. Verbum caro, panem verum verbo carnem efficit: fitque sanguis Christi merum, et si sensus deficit, ad firmandum cor sincerum sola fides sufficit. Tantum ergo Sacramentum veneremur cernui: et antiquum documentum novo cedat ritui: praestet fides supplementum sensuum defectui. Genitori, Genitoque laus et jubilatio, salus, honor, virtus quoque sit et benedictio: Procedenti ab utroque compar sit laudatio. Amen. Alleluja.

Sing, my tongue, the Savior's glory, of His flesh the mystery sing; of the Blood, all price exceeding, shed by our immortal King, destined, for the world's redemption, from a noble womb to spring. Of a pure and spotless Virgin born for us on earth below, He, as Man, with man conversing, stayed, the seeds of truth to sow; then He closed in solemn order wondrously His life of woe. On the night of that Last Supper, seated with His chosen band, He the Pascal victim eating, first fulfills the Law's command; then as Food to His Apostles gives Himself with His own hand. Word-made-Flesh, the bread of nature by His word to Flesh He turns; wine into His Blood He changes; what though sense no change discerns? Only be the heart in earnest, faith her lesson quickly learns. Down in adoration falling, This great Sacrament we hail, Over ancient forms of worship Newer rites of grace prevail; Faith will tell us Christ is present, When our human senses fail. To the everlasting Father, And the Son who made us free And the Spirit, God proceeding From them Each eternally, Be salvation, honor, blessing, Might and endless majesty. Amen. Alleluia.