O GOD, I love thee, I love thee-
Not out of hope of heaven for me
Nor fearing not to love and be
In the everlasting burning.
Thou, thou, my Jesus, after me
Didst reach thine arms out dying,
For my sake sufferedst nails, and lance,
Mocked and marred countenance,
Sorrows passing number,
Sweat and care and cumber,
Yea and death, and this for me,
And thou couldst see me sinning:
Then I, why should not I love thee,
Jesu, so much in love with me?
Not for heaven's sake;
not to be out of hell by loving thee;
Not for any gains I see;
But just the way that thou didst me
I do love and I will love thee:
What must I love thee, Lord, for then?
For being my king and God. Amen.
�Prayer of St Francis Xavier�,
translated by Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J.
Here is the Latin hymn:

O Deus, ego amo Te!
nec amo Te, ut salves me,
aut quia non amantes Te,
aeterno punis igne:
Tu, Tu, mi Iesu, totum me
amplexus es in cruce.
tulisti clavos, lanceam
multamque ignominiam.
I nnumeros dolores,
sudores et angores,
ac mortem: et haec propter me,
ac pro me peccatore!
Cur igitur non amem Te,
o Iesu amantissime?
Non ut in caelo salves me,
aut ne aeternam damnes me.
Nec praemii ullius spe;
sed sicut Tu amasti me.
sic amo et amabo Te,
solum quia Rex meus es,
et solum quia Deus es.
This is one of two versions of the Latin lyric, of which the  first line is attributed to St. Francis Xavier: �The hymn has been appropriately styled the "love-sigh" of St. Francis Xavier (Schlosser, "Die Kirche in ihren Liedern", 2nd ed., Freiburg, 1863, I, 445, who devotes sixteen pages to a discussion of its authorship, translations etc.), who, it is fairly certain, composed the original Spanish sonnet "No me meuve, mi Dios, para quererte"�on which the various Latin versions are based, about the year 1546. There is not, however, sufficient reason for crediting to him any Latin version. The form given above appeared in the "C�;leste Palmetum" (Cologne, 1696). An earlier Latin version by Joannes Nadasi in his "Pretios� occupationes morientium" (Rome, 1657), beginning: "Non me movet, Domine, ad amandum te". Nadasi again translated it in 1665. F. X. Drebitka ("Hymnus Francisci Faludi", Budapest, 1899) gives these versions, and one by Petrus Possinus in 1667. In 1668 J. Scheffler gave, in his "Heilige Seelenlust", a German translation�"Ich liebe Gott, und zwar unsonst"�of a version beginning "Amo Deum, sed libere"� *

The other hymn begins with:

O Deus ego amo te,
Nam prior tu amasti me;
En libertate privo me
Ut sponte vinctus sequar te.

"has four additional stanzas in similar rhythm, the last three being apparently a paraphrase of part of a prayer in the "Contemplatio ad amorem spiritualem in nobis excitandum" of St. Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises: "Take, O Lord, my entire liberty � whatever I have or possess you have bestowed on me; back to thee I give it all, and to the rule of thy will deliver it absolutely. Give me only thy love and thy grace and I am rich enough; nor do I ask anything more"" *

* Quotes from �The Catholic Encyclopedia�, Volume XI ( Robert Appleton Company, 1911)
If you are interested more on this hymn and on the other version of it  in �The Catholic Encyclopedia�, Volume XI Online Edition at this address
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