St. Dymphna Prayer
Once, in the flowering season of roses and lilies, Dymphna, daughter of the king of the Irish, blossomed with holy blood in the town of Geel. Now, victorious over demons, virgin and martyr, defend us against their assaults, so that they may not overwhelm us. Lead us safely to the joyful realms of heaven.
About this prayer
Medieval prayer · Translated from Latin
This prayer is no. 90, ‘Ad sanctam Dympnam’, in Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi, volume XXXIII, edited by Clemens Blume and printed in Leipzig in 1899, p. 78. The edition traces it to a fifteenth-century manuscript from Geel. Its imagery recalls Dymphna’s martyrdom and asks for protection against evil. This is Prayer Library’s new English prose translation of all ten Latin lines. It is a different text from the modern mental-health prayer and from the National Shrine’s nine-day novena. The English wording has received a project language and source-fidelity review. The poem’s language about demons is historical devotional imagery, not an explanation of mental illness.
Is this the National Shrine’s St. Dymphna novena prayer?
No. This is a complete medieval prayer to St. Dymphna, translated from the Latin text in the 1899 edition. The Shrine’s novena is a separate devotion with different words.
Text & sources
Medieval prayer · Translated from Latin
Clemens Blume, Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi XXXIII (Leipzig, 1899)
Pia Dictamina, sixth series, p. 78, no. 90, Ad sanctam Dympnam / Oratio de tempore decollationis; PDF page 82. Title leaf: PDF page 6, 1899. The edition identifies a fifteenth-century Geel manuscript.
View source
New Prayer Library English translation. Project language and source-fidelity review completed. The underlying historical Latin is in the US public domain; this evidence does not establish reuse rights in other countries.
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