California’s Poet Laureate Dana Gioia writes:
By third grade, I had the text indelibly memorized, though the only word I understood was sacramentum. The literal meaning of the words seemed unimportant compared to the experience of singing. Back then I felt no genuine attachment to what the sisters reverently referred to as “the Blessed Sacrament.” (That devotion came much later.) The Eucharist was mostly an abstract idea. I sensed a sanctity in which I could not participate. But as I stood singing this short hymn with all my friends and teachers, I physically felt enraptured and exhilarated in the act of veneration.
Much more here.