For the last couple years, I've been slowly working through my Latin textbook from college again, and a couple months ago, I ran into the same verb that starts this movement. In the infinitive form, it's tollere. In Saint-Saëns' Christmas Oratorio, it's a 2nd person plural imperative (tollite), and in the sentence in my Latin textbook, it's a 2nd person singular imperative (tolle). It can be translated a few different ways. My Latin dictionary lists: to lift, raise; to take away, remove; to do away with, abolish, destroy. In the text of the Christmas Oratorio (with hostias [victims or sacrifices] as the direct object), it has the sense of "lift" or "raise."
After running across tollere in my Latin textbook, I realized that "tollite hostias" is musically represented. In the soprano part, there's an interval of a fourth between the notes for "tollite" and the note for the first syllable of "hostias." In the other vocal parts, there are smaller intervals between "tollite" and "hostias," but - for the tenor and bass parts, at least - the word "tollite" itself has an ascending melody:
After I realized that, I started thinking about the rest of the line ("et adorate Dominum in atrio sancto eius"), and I realized that the melody for "adorate" (the 2nd person plural imperative form of adorare, to worship) generally descends, as if those singing it were bowing before God in their own worship while also calling others to worship.
