The Feast of Corpus Christi

(May 31, 2010) On Thursday we celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi, the feast of the Body and Blood of our Lord, which in the liturgical calendar comes on Thursday after the Feast of the Holy Trinity. The Solemnity of Corpus Christi commemorates the institution of the Holy Eucharist, paralleling Maundy Thursday celebration of the institution of the Eucharist. This feast was introduced in the late 13th century to encourage the faithful give special honour to the Holy Eucharist. The official title of this Solemnity was changed in 1970 to the present title, The Body and Blood of Christ. On this day we honour Jesus who is present in the Church through the Holy Eucharist and shares his own Body and Blood with us as our food and drink. Since the Apostolic Church, Christians have been celebrating the Eucharist as a commemoration of the Last Supper of Jesus with his disciples. Even though Christians have high esteem for all of the sacraments, the Eucharist has traditionally held a special place among the sacraments. Ignatius of Antioch referred to the Eucharist as the "medicine of immortality". Thomas Aquinas considered the Eucharist to be the greatest of all sacraments. At the same time, the Church has viewed the Eucharist as unique, while other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For the Church the Feast of the Body of Christ symbolizes the Eucharist and Communion, identifying the belief in the death of Christ and His resurrection.
The Holy Eucharist also called Communion is a communal sacrificial meal shared and offered by the community to the Father as a sign of forgiveness, togetherness and unity. Maundy Thursday would seem to be the best day to celebrate the Eucharist, because that is the day Jesus actually instituted the sacrament. In fact, the Institution of the Eucharist is celebrated solemnly on Maundy Thursday. However, the emphasis on the passion themes present in the Maundy Thursday celebration has created the need for another day to focus entirely on the Eucharist itself. The Thursday after Trinity Sunday was chosen for the date of the Corpus Christi feast. In countries where it is not a day of obligation, the feast is celebrated on a Sunday. It is a Western Catholic feast but is also celebrated in some Anglican and Lutheran churches. At the end of the Mass, it is customary to have a Procession of the Blessed Sacrament followed by Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.
The appearance of Corpus Christi as a feast in the Christian calendar was primarily due to the petitions of the thirteenth-century Augustinian nun Juliana of Liège. From her early youth Juliana had veneration for the Blessed Sacrament, and always longed for a special feast in its honour. This desire is said to have been increased by a vision of the Church under the appearance of the full moon having one dark spot, which signified the absence of such a solemnity. In 1208 she reported her first vision of Christ in which she was instructed to plead for the institution of the feast of Corpus Christi. The vision was repeated for the next 20 years but she kept it a secret. When she eventually relayed it to her confessor, he considered it right to report it to the bishop. At that time bishops could order feasts in their dioceses. Using this privilege in 1246 Bishop Robert of Liège convened a synod and ordered a celebration of Corpus Christi festival to be held each year thereafter. The celebration of Corpus Christi became widespread only after both St. Juliana and Bishop Robert had died. In 1263 Pope Urban IV investigated claims of a Eucharistic miracle at Bolsena, in which a consecrated host began to bleed. In 1264 he issued the papal bull in which Corpus Christi was made a feast throughout the entire Latin Rite focussing solely on the Holy Eucharist and ordered the annual celebration of Corpus Christi on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. More than four decades later, Pope Clement V published a new decree which embodied Urban IV's decree and ordered the adoption of the feast at the General Council of Vienna in 1311. Pope John XXII, successor of Clement V, urged this observance in the universal church.
A new liturgy for the feast was composed by St. Thomas Aquinas. This liturgy has come to be used not only on the Feast of Corpus Christi itself but also throughout the liturgical year at events related to the Blessed Sacrament. The hymn Thomas Aquinas composed for Vespers of Corpus Christi, Pange Lingua, is also used on Holy Thursday during the procession of the Blessed Sacrament to the altar of repose. The last two verses of Pange Lingua are also used as a separate hymn, Tantum Ergo, which is sung at Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. O Salutaris Hostia, another hymn sung at Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, comprises the last two verses of another hymn (Verbum Supernum Prodiens) written by Aquinas for the Morning Prayer Lauds for Corpus Christi. Aquinas also composed the prayers for the Mass of Corpus Christi, including the sequence Lauda Sion Salvatorem. The epistle reading for the Mass was taken from Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians on the institution of the Eucharist and the Gospel reading was taken from the Gospel of John chapter 6.
The processions on Corpus Christi to honour the Holy Eucharist were not mentioned in the decrees, but had become a principal feature of the feast's celebration by the faithful, and became a tradition throughout Europe. The Corpus Christi procession represents the typical form of a Eucharistic procession. It is a prolongation of the celebration of the Eucharist: immediately after Mass, the Sacred Host, consecrated during the Mass, is borne out of the Church for the Christian faithful "to make public profession of faith and worship of the Most Blessed Sacrament". In this act of public procession we proclaim that God still loves the world so much that He still sends His Son, through His Church. This procession is a reminder of the baptismal vocation of every Christian to carry forward in time the redemptive mission of Jesus Christ until He returns. At an interior level, it also symbolizes the universal call to holiness, to continuing conversion in Christ. We who are baptized are called into a very real communion with the Trinitarian God. He comes to dwell within us and we are to live our lives now in Him, for the world. The faithful understand and appreciate the values inherent in the procession: they are aware of being "the People of God", journeying with the Lord, and proclaiming faith in him who has become truly "God-amongst-us". The Eucharistic procession is normally concluded by a blessing with the Blessed Sacrament. In the specific case of the Corpus Christi procession, the solemn blessing with the Blessed Sacrament concludes the entire celebration: the usual blessing by the priest is replaced by the blessing with the Blessed Sacrament.
The feast of Corpus Christi tells us that the Eucharist is source and summit of the Christian life. The Holy Eucharist gives meaning to our Christian life and existence. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself. At the same time the Eucharist is the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion in the divine life and that unity of the People of God by which the Church is kept in being. It is the culmination both of God's action sanctifying the world in Christ and of the worship men offer to Christ and through him to the Father in the Holy Spirit. Finally, by the Eucharistic Celebration we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life, when God will be all in all. In brief, the Eucharist is the sum and summary of our faith: "Our way of thinking is attuned to the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn confirms our way of thinking."
The Feast of Corpus Christi is an invitation to reaffirm our belief in the implications of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. Through Baptism, through participation in all of the sacraments and, in particular, through the Holy Eucharist, every Christian abides in God. Therefore all Christians share his Life, the very life of the God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, a communion of Divine Persons in the Perfect unity of Perfect love. This is why this Feast of Corpus Christi follows the Feast of the Holy Trinity, to show us this profound connection. Through the Holy Eucharist, we are invited into the Trinitarian communion and then sent into the world to carry Jesus to others so that they all may join in the eternal Feast! The Eucharist is a gift to be received and lived, to unfold into a dynamic, daily encounter with a living God who calls us to continual conversion in the Eucharistic Christ.
Reflecting on the feast of Corpus Christi, Pope Benedict XVI said that for him it is a day on which heaven and earth work together. The feast itself grows out of the mystery of Easter and Pentecost: it presupposes the Resurrection and the sending of the Spirit. But it is also in close proximity to the Feast of the Trinity, which reveals the inner logic in the connection between Easter and Pentecost. It is only because God himself is the eternal dialogue of love that he can speak and be spoken to. Only because he himself is relationship can we relate to him; only because he is love can he love and be loved in return; only because he is threefold can he be the grain of wheat which dies and the bread of eternal life. Ultimately, then, Corpus Christi is an expression of faith in God, in love, in the fact that God is love. Corpus Christi tells us: Yes, there is such a thing as love, and therefore there is transformation, therefore there is hope. And hope gives us the strength to live and face the world.
During his homily on the feast of Corpus Christi, Pope Benedict XVI spoke on the fact that Jesus as a sign of his presence chose bread and wine. With each one of the two signs he gives himself completely, not only in part. The Risen One is not divided. He is a person who, through signs, comes near to us and unites himself to us. Each sign however, represents in its own way a particular aspect of his mystery and through its respective manifestation, wishes to speak to us so that we learn to understand the mystery of Jesus Christ a little better. During the procession and in adoration we look at the consecrated Host, the simplest type of bread and nourishment, made only of a little flour and water. In this way, it appears as the food of the poor, those to whom the Lord made himself closest in the first place. Jesus during the Last Supper, giving the bread and wine to the disciples used those unforgettable words: "Take this, this is my body", and "This is my blood, the blood of the covenant, to be poured out on behalf of many". The Pope says that the entire history of God with humanity is recapitulated in these words. The past alone is not only referred to and interpreted, but the future is anticipated - the coming of the Kingdom of God into the world. What Jesus says are not simply words. What he says is an event, the central event of the history of the world and of our personal lives.
The prayer, with which the Church, during the liturgy of the Mass, consigns this bread to the Lord, qualifies it as fruit of the earth and the work of human persons, continues the Holy Father. It involves human labour, the daily work of those who till the soil, sow and harvest and finally prepare the bread. However, bread is not purely and simply what we produce, something made by us; it is fruit of the earth and therefore is also a gift. We cannot take credit for the fact that the earth produces fruit; the Creator alone could make it fertile. It implies the synergy of the forces of earth and the gifts from above, that is, of the sun and the rain. And water too, which we need to prepare the bread, cannot be produced by us. Thus looking closely at this little piece of white Host, this bread of the poor appears to us as a synthesis of creation. Heaven and earth, too, like the activity and spirit of man, cooperate. In this way we begin to understand why the Lord chooses this piece of bread to represent him. Creation, with all of its gifts, aspires above and beyond itself to something even greater. Over and above the synthesis of its own forces, above and beyond the synthesis also of nature and of spirit that, in some way, we detect in the piece of bread, creation is projected towards divinization, toward the holy wedding feast, toward unification with the Creator himself. The Lord mentions its deepest mystery on Palm Sunday, when some Greeks asked to see him. He tells them: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit".
Explaining the relationship between Eucharist and new life, the Pope says that we have the mystery of the Passion is hidden in the bread made of ground grain. Flour, the ground wheat, presupposes the death and resurrection of the grain. In being ground and baked, it carries in itself once again the same mystery of the Passion. Only through death does resurrection arrive, as does the fruit and new life. In the Mediterranean culture it was understood that in the very grain of wheat is hidden like a sign of the hope of creation which truly came about in Christ. Through his gratuitous suffering and death, he became bread for all of us, and with this living and certain hope. He accompanies us in all of our sufferings until death. The paths that he travels with us and through which he leads us to life are pathways of hope. When, in adoration, we look at the consecrated Host, the sign of creation speaks to us. Thus we encounter the greatness of his gift; but we also encounter the Passion, the Cross of Jesus and his Resurrection. Through this gaze of adoration, he draws us toward himself, within his mystery, through which he wants to transform us as he transformed the Host.
On the feast of Corpus Christi says Pope Benedict, we especially look at the sign of bread. It reminds us of the pilgrimage of Israel during the 40 years in the desert. The Host is our manna whereby the Lord nourishes us - it is truly the bread of heaven, through which he gives himself. In the procession we follow this sign and in this way we follow Christ himself. And we ask of him: Guide us on the paths of our history! Show the Church and her Pastors again and again the right path! Look at suffering humanity, cautiously seeking a way through so much doubt; look upon the physical and mental hunger that torments it! Give men and women bread for body and soul! Give them work! Give them light! Give them yourself! Purify and sanctify all of us! Make us understand that only through participation in your Passion, through "yes" to the cross, to self-denial, to the purifications that you impose upon us, our lives can mature and arrive at true fulfilment. Gather us together from all corners of the earth. Unite your Church, unite wounded humanity! Give us your salvation! Amen.