The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi)

The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi) Solemnity Dt 8:2-3, 14b-16a/1 Cor 10:16-17/Jn 6:51-58 (167) Prop Pss.

*Why a Feast of Corpus Christi?

*Institution of Corpus Christi

Pope Urban IV instituted the solemnity of Corpus Christi on the Thursday after Pentecost, by the papal bull Transiturus de hoc mundo (Aug. 11, 1264).

The pontiff made a point of setting an example by celebrating the first solemnity in Orvieto, the town where he was then residing. Indeed, he ordered that the famous corporal with the traces of the Eucharistic miracle that had occurred in Bolsena the previous year, 1263, be kept in Orvieto Cathedral — where it still is today.

**Bolsena Miracle

While a priest was consecrating the bread and the wine he was overcome by strong doubts about the Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist. A few drops of blood began miraculously to ooze from the consecrated Host, thereby confirming what our faith professes.

***St. Thomas Aquinas’ Texts

Urban IV asked one of the greatest theologians of history, St Thomas Aquinas — who at that time was accompanying the Pope in Orvieto — to compose the texts of the liturgical office for this feast. They are masterpieces, in which poetry expresses perfectly the theology. These texts give praise and gratitude to the Most Holy Sacrament, while the mind, penetrating the mystery with wonder, recognizes in the Eucharist the Living and Real Presence of Jesus, of his Sacrifice of love that reconciles us with the Father, and gives us salvation.

https://sspx.org/en/news-events/news/why-feast-corpus-christi-16065

****The Feast of Corpus Christi (Ecclesiastical Latin: Dies Sanctissimi Corporis et Sanguinis Domini Iesu Christi, lit. ’Day of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus Christ the Lord’), also known as the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, is a Christian liturgical solemnity celebrating the Real Presence of the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ in the elements of the Eucharist; it is observed by the Roman Catholic Church, in addition to certain Western Orthodox, Lutheran, and Anglican churches. Two months earlier, the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper is observed on Maundy Thursday in a somber atmosphere leading to Good Friday. The liturgy on that day also commemorates Christ’s washing of the disciples’ feet, the institution of the priesthood, and the agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. The feast of Corpus Christi was proposed by Saint Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church, to Pope Urban IV, in order to create a feast focused solely on the Holy Eucharist, emphasizing the joy of the Eucharist being the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ. Having recognized in 1264 the authenticity of the Eucharistic Miracle of Bolsena, on input of Aquinas, the pontiff, then living in Orvieto, established the feast of Corpus Christi as a Solemnity and extended it to the whole Roman Catholic Church.

The feast is liturgically celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday or, “where the Solemnity of The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ is not a holy day of obligation, it is assigned to the Sunday after the Most Holy Trinity as its proper day.”

At the end of Holy Mass, there is often a procession of the Blessed Sacrament, generally displayed in a monstrance. The procession is followed by the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. A notable Eucharistic procession (see below painting) is that presided over by the Pope each year in Rome, where it begins at the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran and passes to the Basilica of Saint Mary Major, where it concludes with the aforementioned Benediction.

Corpus Christi wreaths, which are made of flowers, are hung on the doors and windows of the Christian faithful, in addition to being erected in gardens and fields.

The celebration of the feast was suppressed in Protestant churches during the Reformation for theological reasons: outside Lutheranism, which maintained the confession of the Real Presence, many Protestants denied the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist other than as a merely symbolic or spiritual presence. Today, most Protestant denominations do not recognize the feast day, with exception of certain Lutheran churches and the Church of England, the latter of which abolished it in 1548 as the English Reformation progressed, but later reintroduced it. Some Anglican churches now observe Corpus Christi, sometimes under the name “Thanksgiving for Holy Communion”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_Corpus_Christi

*****Body and Blood of Christ may refer to:

• Eucharist, a Christian rite considered a sacrament in most churches and an ordinance in others involving the consumption of bread and wine in memory of Christ
• Blessed Sacrament, a devotional name used in the Latin Church of the Catholic Church, as well as in various other denominations
• Consubstantiation, a theological doctrine that holds that during the sacrament, the fundamental “substance” of the body and blood of Christ are present alongside the substance of the bread and wine
• Transubstantiation, a doctrine of the Catholic Church, the change of substance by which the bread and wine offered in the sacrifice of the sacrament of the Eucharist during the Mass, become, in reality, the body and blood of Jesus Christ

******Corpus Christi: How to Live the Feast

https://media.ascensionpress.com/2020/06/11/corpus-christi-how-to-live-the-feast/

Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! People take refuge in the shadow of your wings. 

Ps 36:5, 7