Two months ago, in the liturgy of Holy Thursday we
celebrated the institution of the Sacred Eucharist, the Mass. Today’s feast of
Corpus Christi, was established to create a feast focused solely on the Holy
Eucharist emphasizing the joy of the Eucharist being the body and blood of
Jesus Christ through the mystery of Transubstantiation.
The origins of this feast began in Liège, a Belgium city,
toward the end of the 12thcentury. In the city there were groups of
women, known as the Norbertine canonesses, who lived together and devoted their
lives to prayer and to charitable works. One of them, Juliana of Liège, had a
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
relayed it to the bishop. So in 1246 the Bishop ordered a celebration of Corpus
Christi to be held in the diocese each year thereafter on the Thursday after
Trinity Sunday.
Pope Pius V revised the General Roman Calendar and Corpus
Christi was one of only two "feasts of devotion" that he kept, the
other being Trinity Sunday and it remains to this day.
This feast is all about the real and true presences of
Jesus, body, soul, and divinity in the elements of the Eucharist. This has been
a part of the Church’s belief beginning from the Last Supper but understanding
just how this happens has been a developing work over time. The Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215
spoke of the bread and wine as "transubstantiated"
into the body and blood of Christ and this was later elaborated on by St.
Thomas Aquinas, as well as other medieval theologians. In the end in remains a
Divine mystery to our understanding.
Martin Luther was not a fan of the Feast of corpus
Christi. He wrote: "I am to no festival more hostile ... than this one. Because
it is the most shameful festival. At no festival are God and his Christ more
blasphemed, than on this day, and particularly by the procession. For then
people are treating the Blessed Sacrament with such ignominy that it becomes
only play-acting and is just vain idolatry." He also rejected the theology of transubstantiation.
So what of this mystery of the real presence today and
devotions to the Blessed Sacrament? Many remember the time when Mass could not
be said after 12 noon. So during Lent, on Wed. Fri. and Sun. evenings devotions
with benediction of the blessed sacrament was norm. Exceptions to this restriction
began with Pope Pius XII, and with the new liturgy of the 60’s evening mass was
common. So in Lent Mass replaced devotions in most parishes.
The Mass and the reception Holy Communion rightfully hold
the highest place in our devotion, but other forms of Eucharistic devotion have
an important place in deepening our communion with Christ. At the heart of
today’s feast of Corpus Christi is the wondrous mystery of Jesus’ real
presence, body, soul, and divinity in the elements of the Eucharist. May we
never lose sight of this. May our devotion to this mystery grow ever stronger.
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