Dear Father, What has happened to Corpus Christi? When I was young it was a beautiful Feast-day. It was always a Thursday and a Holy Day of Obligation so we had a free day from school, giving us a chance to wear our First Communion dresses. As I recall it, the procession always seemed to be bathed in sunshine surrounded with a pleasant smell of incense and lovely hymns as we spread petals before the Blessed Sacrament. Julie. Fr Bernard McGuckian SJ responds.
For many of us of a certain generation, your evocation of an era now gone awakens nostalgic memories. Nothing, however, of the essentials is lost. The only significant difference between then and now is that the celebration of Corpus Christi, in Ireland as in a number of other countries, has been changed from a Thursday to a Sunday. The main reason given for this change is the demands of modern economic life which make it difficult for many people to get to Church on any day other than Sunday.
Ideally Corpus Christi should be celebrated on a Thursday because it is inspired by the events of Holy Thursday, when Jesus instituted the Sacrament of His Body and Blood at the Last Supper. It is meant to be a celebration of this Gift without the element of sorrow and pain that accompanied it on that Thursday before Good Friday. The Church, under divine inspiration, wanted it to be an entirely joyful day of celebration for God’s children, without inhibitions or feelings of guilt for what our sins have done to the Saviour. This celebration was introduced in the 13th century so that we would have a Feast Day, exactly as you remember it in your childhood, with all its spontaneity and simplicity. It was a local feast in the Diocese of Liege in Belgium for some decades before being extended to the Universal Church by Pope Urban IV in 1264.
It all began with the experience of a young Augustinian nun in the diocese of Liege. Later to be known as St Juliana of Cornillon (1192-1256), she used to see a clear vision of a full moon when at prayer. What intrigued her most about the vision was the small dark area on one side. This vision kept returning over a period of about 20 years. When Juliana asked the Lord for light about its significance she was told that just as the moon reflects the sun, so the Church on earth reflects the Divinity.
With regard to the dark area she was told that it represented a feast that was lacking to the completeness of the Liturgical Calendar of the Church’s Year. The Lord Himself wanted a new feast with a different emphasis. While Holy Thursday highlighted the Washing of the Feet and the Sacrifice of the Saviour, both reminders of the challenging and difficult dimensions of the Passover of Jesus, this new feast would emphasise the wonderful Gift of the Body and Blood and the ongoing Sacramental Presence of the Lord in the Eucharist. It would help resolve some of the controversies about the Real Presence of the Lord in the Eucharist that had raged in the previous century.
Juliana was divinely commissioned to have this new feast introduced into the Church. This caused the poor girl intense suffering over many years. She kept begging the Lord to get someone else to carry out the task. In her genuine humility she thought it preposterous that she should be asked to have something done that had never been done in the history of the Church. No new Feast in honour of Jesus Christ had been introduced to the Liturgy in the more than 1000 years of the Church’s existence.
The common-sense reaction of Eve of Saint Martin, her best friend, when Juliana told her about it, was that such a Feast Day was superfluous since every day was a feast of the Body and Blood of the Lord. When she finally did approach the clergy of the diocese, most of them thought her mad. But her Bishop, Robert de Thourotte, took her seriously. To make a long story short, he was sufficiently impressed that he instituted a Feast in honour of the Body and Blood of the Lord in his own diocese. It was first celebrated in the Church of St Martin, in Liege in 1247. In taking this step he was encouraged by the positive attitude of his friend, Jacques Pantaleon, a very learned Frenchman, later Bishop of Verdun, who saw nothing problematical in what was being proposed. Cardinal Hugh of St Cher, the Papal Legate in the area, was also impressed with what Juliana had to say. He used his influence to promote the Feast in Germany and Germanic lands like Bohemia, Moravia and Poland. However, having the support of these influential men and their positive response to her request did not prevent Juliana from being the victim of a veritable persecution over many years from all sorts of quarters both inside and outside her convent. This lasted until the end of her life.
Five years after Juliana died in 1256 something very exceptional happened in the life of Jacques Pantaleon which altered things significantly. He was elected to the Papacy as Pope Urban IV. In 1264, recalling the events in Liege earlier in his life, he used his Papal authority to extend the Feast to the Universal Church.
To enhance the liturgy of the feast he was able to call on the resources of his talented contemporary, St Thomas Aquinas who wrote the beautiful and profoundly theological hymn Lauda Sion, sung every year at Corpus Christi.
Whether it takes place on a Thursday or a Sunday, the Corpus Christi procession, an extension of the procession to the Altar of Repose on Holy Thursday, is still a delightful aspect of the practice of our faith and a feature of life in parishes all around the globe. Long may it Urban IV continue.
The image shows ‘The Last Supper’ by Cosimo Rosselli (1480).
This article first appeared in The Messenger (June 2009), a publication of the Irish Jesuits.
