Tomorrow
will be the Feast of Corpus Christi (in some countries, such as Poland, it is a
national holiday). As we read in the 1914 Catholic Encyclopedia:
This feast is celebrated in the Latin Church
on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday to solemnly commemorate the institution of
the Holy Eucharist.
Of Maundy Thursday, which commemorates this
great event, mention is made as Natalis Calicis (Birth of the Chalice) in the
Calendar of Polemius (448) for the 24th of March, the 25th of March being in
some places considered as the day of the death of Christ. This day, however,
was in Holy Week, a season of sadness, during which the minds of the faithful
are expected to be occupied with thoughts of the Lord's Passion. Moreover, so
many other functions took place on this day that the principal event was almost
lost sight of. This is mentioned as the chief reason for the introduction of
the new feast, in the Bull "Transiturus."
The instrument in the hand of Divine
Providence was St. Juliana of Mont Cornillon, in Belgium. She was born in 1193
at Retines near Liège. Orphaned at an early age, she was educated by the
Augustinian nuns of Mont Cornillon. Here she in time made her religious
profession and later became superioress. Intrigues of various kinds several
time drove her from her convent. She died 5 April, 1258, at the House of the
Cistercian nuns at Fosses, and was buried at Villiers.
Juliana, from her early youth, had a great
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. She made known her ideas to Robert
de Thorete, then Bishop of Liège, to the learned Dominican Hugh, later cardinal
legate in the Netherlands, and to Jacques Pantaléon, at that time Archdeacon of
Liège, afterwards Bishop of Verdun, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and finally Pope
Urban IV. Bishop Robert was favourably impressed, and, since bishops as yet had
the right of ordering feasts for their dioceses, he called a synod in 1246 and
ordered the celebration to be held in the following year, also, that a monk
named John should write the Office for the occasion. The decree is preserved in
Binterim (Denkwürdigkeiten, V, 1, 276), together with parts of the Office.
Bishop Robert did not live to see the
execution of his order, for he died 16 October, 1246; but the feast was
celebrated for the first time by the canons of St. Martin at Liège. Jacques
Pantaléon became pope 29 August, 1261. The recluse Eve, with whom Juliana had
spent some time, and who was also a fervent adorer of the Holy Eucharist, now
urged Henry of Guelders, Bishop of Liège, to request the pope to extend the
celebration to the entire world. Urban IV, always an admirer of the feast,
published the Bull "Transiturus" (8 September, 1264), in which, after
having extolled the love of Our Saviour as expressed in the Holy Eucharist, he
ordered the annual celebration of Corpus Christi in the Thursday next after
Trinity Sunday, at the same time granting many indulgences to the faithful for
the attendance at Mass and at the Office. This Office, composed at the request
of the pope by the Angelic Doctor St. Thomas Aquinas, is one of the most
beautiful in the Roman Breviary and has been admired even by Protestants.
The death of Pope Urban IV (2 October, 1264),
shortly after the publication of the decree, somewhat impeded the spread of the
festival. Clement V again took the matter in hand and, at the General Council
of Vienne (1311), once more ordered the adoption of the feast. He published a
new decree which embodied that of Urban IV. John XXII, successor of Clement V,
urged its observance.
Neither decree speaks of the theophoric
procession as a feature of the celebration. This procession, already held in
some places, was endowed with indulgences by Popes Martin V and Eugene IV.
The feast had been accepted in 1306 at
Cologne; Worms adopted it in 1315; Strasburg in 1316. In England it was
introduced from Belgium between 1320 and 1325. In the United States and some
other countries the solemnity is held on the Sunday after Trinity.
In the Greek Church the feast of Corpus
Christi is known in the calendars of the Syrians, Armenians, Copts, Melchites,
and the Ruthenians of Galicia, Calabria, and Sicily. (Francis Mershman,
"Feast of Corpus Christi")
As the feast
is focused on the Roman Catholic dogmas relating to the Mass (especially
Transubstantiation and the latria to
be given to the consecrated hosts), this should be a good time for Latter-day
Saints and Roman Catholics to discuss and debate the topic of the Mass. I
myself have written a number of articles addressing the Catholic dogmas
relating to the Mass (e.g., whether it is a propitiatory sacrifice) interacting
with, and critiquing, the best arguments the other side has to offer; one can
find them here:
Responses to Robert Sungenis, Not by Bread Alone (2000/2009)
