Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

The Feast of Corpus Christi, or more formally known as The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, is one of the most important feast days and celebrations in the entire liturgical year. In fact, it is so important that it’s one of only five occasions where a bishop is required to be in his home diocese unless for grave reasons he cannot be there. As the name suggests, this solemnity is focused on the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and is often an occasion for Eucharistic adoration and processions.

History of the celebration

The solemnity originated in France in the mid 1200s and was instituted by the local bishop at the insistence of Saint Juliana of Liège. At that time local bishops could institute solemnities on their local dioceses, and Saint Juliana had persistently asked the local bishop to do so after she had visions of Our Lord as told by Pope Benedict XVI in a 2010 general audience, “When Juliana was 16 she had her first vision which recurred subsequently several times during her Eucharistic adoration. Her vision presented the moon in its full splendor, crossed diametrically by a dark stripe. The Lord made her understand the meaning of what had appeared to her. The moon symbolized the life of the Church on earth, the opaque line, on the other hand, represented the absence of a liturgical feast for whose institution Juliana was asked to plead effectively: namely, a feast in which believers would be able to adore the Eucharist so as to increase in faith, to advance in the practice of the virtues and to make reparation for offenses to the Most Holy Sacrament.” And so Bishop Toroteacquiesced after initial hesitancy and the feast inspired much veneration of the Eucharist in the diocese of Liège.

In those early days, a certain Jacques Pantaléon of Troyes was serving as an archdeacon in the diocese and was muchimpressed and won over by the merits and fruits being born by this new feast day, and he himself made it a feast of the universal church when he later became Pope Urban IV.

Maybe by coincidence, or divine providence, Pope Urban was in residence at his summer retreat in Orvieto Italy in 1263 when one of the most famous Eucharistic miracles of all time took place. In the nearby town of Bolsena a priest who was traveling on pilgrimage to Rome was celebrating mass, when he admitted to having doubts about the real presence of Christ in the blessed sacrament, and at that very moment, the host he was holding in his hands while saying the words of Christ at the last supper began to bleed. This blood dripped onto the corporal (the small white linen in the altar) and was rushed to the Pope in Orvieto cathedral, where it can still be seen stained with blood on display. As of having forgotten the fruits he had witnessed firsthand, but had forgotten for the first years of his papacy, just like the pharaoh forgot about joseph and his dream work until reminded of it, he was inspired to have the Thursday after Trinity Sunday on the next year 1264 dedicated to The Body and Blood of Our Lord (in todays calendar it is often transferred to the next Sunday in most dioceses).

At Orvieto with pope urban iv was Saint Thomas aquinas, and he was tasked with writing the prayers, songs and liturgy for this great celebration, many of which we still know and use today almost 800 years later. When you hear the song Pange Lingua sung on Holy Thursday and Corpus Christi you should think about the millions of Catholics over the last 750 years that have sung those exact same words to Our lord.

Pope Urban said, in his papal bull that established the feast, said that although every mass includes a recounting of the last supper and Christ’s words at that table, by which the Eucharist was instituted there should be a day set aside to focus our attention on the Eucharist and celebrate it with thanksgiving. He also recognized that Holy Thursday was already established in the liturgical life of the church as the anniversary of the institution of the Eucharist, but that there’s also a focus on the intimately connected institution of the priesthood and even on the washing of the apostles feet, so that a separate day of Eucharistic focus was right and proper.

“We should celebrate continuously the memory of this memorial, because the more frequently his gift and favour are looked upon, so much the more firmly are they kept in memory. Therefore, although this memorial Sacrament is frequented in the daily solemnities of the Mass, we nevertheless think suitable and worthy that, at least once a year…a more solemn and honourable memory of this Sacrament be held. This is so because on Holy Thursday, the day on which the Lord himself instituted this Sacrament, the universal Church, occupied with the reconciliation of penitents, blessing the chrism, fulfilling the Commandments about the washing of the feet and many other such things, is not sufficiently free to celebrate so great a Sacrament.” –

Pope Urban IV, Transiturus de hoc mundo

Traditionally this feast day is accompanied by Eucharistic adoration and Eucharistic processions. Some of these processions, especially ones that have been running for centuries in some European towns and cities, are very large events with entire towns showing up to process with Our Lord through the streets and sidewalks of their towns. The processions ending with a benediction of the blessed sacrament.

Corpus Christi is also an opportune time to learn more about the church’s teachings and beliefs on the Eucharist and to deepen your faith in the real presence of Our Lord under the appearance of bread and wine. And the most important thing to remember is the final line from Urban IV’s bull, that we are always to remember that we don’t digest the Eucharist to make it become part of our bodies like regular food, but are elevated and took into His body to become “partakers of the divine life” as Saint Peter said in his second epistle.

“As he was about to ascend into heaven, he said to the Apostles and their helpers, I will be with you all days even unto the consummation of the world. He comforted them with a gracious promise that he would remain and would be with them even by his corporeal presence. Therefore he gave himself as nourishment, so that, since man fell by means of the food of the death-giving tree; man is raised up by means of the food of the life-giving tree. Eating wounded us, and eating healed us. Thus the Saviour says, My Flesh is real food. This bread is taken but truly not consumed, because it is not transformed into the eater. Rather, if it is worthily received, the recipient is conformed to it.”

Pope Urban IV

(This article originally appeared in my parish newsletter)