FEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI
2 Corinthians, Chapter 11, Verse 3
But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve
by his cunning, your thoughts may be corrupted from a sincere [and pure]
commitment to Christ.
Paul was concerned here about the faithfulness of the
church knowing that where the mind goes so does the heart and soul. We are
often plagued by worldly hearts.
Let us listen to the words of Saint John Vianney:
“If people would do for
god what they do for the world, my dear people, what a great number of
Christians would go to Heaven! But if you, dear children, had to pass three or
four hours praying in a church, as you pass them at a dance or in a cabaret,
how heavily the time would press upon you! If you had to go to a great many
different places in order to hear a sermon, as you go for your pastimes or to
satisfy your avarice and greed, what pretexts there would be, and how many
detours would be taken to avoid going at all. But nothing is too much trouble
when done for the world. What is more, people are not afraid of losing either
God or their souls or Heaven. With what good reason did Jesus Christ, my dear
people, say that the children of this world are more zealous in serving their
master, the world, than the children of light are in serving theirs, who is
God. To our shame, we must admit that
people fear neither expense, nor even going into debt, when it is a matter of
satisfying their pleasures, but if some poor person asks them for help, they
have nothing at all. This is true of so many: they have everything for the
world and nothing at all for God because to them, the world is everything and
God is nothing.”
*Corpus Christi[2]
WHY is this day
called Corpus Christi? Because on this day the Catholic
Church solemnly celebrates the institution of the Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
The name, which is Latin, signifies the body of Christ.
Why is this feast not celebrated on Maundy Thursday?
Because on Maundy Thursday, the day of the institution of this sacrament, the
Church is occupied with the passion and death of Christ, and has no thought of
joy, but gives herself up to grief.
By whom was this feast established?
It was instituted by Pope Urban IV. Persuaded by a devout nun of Liege, who
believed herself to be divinely encouraged to introduce this feast, Robert,
Bishop of Liege, determined, in the year 1247 to celebrate this feast in his
diocese. This intention he was prevented from carrying out by death. In the year
1264 Pope Urban IV commanded this feast to be solemnly celebrated throughout
the whole Church. Clement V confirms the order, at the Council of Vienne, 1311,
and fixed the feast on the first Thursday after Trinity Sunday.
For what purpose was this feast instituted, and why
are processions so solemnly held on this day?
1. To declare, openly, to the
faithful the real and substantial presence of Jesus in the Holy Sacrament of
the Altar.
2. In order to manifest, in the
sight of heaven and earth, honor and adoration for Him before Whom every knee
shall bow.
3. To give public thanks for the
institution of this holy sacrament, and for all the graces thereby conferred
upon the faithful.
4. To repair, in some measure, by
solemn adoration, the wrongs done to Christ, in this sacrament.
5. To bring down God’s blessing
upon the land and upon the people.
6. To show that Jesus, as true God,
dwells not only in temples built by hands, but that He has heaven for His
throne, the earth for His foot stool, and the whole world for His temple.
The Church sings at the Introit of the Mass: He fed
them with the fat of wheat, alleluia; and filled them with honey out of the
rock, alleluia, alleluia. Rejoice to God our helper, sing aloud to the God of
Jacob” (Ps. Ixxx.).
Prayer.
O God, Who in this wonderful sacrament hast left us a memorial of Thy passion,
grant us, we beseech Thee, so to reverence the sacred mysteries of Thy body and
blood, that we may ever perceive within us the fruit of Thy redemption.
EPISTLE, i. COR.
xi. 23-29.
Brethren: For I have
received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus,
the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread, and giving thanks, broke
and said: Take ye and eat: This is My body, which shall be delivered for you:
this do for the commemoration of Me. In like manner also the chalice, after He
had supped, saying: This chalice is the New Testament in My blood, this do ye
as often as you shall drink, for the commemoration of Me. For as often as you
shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall show the death of the
Lord until He come: therefore, whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the
chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of
the Lord. But let a man prove himself: and so, let him eat of that bread and
drink of the chalice. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and
drinketh judgment to himself: not discerning the body of the Lord.
GOSPEL.
John vi. 56-59.
At that time Jesus
said to the multitudes of the Jews: My flesh is meat indeed and My blood is
drink indeed; he that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, abideth in Me,
and I in him. As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father so he
that eateth Me, the same also shall live by Me. This is the bread that came
down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead. He that
eateth this bread shall live forever.
Why
did Jesus say, this is the bread that came down from heaven? He
wished thereby to teach the Jews that the bread which He would give them, like
the manna, came down from heaven, and was, indeed, the only true bread from
heaven. The manna was but a type and could only prolong the life of the body.
The type was now to be fulfilled; the bread that He was about to give them
would impart to them eternal life, and this bread would be His flesh, Himself,
Who truly came from heaven, to redeem mankind, and to bring them to life
everlasting. Jesus calls His flesh bread, partly on account of its likeness to
the manna, partly on account of its effect; for as bread nourishes the body,
and sustains the earthly life, so the body of Christ, in the Holy Sacrament,
nourishes the soul, and imparts to it, continually, a new, divine, and
everlasting life.
What
is the Holy Sacrament of the Altar? It is that
sacrament in which, after the words of its institution have been spoken by the
priest, Jesus Christ is present, whole and entire, in His Godhead and in His
manhood, under the appearance of bread and wine.
When
and how did Jesus institute this sacrament? At
the Last Supper; In the night, before He was betrayed, He took bread, and,
giving thanks, broke it, and gave it to His disciples saying, Take and eat, for
this is My body which will be given for you. In the same manner, He took the
chalice and said, Take and drink, for this chalice is the new covenant in My
blood. Do this as often as you drink from it in commemoration of Me.
What
did Jesus affect by these words? He changed bread
and wine into His most precious body and blood.
Has
He given to others the power to do the same? Yes;
He gave this power to His apostles and their successors, the bishops and
priests, in these words: Do this in commemoration of Me.
What
takes place at the words of consecration? Bread
and wine are changed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ, and only the
outward appearances of bread and wine remain.
How
is Jesus present in the Most Holy Sacrament? He
is present, truly, really, and substantially, in His divinity and humanity, in
flesh and blood, in body and soul, under the appearances of bread and wine.
Why
do we believe this?
1. Because the words of Jesus do
not reasonably admit of any other meaning: since by them we see
(a) that Jesus gave His disciples a
certain nourishment which they were to eat;
(b) that this nourishment was bread
and wine to all appearances, but Jesus called the bread His body, which was
afterwards to be sacrificed for us, and the wine His blood, which was to be
shed for us: this food consequently was not bread and wine, but, under the
appearance of bread and wine, was indeed His body and blood; since what He gave
for our redemption was not bread and wine, but His true body and His true
blood;
(c) that as the body and blood of
Jesus were inseparable from His soul and divinity, He gave Himself up for our
nourishment, whole and undivided, as He hung, bled, and died upon the cross;
(d) that He commanded what He had
done to be continued until He should come again (1 Cor. xi. 26), that is, until
the end of the world; and that He,
(e) on account of this being His
testament, and the New Law, was not at liberty to speak figuratively, but
plainly and distinctly.
2. Because the apostles preached
this very doctrine.
3. Because the Catholic Church, the
pillar and foundation of truth, has thus constantly taught, from the apostle’s
times down to the present day, as the oldest Councils and the Holy Fathers
unanimously testify.
Feast of Corpus
Christi, in the U.S.,
said on the Sunday rather than the Thursday after the Feast of the Holy
Trinity. An adoration of the Food that sustains us on our post-Pentecostal
pilgrimage and "the pledge of our future glory" The history of Corpus
Christi started with a humble Belgian girl at the age of sixteen, who began
having visions of a bright moon marred by a small black spot. After years of
seeing this perplexing portent, Jesus Christ appeared to her and revealed its
meaning. The moon, He told her, represented the Church calendar, and the black
spot the absence of a feast in honor of the Blessed Sacrament. That nun was St. Juliana, Prioress of Mont
Cornillon (1258), and the Feast she was commissioned by our Lord to promote was
the feast of Corpus Christi.
Even before its universal promotion in 1314, Corpus Christi was one of the grandest feasts of the Roman rite.
At the request of Pope Urban IV (d. 1264), the Mass proper’s and divine office
for this day were composed or arranged by St. Thomas Aquinas, whose teaching on the Real Presence was so
profound that the figure of Jesus Christ once descended from a crucifix and
declared to him, "Thou hast written well of me, Thomas." The mastery
with which Aquinas weaves together the scriptural, poetic, and theological
texts of this feast amply corroborates this conclusion.
Processions & Pageants
Though Maundy Thursday is in a sense the
primary feast of the Blessed Sacrament, Corpus Christi allows the faithful to
specially reflect on and give thanks for the Eucharist. Hence there arose a
number of observances centered on Eucharistic adoration. The most conspicuous
of these is the splendid Corpus Christi procession. This
public profession of the Catholic teaching on the Real Presence of Christ in
the Blessed Sacrament was solemnly encouraged by the Council of Trent: there is
even an indulgence attached to all who participate in it. By the 1600s, the
procession on Corpus Christi had become the most famous of the year. Long
parades of faithful walk with the Blessed Sacrament (carried in a monstrance by
the priest) while church bells peal and bands play. In Latin countries, the
streets are blanketed with boughs and flowers, often elaborately woven
together. Sometimes a variation on the custom of Stations is employed (see Stational Churches, etc.), where the procession stops at several
points for benediction and adoration. By its very nature, the Corpus Christi
procession encouraged pageantry. In addition to the
grandeur mentioned above, vivid symbolic reenactments of various
teachings became a part of the procession. During the height of baroque piety,
people impersonating demons would run along aside the Blessed Sacrament,
pantomiming their fright and fear of the Real Presence. Others
would dress as ancient’s gods and goddesses to symbolize how even the pagan
past must rise and pay homage to Christ. Still others would carry all sorts of
representations of sacred history: Moses and the serpent, David and Goliath,
the Easter lamb, the Blessed Virgin, etc. But the most popular of all these was
the custom of having children dress as
angels. Appearing in white (with or without wings), these boys and girls
would precede the Blessed Sacrament as symbols of the nine choirs of heavenly
hosts who ever adore the Panis Angelicum, the Bread of Angels.
At Holy Trinity German Church, the Corpus Christi procession was the most important of the year. One witness to the procession of 1851 wrote:
At Holy Trinity German Church, the Corpus Christi procession was the most important of the year. One witness to the procession of 1851 wrote:
The
girls clad in white, with lilies in their hands, groups of symbolic figures,
with banner and flags, the boys with staffs and rods, all the associations of
the parish with their signs and symbols and burning candles, finally the
flower-strewing little children preceding the clergy -- all these made a
fantastic impression
(from Holy Trinity German Catholic
Church of Boston: A Way of Life, Robert J. Sauer (Dallas, TX: Taylor
Publishing, 1994), p. 49)
Plays
Medieval piety is
famous, among other things, for its mystery plays, theatrical pieces
held after Mass on great feast days that dramatized the lesson or mystery of
the day. These effective didactic tools were enormously popular, but perhaps
none so much as those held on Corpus Christi. Shakespeare gives an oblique
allusion to them when he has Prince Hamlet speak of the Termagant, a violent,
overbearing woman in long robes who appeared often in these productions (Hamlet
III.ii). Favorite medieval saints, such as George and Margaret, would often
be the protagonists, though the details and plot varied from place to place.
Perhaps the most famous of these plays are the Autos Sacramentales (Plays
of the Sacrament) by Fr. Pedro Calderon de la Barca (1681).
Day of Wreaths
In some places of
Europe Corpus Christi is known as the Day of wreaths. Exquisite wreaths
of flowers are used in the pageants, either perched on banners, houses, and
arches that stretch over the street, or worn by the participants of the
procession. The monstrance containing the Blessed Sacrament could also be adorned
with a bouquet of flowers. After the solemnities these beautiful decorations
would be taken home as keepsakes and posted over gardens and fields for
blessing and protection.
Hymns
Special mention
must be made of the exquisite hymns written by St. Thomas Aquinas for this
feast and their subsequent popularity. Aquinas wrote four: Verbum Supernum
Prodiens (for Lauds), Pange Lingua Gloriosi (Vespers), Sacris
Solemniis (Matins), and Lauda Sion Salvatoris (Mass
sequence). Parts of these, in turn, were used as separate hymns. The famous Tantum
ergo Sacramentum used at Benediction is taken from Pange Lingua and O
salutaris hostia is taken from Verbum Supernum, while Panis
Angelicus is taken from Sacris Solemniis. These hymns have become
cherished treasures of Catholic devotion and worship and should be sung with
gusto on this great feast.
The Feast of Corpus Christi commemorates
the sacrament of Holy Communion in the Roman Catholic Church. This
includes the receiving of the Eucharist which Catholics know is the body and
blood of Christ.
This feast seeks to remind us of Jesus Christ's sacrifice Do this in remembrance of me - Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24-25.
In many countries, Corpus Christi is observed on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, however where it is not a holy day of obligation, the celebration occurs on the Sunday that follows.
This feast seeks to remind us of Jesus Christ's sacrifice Do this in remembrance of me - Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24-25.
In many countries, Corpus Christi is observed on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, however where it is not a holy day of obligation, the celebration occurs on the Sunday that follows.
Today as Catholics we celebrate the Feast
of Corpus Christi or the body of Christ. As Catholics the one thing that has
always been consistent in the church is the taking of the body of our Lord.
While they were eating, he took
bread, said the blessing, broke it, gave it to them, and said, "Take it;
this is my body." Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them,
and they all drank from it. He said to them, "This is my blood of the
covenant, which will be shed for many. (Mark 14:22-24)
Feast of Corpus Christi Facts &
Quotes
·
In
the Middle Ages, the priest was the only person who received the elements.
The congregation watched him eat the bread and drink the wine.
·
The
Sacraments are Jesus Christ's presence in us. So, it is important for us
to go to Confession and receive Holy Communion. - Pope Francis via
twitter on Nov 23, 2013.
Feast of Corpus Christi Top Events
and Things to Do
·
If
you're Christian, go to Mass and receive Holy Communion on the Feast of Corpus
Christi.
·
Travel
to the Vatican City and watch the annual procession of the Blessed Sacrament,
headed by the Pope, through the streets of Rome.
·
A
wide range of theologies exist about Holy Communion. Read about how the
elements of bread and wine are related to the body and blood of Christ
depending on your denomination.
Prayers
I. O my Jesus, You have said "Truly I say to
you, ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be
opened to you." Behold I knock, I seek, and I ask for the grace of . . . .
Our
Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father... Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all
my trust in you.
II. O my Jesus, You have said, "Truly I say to
you, if you ask anything of the Father in My Name, He will give it to
you." Behold, in Your name, I ask the Father for the grace of . . . .
Our
Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father... Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all
my trust in you.
III. O my Jesus, You have said, "Truly I say to
you, heaven and earth will pass away, but My words willl not pass away."
Encouraged by Your infallible words, I now ask for the grace of . . . .
Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to the Father... Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you.
O Sacred Heart of Jesus, for whom it is impossible not to have compassion on the afflicted, have mercy on us sinners, and grant us the grace which we ask of You, through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, Your tender mother and ours.
Say the Hail Holy Queen (Salve Regina) prayer. Conclude with: St. Joseph, foster father of Jesus, pray for us.
World Refugee Day serves to
commemorate the strength, courage and resilience of millions of refugees that
have been forced to flee their homes out of fear of persecution or to escape
disasters. The day also aims to recognize refugees for their contribution to
the world. According to the United Nations, there are more than 50 million
people displaced by war and violence, of which 33 million are internally
displaced while the other 17 million are refugees, mostly in neighboring
nations.
The United Nations General Assembly designated World Refugee Day in December 2000. It is celebrated every June 20th, a day chosen in order to coincide with Africa's previously celebrated Refugee Day.
The United Nations General Assembly designated World Refugee Day in December 2000. It is celebrated every June 20th, a day chosen in order to coincide with Africa's previously celebrated Refugee Day.
June 14, 2019
WASHINGTON[7]—
Bishop Joe S. Vásquez of Austin, Chairman of the USCCB Committee on Migration
has issued a statement in support of Catholic Bishops of Mexico who have
expressed concern regarding a recent agreement between Mexico and the United
States which will restrict the flow of migrants at the U.S./Mexico Border.
·
"We
express our concern for the lack of a truly humanitarian reception for our
brother migrants, which reflects our conviction regarding the protection of
the rights of all human beings equally," the bishops further stated,
"Our brother migrants must not be a bargaining chip. No negotiations
should be placed above what the church and civil society have defended for
years: not criminalizing migrants nor the defenders of human rights.”
·
“We
stand in solidarity with our brother bishops in Mexico. We implore the
Administration not to confuse economic issues with the humanitarian issues of
forced migration. Families fleeing violence, persecution and extreme poverty
must be treated with love and compassion and not be used as a tool for
negotiations.
·
As always, we recognize the right of a nation to
secure its borders.
However, the Gospel teaches us to love our neighbor. This is the
imperative we must follow in treating our migrant brothers and sisters with
compassion and dignity. We should be working with the governments of the
Northern Triangle and the Mexican Government to eradicate violence and improve
the local economies from which families are being forced to migrate.”
Daily Devotions
·
Novena
to Sacred Heart Day 1
* This feast is no
longer a holyday of obligation in the United States.
[2]
Goffine’s Devout Instructions, 1896
[5]http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/prayers/view.cfm?id=892
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