Corpus Christi
The Feast of Corpus Christi is a favorite devotional occasion for many Catholics. Many with long memories will recall the processions of their youth, with dozens of altar servers, nuns, and first communicants following behind the Blessed Sacrament carried beneath a silk canopy. This feast, instituted back in the 13th century, solidified the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist against heretical views that Jesus was merely ‘symbolically’ or ‘figuratively’ present in the bread and wine at Mass.
The popular story of how the feast began occurred in the little village of Bolsena in central Italy. In 1263, a German priest named Peter of Prague was on pilgrimage to Rome and stopped in the town to say Mass. Having doubts about whether Jesus was really present in the Eucharist, he arrived at the point of the consecration when he said “This is my Body.” At the moment he said those words, blood began to seep from the Host, staining the corporal (altar linen) and the altar itself. Terrified and overawed, he immediately took the altar linens and went to the city of Orvieto where the pope was residing. The pope took one look at the blood-stained corporal, heard the account and was deeply moved. He had the miraculous corporal brought to Orvieto where it is venerated in the city’s cathedral. The next year, whether because of the miracle or alongside it, he instituted the feast of Corpus Christi and ordered St. Thomas Aquinas to compose liturgical texts for the Mass. Thomas was impressed by the miracle and wrote beautiful chants that are still sung today, including the Lauda Sion sequence sung at Mass today, the Pange Lingua sung on Holy Thursday and during Adoration, and the Adoro te devote hymn sung after Communion in many churches.
I had the opportunity while studying in Italy to go to Orvieto and Bolsena for this feast day, taking part in two processions through the cities with the blood-stained corporal and the piece of the altar that was similarly stained. Thousands turned out in the streets to watch the Blessed Sacrament and the relics process by. At various points, the faithful had constructed intricate floral patterns on the ground like carpets that only the procession walked over during their route. It was an amazing day of devotional piety that I have rarely observed!
Yet to show devotion to the Eucharist doesn’t always require big displays. Even showing up to Adoration on Tuesdays (stay tuned for a schedule change that will extend the hours from noon-6pm each week) is enough to spend some time with our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. He is the source of our spiritual life, and without spiritual food we will starve. Go to him often to pray in the words of the Ave Verum: “Hail, true Body, truly born/ of the Virgin Mary mild/Truly offered, wracked and torn,/On the Cross for all defiled,/From Whose love pierced, sacred side/Flowed Thy true Blood’s saving tide:/Be a foretaste sweet to me/In my death’s great agony. Amen.”