The full name in Latin of this feast is “Corpus et Sanguis Christi” (“The Body and Blood of Christ”). This feast is celebrated on the first Sunday after the feast of the Holy Trinity. This year the feast of Corpus Christi falls on May 29.
Bishop Robert de Thorte of Liege ( Belgium) established this feast of the Blessed Sacrament in the year 1246 at the suggestion of St. Juliana of Mont Carvillon. Juliana, a Belgian nun, from age 16 onwards, often had a vision during her prayers of a full moon in brilliant light, while a part of its disc remained black. Finally, Christ told her the meaning of this vision. The moon represented the liturgical year; the black spot indicated the lack of a festival in honor of the Blessed Sacrament. She was to tell the Church hierarchy that God wished the establishment of such a feast.
In 1230 Juliana revealed this secret to a small group of theologians and, as a result, she had to suffer scorn and ridicule. But the bishop of Liege eventually listened to her. A diocesan synod in 1246 decided in her favor and prescribed such a feast for the churches of Liege. Some years later, Jacques Pantaleon, archdeacon of Liege, was elected Pope, taking the name Urban IV (1261-1265). On September 8, 1264, six years after Juliana's death, he established for the whole Church that feast in honor of the Holy Eucharist. It was to be celebrated with great solemnity on the Thursday after Pentecost week, and indulgences were granted to all who would receive Holy Communion or attend special devotions in addition to hearing Mass.
Pope Urban IV commissioned both Saints Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas to compose the texts of the Mass and the Divine Office for the new feast. It is said that when St. Bonaventure read what his friend St. Thomas had come up with, he burned his own composition. Thomas Aquinas composed five beautiful hymns to the Holy Eucharist: “Adoro Te Devote” (“I adore Thee devoutly”), “Lauda Sion” (“Laud, O Zion”), “Pange Lingua” (“Sing, my tongue”), “Sacris Solemniis” (“At this our Solemn Feast”) and “Verbum Supernum” (“The Word of God”).
Pope Urban IV presented the following reasons for establishing Corpus Christi as a universal feast: “1) that the Catholic doctrine receive aid from the institution of this festival at a time when the faith of the world was growing cold and heresies were rife; 2) that the faithful who love and seek truth and piety may be enabled to draw from this source of life new strength and vigor to walk continually in the way of virtue; 3) that irreverence and sacrilegious behavior towards the Divine Majesty in this adorable Sacrament may, by sincere and profound adoration, be extirpated and repaired; 4) to announce to the Christian world His will that the feast be observed.”
In the 14 th century the custom developed of carrying the Blessed Sacrament in a splendid procession through the town after the Mass on the feast of Corpus Christi. The popes encouraged this; they granted special indulgences to all who would participate in the celebration. The Council of Trent (1545-1563) solemnly approved and recommended the procession on Corpus Christi as a public profession of the Catholic faith in the real presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist.
During the later Middle Ages these processions developed into splendid pageants of devotion and honor to the Blessed Sacrament. They are still publicly held, and often with the ancient splendor, in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, in the Catholic sections of Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Canada, Hungary, and in the Slavic countries and South America. Sovereigns and princes, presidents and ministers of the government, court judges, members of trade and craft guilds, and honor guards of the armed forces accompany the liturgical procession while the church bells peal, bands play sacred hymns, and the faithful kneel in front of their homes to adore the Eucharistic Lord. The houses along the route of the procession are decorated. Candles and pious pictures adorn the windows. In many places, especially in Latin countries, the streets are covered with carpets of grass and flowers, often fashioned in beautiful patterns.
The solemn celebration of the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, with its corresponding Eucharistic procession, far from being outdated, is much needed in our times. The present conditions of the world are not very different from those that existed when Pope Urban IV was prompted to establish Corpus Christi as a universal feast. Pope Benedict XVI described the people’s thirst for Christ in his homily during the Mass for the inauguration of his Pontificate on April 24, 2005: “so many people are living in the desert. And there are so many kinds of desert. There is the desert of poverty, the desert of hunger and thirst, the desert of abandonment, of loneliness, of destroyed love. There is the desert of God's darkness, the emptiness of souls no longer aware of their dignity or the goal of human life. The external deserts in the world are growing, because the internal deserts have become so vast. Therefore the earth's treasures no longer serve to build God's garden for all to live in, but they have been made to serve the powers of exploitation and destruction.”
"The human race – every one of us – is the sheep lost in the desert which no longer knows the way,” Pope Benedict said. But amid this desolate panorama, the Pope assured us that “the Son of God will not let this happen; he cannot abandon humanity in so wretched a condition. He leaps to his feet and abandons the glory of heaven, in order to go in search of the sheep and pursue it, all the way to the Cross.”
The feast of Corpus Christi is a time when our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament goes out to meet us in our very streets where we witness each day “the desert of poverty, the desert of hunger and thirst, the desert of abandonment, of loneliness, of destroyed love”. This is a time when we all can witness to Christ’s love for us and to his dwelling among us by glorifying him in a very open way. It is also a wonderful way in which we can show our love for our neighbors by bringing them closer to Jesus.
From the Rev. Fr. Michael Angelo Cardenas of the Archdiocese of Manila: