Search This Blog

Corpus Christi

Origin

The Feast of Corpus Christi (Day of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus Christ the Lord), also known as the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, is a Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Western Orthodox liturgical solemnity celebrating the Real Presence of the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ in the elements of the Eucharist.

History

The institution of Corpus Christi as a feast in the Christian calendar resulted from approximately forty years of work on the part of Juliana of Liege, a 13th-century Norbertine canoness, also known as Juliana de Cornillon, born in 1191 or 1192 in Liege, Belgium, a city where there were groups of women dedicated to Eucharistic worship. Guided by exemplary priests, they lived together, devoted to prayer and to charitable works.

Celebration

The feast of Corpus Christi is one of five occasions in the year on which a diocesan bishop is not to be away from his diocese unless for a grave and urgent reason.

In many countries, the day is a holy day of obligation to participate in the celebration of Mass and takes place on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. On that day or on the following Sunday, which is the feast day where it is not a holy day of obligation, it is traditional to hold in the streets of a town or in an individual parish a procession with prayers and singing to honor the Blessed Sacrament. During the procession, the consecrated host is displayed in a monstrance held aloft by a member of the clergy. At the end of the procession, Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament is imparted.

Date

Corpus Christi is a moveable feast, celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday or, in countries where it is not a holy day of obligation, on the following Sunday.

The Sunday celebration of the feast, introduced in the second half of the 20th century, occurs three days later, between 24 May at earliest and 27 June at latest.

Corpus Christi is a public holiday in some countries with a predominantly Catholic population.