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.