A Brief History of the Feast of Corpus Christi

There appeared to St. Juliana of Cornillon a moon suspended in a dark sky, but within the moon was a void.  The sixteen-year-old nun was perplexed at what this sign might mean.  The Lord interpreted the vision and proclaimed that the moon was the Church, so glorious in all of her feasts.  The dark portion was there because the Church had no feast to commemorate the Eucharist.  To this humble saint, the Lord entrusted the task of promoting the feast of Corpus Christi.

St. Juliana of Cornillon

Some decades passed before St. Juliana muscled up the courage to tell someone what she had seen.  It wasn’t until she was elected prioress of her community of Augustinian nuns in 1220 that the vision made its reappearance.  She entrusted her tale of what the Lord showed her to a canon named John Lausanne, who like herself, had a burning devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.  Without hesitation, this man consulted a crew of theologians to further the cause.  They unanimously agreed to establish the feast locally.  In 1246, the Bishop of Liège, Robert Torote, proclaimed that the feast is to be celebrated on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday.

But every great feast needs a great office.  St. Juliana put Father John Lausanne of Mt. St. Martin to the task of writing the liturgy for the new feast.  Most of this original office has been lost to history, and it was the great St. Thomas Aquinas who crafted the office still in use today.

St. Juliana is not a saint just because she had a vision; her sanctification was also displayed in her patience as she bore many trials.  Many clergymen mocked her for her revelation from God.  They thought she was insane and spread many rumors that degraded her.  Eventually she had to flee her convent for self-protection. The Bishop of Liège died soon after he established the feast, and so many of St. Juliana’s adversaries took advantage of the situation and reviled the deceased prelate.  In 1247, the feast was celebrated at the Church of St. Martin, but it was not celebrated throughout the diocese as Liège’s former bishop had wanted.

It was the preaching of a Dominican that gave the feast more attention.  Cardinal de Saint Cher of the Order of Preachers had just recently been appointed legate to England, and since he happened to be passing through Liège, he was asked to preach for the first feast of the Blessed Sacrament at St. Martin.  He was so thrilled by this novel feast that he ordered all the countries in his charge to celebrate the feast! 

After the death of St. Juliana, her religious sister Eve (now a Blessed of the Church) wrote to Pope Urban IV to make Corpus Christi a feast for the universal Church.  She and St. Juliana had known Pope Urban IV when he was still Archdeacon of Liège.  After the excitement over the miracle at Orvieto, the pope ordered St. Thomas Aquinas to compose the office for Corpus Christi and published a bull for the whole Church to celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday.

How very beautiful it is that the Lord thought it fitting to establish this feast by first using a humble nun and a vision of the moon.  In the vision there was a void in the moon to represent that there was no feast honoring the Eucharist.  This is a fitting image for our own lives.  Without the Eucharist, there will be a hole in our lives.  The collect (for the old translation of the Liturgy) for the Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter says “Fill our emptiness with the blessing of the Eucharist, the foretaste of eternal joy.”  Whatever emptiness we have in us can be filled with Christ’s redemptive power present in the Holy Eucharist, and it’s worth reflecting on that line in the Collect as we celebrate the joyous feast of Corpus Christi.

Please join us this Sunday for the Eucharistic Procession celebrating the Feast of Corpus Christi through the streets of Summit.
Please arrive at 4pm. The procession will depart from the monastery chapel at 4:30pm. Read more here.