CORPUS CHRISTI: THE BODY OF CHRIST

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, known as Corpus Christi. This feast began in Italy with a priest who had lost his faith in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and decided to walk to Rome as a pilgrim in an effort to once again believe in the Real Presence.
 
One day in 1263 in Bolsena, Italy, while this priest was celebrating Mass, the consecrated Host he held above the altar began to bleed onto the corporal, the small cloth upon which the host and chalice rest during the Mass. The remains of this Eucharistic miracle and the very corporal itself are still in existence and you can venerate them if you ever get to go to Italy and visit the Cathedral in Orvieto in Umbria. I have been privileged to visit that Cathedral several times and attend Mass in front of the corporal.
 
St. Thomas Aquinas, who was living in Orvieto at the Dominican studium generale, a school of theology, was asked by Pope Urban IV to write the Office (the texts for the Liturgy of the Hours) and the Mass texts for the solemnity of Corpus Christi that the pope was to institute the following year, in 1264. St. Thomas wrote the hymns for the Office which include the Pange Lingua, the Tantum Ergo, and the O Salutaris Hostia. Thomas also wrote the sequence Lauda Sion Salvatorem which we chant on every Corpus Christi Sunday. Thomas also wrote the prayers for the Mass on Corpus Christi, which we use in English translation as well.
 
You may have noticed that we sung a sequence on Pentecost Sunday as well. There are several feasts in the Church year where we sing sequences. Sequences are hymns sung before the Gospel. Traditionally it is sung after the Alleluia but in modern times, it is sung before the Alleluia. Before the year 1570 there were sequences for many of the feasts throughout the year: in fact, at the height of their use, there were sequences for nearly every Sunday and feast day of the year. After the Missal of Pius V was promulgated in 1570 the number of sequences was reduced to four but one other (the Stabat Mater, which we traditionally sing at the Stations of the Cross) was later added in 1727. By the time of our current Missal, there are only four sequences left in the Mass and only those on Easter Sunday and Pentecost Day are required.
 
I end with a strophe from Thomas Aquinas’ Pange Lingua. May it be our encouragement today:
Therefore, the great Sacrament let us reverence, prostrate: and let the old Covenant give way to a new rite. Let faith stand forth as substitute for defect of the senses.