Corpus Christi

Origin.

Theological prelude

Solemnity in a certain direction would have been prepared by the theological debate and the alarm clock of the devotion eucharistic which has occurred after the heresy of Berenger of Turns who denied the real presence of Christ in the Eucharistie. This alarm clock was accompanied by a desire to be able to contemplate the host during the mass: it is in Paris, in 1200, that the existence of this rite of " the élévation" , at the time of the dedication, is attested for the first time.

Great figures of XIIIe century in bond with Eucharistie

The XIII century is one fertile period for the Church with the great figures of Francois, Saint Dominique Saint and Holy Claire

Holy François d' Assise

Born in Assise (in Italy) in the 1181 and deceased on October 3rd, 1226, the faith of Saint François d' Assise in the Body and the Blood of the Lord appears in his Letter with the faithful ones. François recalls, in a kind of creed, the essence of the mystery of Jesus: the central and summary place of Eucharistie: “This Word of the Father, if worthy, if holy and so glorious, the very high Father sent it sky (…) He which was rich over all, it wanted itself in the world, with very happy Vierge, her mother, to choose poverty. And close to passion, it celebrated Passover with its disciples and, taking the bread, it returned graces and blesses it and broke it while saying: Take and eat, this is my body” . Here Eucharistie appears located at the hinge between the two key periods of the mystery of Christ: its arrival with us in the examination of the incarnation and its Pascal way of total handing-over enters the hands of the Father. For Francois, Incarnation rédemptrice, conversion of life and reception of Eucharistie are three deeply overlapping realities.

Holy Dominique

Dominique de Guzman is born about 1170 in the borough from Caleruega, in Spain. Founder about the preaching friars, it dies in 1221. He is celebrated on August 8th. At the time where the catholic kings fight the heresy cathare the sword with the hand, Saint Dominique and its brothers center their Christian life on Eucharistie. Moreover, in the bubble transiturus which instituted the Corpus Christi, the pope Urbain IV writing that " it is right nevertheless, to confuse the madness of certain heretics, whom one points out the presence of Christ in very Saint-Sacrement".

Holy Thomas d' Aquin

Born in 1224, Saint Thomas d' Aquin starts to teach in 1252. It is characterized by its devotion and its love from Eucharistie. All its life will be devoted to exhort, stimulate, clarify, fight the heresies. He writes the Mass of the Blessed Sacrament which will be promulgated by Urbain IV with the bubble transiturus which will institute the Corpus Christi. He sings there Pange Lingua, the mystery of Eucharistie. When it celebrates Eucharistie, of the tears run on its cheeks.

Holy Claire

Born in the 1192 and died on August 11th, 1253, Claire of Base, also because of a kind of iconography which had a vast success starting from the XVII° century, the Ostensoir with the hand is often represented. The gesture recalls, although with a more solemn attitude, which already very sick, was prosternait, constant by two sisters, in front of the money ciborium containing Eucharistie, placed in front of the door of the refectory, where was to fall down the fury of the troops of the Emperor. Claire liked Eucharistie, that however, according to the use of the time, it could receive only seven times per annum.

Premises with Liege

It is mainly due to Julienne de Cornillon that one owes the Corpus Christi: as from 1209, it had frequent mystical visions. A vision returned on several occasions, in which she saw the indented moon, i.e. radiant of light, but incomplete, a black band dividing it into two equal parts. She saw there the revelation which it missed a festival in the Church. The festival of Blessed Sacrament was to be instituted to revive the faith of faithful and expier the faults made against this Sacrament. As from this period, it worked for the establishment of a solemn festival in the honor of the Very Blessed Sacrament. It was helped for that by Happy Eve of Liege, recluse. In 1222, Julienne was elected prioress of the Cornillon Mount and continued the steps for the introduction of the Festival God, requesting council from eminent personalities of the time, such as Jean of Lausanne, canon of Martin Saint, Jacques Pantaléon, archdeacon of Liege and future Pope Urbain IV, Guy bishop of Cambric, and also of the Dominican theologists, of which Hugues de Saint Expensive.

The festival was celebrated for the first time by the prince bishop Robert de Tourote. Falls ill with Fosses, fearing not to have not time to confirm the festival with its principality; it even recommended the institution of the festival to the clergy which surrounded it and made some celebrate the office its involved, with Fosses. It died there, on October 16th, 1246, without to have been able to hold a general synod and to publish there its mandement. However as from 1246 the Corpus Christi was introduced initially into the diocese of Liege to the Basilique Saint Martin's day of Liege. The middle-class men of Liege opposed the festival because that meant one day of fast in more for the population and certain monks considered that such festival did not deserve similar budget. The opposition to the festival becoming stronger after 1246, Julienne had to leave her convent and passed from monastery in monastery. She found refuge in several cistercians abbeys. She died on April 5th, 1258 at Pit-the-City, between Sambre and Meuse, and was buried in the cistercian abbey of Villers-The-City.

Introduction of the Corpus Christi

Miracle of Bolsena

The origin of the Corpus Christi is due to a miracle which took place in XIIIe century with Bolsena in 1263. This miracle is reported by the frescos of the Cathédrale of Orvieto. A priest of Bohemian, Pierre of Prague had made a pilgrimage and had great spiritual doubts in particular on the presence of Christ in Eucharistie. At the time of a mass celebrated by the priest, at the time of the dedication, the host taken a color dew and blood drops fell on the corporal and the pavement. The priest stopped the mass to carry to the sacristy the holy species. The Pope Urbain IV then noted what had occurred.

Institution of the Festival God

The pope, former confessor of Holy Julienne de Cornillon, which had required of him to institute this festival, instituted then the festival of the Corpus Domini by the bubble " Transiturus of hoc mundo " and to Saint Thomas d' Aquin the drafting of liturgical texts for this solemnity entrusted then which it fixed at Thursday after the octave of Pentecost.

This festival was officially instituted on September 8th, 1264 by the pope Urbain IV.

The Corpus Christi was accepted in all the Latin churches only at the time of Clement V, at the time of the Concile of Vienna 1311 when it renewed the constitution of Urbain IV.

The institution of this celebration is contemporary eradication of the heresy Cathare and of Vaud with roughing-hew of Montségur, these processions in the South of France and the valley of the Rhone were the occasion of violent incidents of the beginning of the XIII° century until the XVI° century included.

Development and habits of the Corpus Christi

Belgium

In 1946, at the time of the 700ème birthday of the Corpus Christi, the diocese of Liege organized various demonstrations, of which a procession of tanks in the district the St. Lawrence, close to the basilica Saint Martin's day, then a river procession on the Meuse.

Germany

The procession of the Blessed Sacrament is attested for the first time at Cologne, between 1274 and 1279. This devotion developed thereafter into Germanic and France, and at the XVIIe century.

Italy

In Rome, it is only at the end of XVe century, under Nicolas V, which one started to celebrate the festival by a procession of the Archibasilique Midsummer's Day of Lateran to the Holy-Marie-Major Basilique. However the current layout of the procession, along via Merulana was practicable only as from 1575, completion date of the work wanted by Gregoire XIII. The tradition was then maintained for three centuries. But in 1870, year of the catch of Rome, the use fell into the lapse of memory. It is Jean-Paul II which raised the tradition as of its first year of pontificate, in 1979.

France

This festival was formerly accompanied in France by public processions where the holy host was carried in large pump through the streets. Since 1830, these processions are not done any more at the XIXe century but in Paris and in some other big cities, as in many villages of the Pays Basque where all the inhabitants of the village take part in it. The men constitute a " keep nationale" where mix sappers, drum major and other soldiers out of weapon. The costumes, entirely manufactured by the dressmakers of the village, are bright colors. The troop ravels thus in music (alternatively songs men, songs women then the battery brass band) to the church in an imposed order.

Date from the Corpus Christi

2007: June 7th
2008: May 22nd
2009: June 11th
2010: June 3rd
2011: June 23rd
2012: June 7th
2013: May 30th
2014: June 19th
2015: June 4th
2016: May 26th
2017: June 15th
2018: May 31st
2019: June 20th
2020: June 11th
2021: June 3rd
2022: June 16th

Bonds internal

Bonds external

Corpus Christi in Ile-de-France
HTTP: /www.france-pittoresque.com/traditions/4b.htm Corpus Christi in Angers

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