Come celebrate our identity

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, also known as the Feast of Corpus Christi, begins universally this year on Thursday, June 3, and Catholics are once again invited to gather as one body at Corpus Christi Cathedral. The Feast of Corpus Christi is a celebration of the real presence of Christ in the holy Eucharist.

In 1264 Pope Urban IV issued a papal bull, “Transiturus de hoc mundo,” establishing the Feast of Corpus Christi as a universal feast of the Church, to be celebrated on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday. He commissioned St. Thomas Aquinas to compose the Office of the Mass and Liturgy of the Hours for the new feast.

The international feast day celebration correlates with Holy Thursday–when Christ instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper celebrated by the Church. But Holy Thursday precedes the Passion, which is a solemn occasion and packed with key events: the washing of the disciples’ feet and the institution of the priesthood. The Feast of Corpus Christi focuses’ on the Eucharist, the Church’s greatest treasure.

This feast’s full name is “Corpus et Sanguis Christi,” or The Body and Blood of Christ. The Feast of Corpus Christi began in 13th century Liège, Belgium, when St. Juliana of Liège had a series of visions of Christ, urging that a feast be established to honor the Eucharist.  

St. Juliana had a full moon vision darkened in one spot. She heard a heavenly voice state that the moon was the Church, and the dark spot was a missing feast, that of a feast to honor Corpus Christi (the Blessed Sacrament). 

She reported the vision to the then Bishop of Liège, Jacques Pantaléon, later known as Pope Urban IV, who affirmed her vision and established the Blessed Sacrament feast in Liège. It was celebrated locally for the first time on June 5, 1249. 

A few years later, in 1263 near Orvieto, Italy, a priest who doubted the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist was elevating the Eucharist during consecration when it began to bleed. Many Catholics witnessed the event. The priest wrapped the bleeding Host in corporals and brought it to the Bishop of Orvieto. 

The bishop consulted with Pope Urban IV, to whom St. Juliana had confided her vision and affirmed her miracle. The Host and corporals remain in Orvieto for veneration to this day. 

The feast is special to our diocese for two reasons. First, tradition has it that the explorer Alonzo Alvarez de Pineda discovered and named the bay on the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1519. Second, in 1912, Pope Pius X named Corpus Christi a diocese–which, as Pope Pius XII told Bishop Mariano Garriga, has “the most beautiful name in the world.”

The Diocese of Corpus Christi will celebrate this solemnity with holy hours, confession and a diocesan eucharistic procession. The event will begin at 11 a.m. with welcoming remarks, a proclamation by the Mayor and activities inside the Cathedral. Bishop Michael Mulvey will celebrate Mass at 12:05 p.m. Reflections, music, and adoration will follow every hour from 1-6 p.m. led by retired priests throughout the diocese.

Confessions will be available in the courtyard for the Sacrament of Penance. The bishop will elevate the Blessed Sacrament at 6 p.m. and begin the eucharistic procession down Upper Broadway to Leopard, stopping to pray at a temporary altar outside the Mother Teresa Shelter on Sam Rankin. The procession will then continue down Sam Rankin to Lipan, stopping at another temporary altar to pray in front of the Nueces County Jail. The procession will end after the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament at the last altar, outside the cathedral.

Processions are expressions of culture and community as well as of faith. You are welcome to dress in traditional clothing celebrating your national or cultural identity. All parishes, altar servers, extraordinary ministers of holy Communion and members of all parish organizations are invited to carry banners representing their parish and organizations.

Livestream will be available via the Diocese of Corpus Christi, KLUX and Corpus Christi Cathedral Facebook pages. 

For more information call Jaime Reyna at (361) 882-6191 or visit the website at feastofcc.org. 

We invite all of you to embrace this opportunity to come together as the Body of Christ and spend time with Our Lord in prayer as we honor the name we bear as a diocese. Social distancing will be observed and masks are encouraged at the June 3rd celebration.

Map of the Procession