A Legend about St Thomas’ Office of Corpus Christi

O sacrum convivium, in quo Christus súmitur: recólitur memoria passiónis ejus, mens implétur gratia, et futúrae gloriae nobis pignus datur, allelúja. (The Magnificat antiphon for Second Vespers of Corpus Christi.)

O sacred banquet, in which Christ is received; the memory of His passion is recalled, the mind is filled with grace, and the pledge of future glory is given to us, alleluia.

The Office and Mass which St Thomas Aquinas wrote for the feast of Corpus Christ at the behest of Pope Urban IV (1261-4) are universally recognized to be among the finest liturgical compositions of the Middle Ages. There is a famous legend of how this came to be, which tells that the pope proposed a contest between Thomas and his friend St Bonaventure, who was at that time serving as the 7th Minister General of the Franciscan Order. Each would write an Office and Mass for the feast, which would then be read to the papal court, and the better of the two chosen. On the day of the contest, Thomas was allowed to read his first; as soon as he had finished, Bonaventure tore his own manuscript to pieces (or threw it in the fire), recognizing that Thomas’ work was far superior to his own.

Painful as it is to impugn such a charming story, it has to be acknowledged that it has no basis in fact. Among other things, we know enough about St Bonaventure’s doings and whereabouts in that period to say that he was not in Orvieto, the town where the papal court resided for most of Pope Urban’s reign, long enough for such a contest to have happened. There are no written attestations of the story before the later decades of the 15th century, over 200 years after it supposedly took place; even in the mid-15th century, Dominican writers known for their enthusiasm for these kinds of tales about the glories of their early confreres (e.g. St Antoninus of Florence) make no mention of it.

However, there is an artistic depiction of the story, or something like it, earlier than this, a painting by the Sienese artist Taddeo di Bartolo (ca. 1363 - 1422), likely made for the Dominican church of his native city around 1403-5. 

St Thomas is shown kneeling before the pope, presenting his liturgical texts, while a cardinal holds a host and chalice above him. (This is, of course, purely symbolic.) At the far right is a Franciscan cardinal who seems rather taken aback by what’s happening, while the Dominican next to him points toward the host, and the cardinal sitting with his back to the viewer gestures towards the Franciscan, as if to say, “You can stop now.” However, this painting cannot be treated as any kind of proof of the legend’s historical accuracy, since St Bonaventure was not made a cardinal until 1273, while Pope Urban died in 1264.

My thanks to Dr Donald Prudlo, an old friend and occasional guest contributor to NLM, for information which he provided me for this article.

A Motet and Mass by Palestrina for Corpus Christi

Here is another big win for the YouTube suggestion algorithm, a motet by Palestrina which has the first two verses of the epistle of Corpus Christi (1 Corinthians 11, 23-29) as its text. For simplicity’s sake, I have titled this post “for Corpus Christi”. But our friend Thomas Neal, who is an expert on Palestrina, tells me that the exact occasion for which it was composed is unknown; it may have been written for Holy Thursday instead.

“Brethren: I indeed have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and giving thanks, broke it, and said, ‘Take ye, and eat: this is my body, which shall be delivered for you: this do for the commemoration of me.’”

The motet is preserved in only one manuscript (preserved in the archives of the Cappella Giulia in the Vatican), which dates to around 1584, and contains many other pieces copied out in Palestrina’s own hand. He later used it as the basis of a very beautiful Mass for eight voices, which is therefore called the Missa Fratres, ego enim accepi, published posthumously in 1601.

Hymns for the Medieval Office of Corpus Christi

When Pope Urban IV promulgated the feast of Corpus Christi in 1264, he also offered a complete set of Mass and Office texts composed at his behest by St Thomas Aquinas. These are rightly recognized to be among the finest of the High Middle Ages, and have been treasured by Catholics as the official liturgical expression of Eucharistic devotion for many centuries. However, the feast had already been established almost two decades earlier in the city of Liège; in his bull Transiturus, Pope Urban refers to the visionary St Juliana of Mont-Cornillon, who had composed an office of Corpus Christi before St Thomas. Her assistant in this task and in the promotion of the feast was a canon of the church of St Martin in Liège, John of Lausanne; this church and several others continued to use the older Office or parts thereof well after Pope Urban’s time. In a 15th-century manuscript of St Juliana’s life, a note is added by a later hand that refers to this Office, saying that “(i)t begins with the words Animarum cibus, and is found in its entirety in the church of Tongres (about ten miles from Liège) and elsewhere; then Urban IV instituted the office which is now sung everywhere.” (As noted in “The Feast of Corpus Christi”, edited by Barbara R. Walters et al., Penn. State Univ. Press, 2006, p. 61.)

The collegiate church of St Martin in Liège, depicted in a watercolor by Joseph Fussell (1818-1912). Image from Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. 

Despite the broad liturgical standardization after the council of Trent, Liège maintained its own proper medieval use, edited according to certain criteria of the Tridentine reform, until the French Revolution ended the independence of the city’s Prince-Bishopric. It would appear from the printed liturgical books of the era that the office of St Thomas was adopted throughout the diocese as part of this reform. At the church of St Martin, however, where the feast of Corpus Christi was first celebrated, several parts of the older office Animarum cibus were added to St Thomas’; among them, proper hymns are assigned to the minor hours of Prime, Terce, Sext and None. (This was done in some parts of the Low Countries on a very small number of feasts, where the use of Rome has the same hymns at these hours every day.) As was typical of the period, several lines are borrowed from other hymns already part of the general repertoire; for example, the first line of the hymn of Prime, “Summae Jesu clementiae” is borrowed from a much older hymn which begins with those same words.

At Prime
Summae Jesu clementiae,
Qui ob salutem mentium
Caelestis alimoniae
Nobis praestas remedium

Mores, vitam et opera
Rege momentis omnibus,
Et beatis accelera
Vitam dare cum civibus.

Praesta, Pater, per Filium,
Praesta per almum Spiritum,
Quibus das hoc edulium
Prosperum serves exitum. Amen.

Jesus, of greatest clemency, who for the salvation of our souls grant us the remedy of heavenly nourishment, in every moment guide our manners, life and works, and hasten also to grant us life with the blessed citizens (of heaven.)
(Each of these hymns is sung with the same doxology:)
Grant this, Father, through the Son, and through the Holy Spirit, and a properous end to those to whom you give this food.

At Terce
Sacro tecta velamine
Pietatis mysteria
Mentes pascunt dulcedine,
Qua satiant caelestia.

Sit ergo cum caelestibus
Nobis commune gaudium,
Illis quod se praesentavit,
Nobis quod se non abstulit.

The mysteries of devotion, covered by a sacred veil, feed our souls with the same sweetness that fills those in heaven. Let this then be the joy which we share with them, that He has made Himself present to them, and Has not (by so doing) removed Himself from us.

At Sext
Splendor superni luminis,
Laudisque sacrificium
Coenam tui da numinis
Tuae carnis post prandium.

Saturatus opprobriis
Ad hoc cruci configeris
Et irrisus ludibriis
Crudeli morte plecteris

Splendor of heavenly light, and sacrifice of praise, grant the banquet of your Divine presence after that of your flesh. For this were you weighed down with reproaches, this nailed to the Cross, derided and mocked, and punished with a cruel death.

At None
Aeterna caeli gloria
Lux beata credentium
Redemptionis hostia
Tuarum pastus ovium.

Hujus cultu memoriae
Dirae mortis supplicio,
Nos de lacu miseriae
Educ qui clamas: Sitio.

Eternal glory of heaven, blessed light of believers, victim for our redemption, pasture of your sheep, by the worship of this memorial, by the punishment of this dreadful death, lead us forth from the pit of misery, you who cried out “I thirst.”

The Mass of St. Gregory the Great, by Robert Campin, 1440, or an assistant.

Each of these hymns contains a specific reference to the canonical hour at which it would be sung. The words “in every moment guide our manners, life and works” in the first hymn fit with one of the main ideas of the hour of Prime, to pray for the the sanctification of the day’s work; this is also expressed by the two invariable prayers of that Hour in the Roman Rite and most other uses. The references to receiving Communion in the hymn Sacro tecta velamine derive from the generally observed custom of the Middle Ages that the principle Mass of all major feast days was celebrated after the singing of Terce. The hymn for Sext refers to the Crucifixion which took place “at the sixth hour”, as St Matthew says, and that of None speaks of the death of Christ at the ninth hour, and His crying out “I thirst” just before, as told in the Gospel of St John.

Corpus Christi 2026

Transiturus de mundo ad Patrem Jesus, in mortis suae memoriam * instituit sui corporis et sanguinis Sacramentum. V. Corpus in cibum, sanguinem in potum tribuens, Hoc, ait, facite in meam commemorationem. Instituit. Gloria Patri. Instituit. (The twelfth responsory of Matins of Corpus Christi in the Benedictine Breviary.)

Folio 22r of the Hours of René of Anjou, King of Sicily (15th century; Bibliothèque nationale de France. Département des manuscrits.)

V. When He was about to pass from the world to the Father, in memory of His death, Jesus * instituted the Sacrament of His Body and Blood. V. Giving His Body as food, and His Blood as drink, He said, “Do this in memory of me.” He instituted. Glory be. He instituted.

The text of this responsory is taken from the Bull Transiturus of Pope Urban IV (1261-64), by which he ordered the establishment of the feast of Corpus Christi; it is such a beautiful piece of writing that it was commonly read in the Divine Office at Matins of the feast. This custom was changed in the Roman Breviary by the Tridentine reform, but it continued elsewhere, most notably at Liège, where the feast was first celebrated, and where Pope Urban had been archdeacon; also in the Carthusian Breviary.

“When Our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, was about to pass from this world to the Father, as the time of His Passion drew nigh, having taken supper, He instituted unto the memory of His death the most exalted and magnificent Sacrament of His Body and Blood, giving His Body to eat and His Blood to drink. For however so often we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim the death of the Lord. In the institution of this saving Sacrament, He said to the Apostles, “Do this in memory of Me”, so that this august and venerable Sacrament might be the special and particular memorial of the exceptional love with which He loved us: this memorial, I say, wondrous and astounding, full of delight, sweet, most secure, and precious above all things, in which signs are renewed and wonders changed, in which is contained every delight and the enjoyment of every savor, and the very sweetness of the Lord is tasted, by which we do indeed obtain the support of our life and salvation. This is the memorial most sweet, most sacred, most holy, profitable unto salvation, by which we recall the grace of our redemption; by which we are drawn away from evil and strengthened in good, and advance to the increase of virtues and graces, by the bodily presence of the Savior.

The Institution of the Holy Eucharist, by Federico Barocci, from the Aldobrandini Chapel of St Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome; 1603-8

Transiturus de mundo ad Patrem Salvator noster Dominus Jesus Christus, cum tempus suae passionis instaret, sumpta coena, in memoriam mortis suae instítuit summum et magnificum sui Corporis et Sanguinis sacramentum: Corpus in cibum, et Sánguinem in poculum tribuendo. Nam quotiescumque hunc panem manducamus, et calicem bibimus, mortem Domini annuntiamus. In institutione quidem hujus salutiferi Sacramenti, dixit ipse Apostolis: Hoc facite in meam commemorationem: ut praecipuum et insigne memoriale sui amoris, quo nos dilexit, esset nobis hoc praecelsum et venerabile Sacramentum, memoriale, inquam, mirabile ac stupendum, delectabile ac suave, tutissimum ac sitibundum, carissimum et super omnia pretiosum. In quo innovata sunt signa, et mirabilia immutata, in quo habetur omne delectamentum, et omnis saporis suavitas, ipsaque dulcedo Domini degustatur; in quo utique vitae suffragium consequimur, et salutis. Hoc est memoriale dulcissimum, memoriale sanctissimum, memoriale salvificum, in quo gratam redemptionis nostrae recensemus memoriam, in quo a malo retrahimur, confortamur in bono, et ad virtutem et gratiarum proficimus incrementa, et in quo profecto reficimur ipsius corporali praesentia.”

Music for First Vespers of Corpus Christi

O how delightful, * o Lord, is thy Spirit, Who, that Thou may show Thy sweetness unto Thy children, having granted them most sweet bread from heaven, fillest the hungry with good things, and sendest away empty the scornful rich. (The Magnificat antiphon for First Vespers of Corpus Christi.)

Aña O quam suávis est, * Dómine, spíritus tuus, qui, ut dulcédinem tuam in filios demonstráres, pane suavíssimo de caelo prǽstito, esurientes reples bonis, fastidiósos dívites dimittens inánes.

A very nice polyphonic setting by the Spanish composer Alonso Lobo (1555-1617), a contemporary of Victoria, who held him in the highest regard.

Another by William Byrd (1540 ca. - 1623)

A particularly fine recording of the Gregorian melody of the hymn Pange, lingua, gloriosi Corporis mysterium, which is sung at both Vespers.

And finally, an absolutely splendid version by Victoria himself, alternating a different Gregorian melody with polyphony.

The Octave of Corpus Christi 2025

From the Breviary of St Pius V, 1568, a reading from the fourth Mystagogical Catechesis of St Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem and Doctor of the Church, appointed for the Octave Day of Corpus Christi.

The teaching of blessed Paul seems of itself amply sufficient to make certain your faith concerning the Divine Mysteries; and you, having been made worthy thereof, have become, so to speak, of one Body and of one Blood with Christ. For he proclaimed that on the night He was betrayed, our Lord Jesus Christ took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and gave it to His disciples, saying: Take, and eat, this is my Body. And taking the cup, and giving thanks, He said: Take this, and drink; this is my Blood. Since therefore He Himself has proclaimed this and said, “This is my Body”, who will dare henceforth to doubt that it is so? And since He again has said so insistently “This is my Blood”, who would ever doubt, and say that it is not his Blood?

Once, at Cana in Galilee, He turned water into wine, which has a certain similarity to blood; and shall we think him too little worthy of our belief, when He said He would turn wine into Blood? Being called to that marriage, by which two bodies are joined, He did this miracle, which none expected. Shall we not all the more firmly believe that He has given us His Body and Blood, to be our food and drink, and thus receive them with all certainty as His Body and his Blood? For under the appearance of bread He gives us His Body, and under the appearance of wine, His Blood, so that when you shall receive it, you may taste the Body and Blood of Christ, being made a partaker of the same Body and Blood. Thus indeed do we become Christ-bearers, that is, bearing Christ in our bodies, when we receive His Body and Blood into our members; thus, according to the blessed Peter, do we come to share in the divine nature.

…Wherefore I would not have you understand these things, as if they were merely and simply bread, merely and simply wine; for they are the Body and Blood of Christ. For even if your senses deny this fact, yet let faith confirm you in this belief. Judge not the thing by the taste thereof, but let faith assure thee beyond all doubt, that you have been made worthy to partake of the Body and Blood of Christ.

When St Thomas Aquinas composed the office of Corpus Christi, known from its first antiphon as Sacerdos in aeternum, he wrote not only the musical texts such as the antiphons and hymns, but also the sermon to be read in the first and second nocturns of Matins, according to the custom of his times. This sermon, Immensa divinae largitatis beneficia, is found in almost all pre-Tridentine breviaries; however, it is not long enough to provide readings for Matins on each day of the octave. Other readings had therefore to be selected for the remaining days; the bull Transiturus by which Pope Urban IV promulgated the feast was a popular choice. The 1529 Breviary of the Roman Curia has readings from another bull, Si Dominum in sanctis of Clement V, confirming that of Pope Urban; at Bamberg, Eugenius IV’s Excellentissimi Corporis, granting or confirming a long list of indulgences attached to the observation of Corpus Christi, was read as the sixth lesson of Matins on the feast itself. (This single reading occupies almost 140 lines!) The Sarum Breviary gives several very long tracts from the Decree of Gratian, broadly speaking the medieval code of Canon Law; the third part, called On Consecration, is a long florilegium of texts from the Church Fathers and various other sources, and is quite suitable for spiritual reading despite being essentially a law textbook.

St. Thomas Aquinas in Glory among the Doctors of the Church, by Francisco de Zurbarán, 1631

When the Roman Breviary was revised after the Council of Trent, almost all of these passages were substituted with readings from the Fathers of the Church. The sermon of St Thomas remains on the feast itself and the following day; the remaining days of the octave are given over to Ss John Chrysostom, Cyprian and Ambrose, and last of all, on the octave itself, the passage quoted above from St Cyril of Jerusalem. It is not difficult to see in the choice of such readings a response by the Catholic Church to the early Protestants, and their rejection of the traditional doctrine of the Eucharist. Papal bulls or medieval canon law collections would hold no authority with the “reformers” of the age (Martin Luther burned both at Wittenberg), whether openly Protestant or uncertain Catholics, who were many in that age. The writings of the Fathers, on the other hand, were frequently appealed to as proof that the teachings of the Protestants were in fact those of the primitive Church, and things like Eucharistic processions and Adoration later corruptions of the Medieval era. In such a climate, the writings of St Cyril in particular were a source of profoundest embarrassment to early and later Protestant controversialists. By including such a passage in a corpus of sermons that begins with a work of St Thomas Aquinas, the Breviary of St Pius V asserts a continuity of doctrine from St. Paul to the Church Fathers to the greatest theologian of the medieval, scholastic tradition.

Historical Videos of Corpus Christi Processions

Every year around the feast of Corpus Christi, videos of this sort pop up on Facebook and elsewhere; here are a few of the more interesting ones I have spotted , starting with some footage from Vietnam in 1962.

From the archives of British Pathé, a report on the Corpus Christi Procession in Cologne, Germany, from 1947.

Another from Liverpool, 1934.

And some unedited footage, without soundtrack, of a procession held sometime during WW1.

Corpus Christi 2025

Qui manducat meam carnem et bibit meum sanguinem, * In me manet, et ego in eo. V. Non est alia natio tam grandis, quæ habeat deos appropinquantes sibi, sicut Deus noster adest nobis. In me manet. (The seventh responsory of Matins of Corpus Christi.)

He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, in me abideth, and I in him. V. There is no other nation so great, that hath gods that come nigh them, as our God is present to us. In me he abideth.

Today is also the feast of St. Juliana Falconieri (1270-1341), who was the foundress of the female branch of the Servite Order, and the niece of St. Alexius Falconieri, one of the seven founders of the older male branch. The collect of her feast refers to a famous Eucharistic miracle that took place to her benefit.

Deus, qui beatam Julianam Virginem tuam extremo morbo laborantem pretioso Filii tui corpore mirabiliter recreare dignatus es: concede, quaesumus; ut ejus intercedentibus meritis, nos quoque eodem in mortis agone refecti ac roborati, ad caelestem patriam perducamur.

O God, Who, when the blessed Virgin Juliana was laboring in her last illness, deigned in wondrous manner to comfort her with the Precious Body of thy Son; grant by the intercession of her merits, that we also, in the agony of death, may be refreshed and strengthened thereby, and so brought to the heavenly fatherland.

When St Juliana was dying, at the (for that era) very old age of 71, she was unable to retain any solid food, and for this reason, also unable to receive Holy Communion. She therefore asked that the Eucharist might be brought to her in her sickroom, that she might at least adore Christ in the Real Presence. As the priest brought the Host close to her, it disappeared, and Juliana peacefully died. When her body was being prepared for burial, the impression of a circle the size of a Host, with an image of the Crucifixion in it, was discovered over her heart. She is therefore represented in art with a Host over her heart.

A statue of St Juliana Falconieri in St Peter’s Basilica

She was canonized in 1737 by Pope Clement XII, and her feast added to the universal calendar. The Office of her feast includes a proper hymn for Vespers, which also refers to the Eucharistic miracle:

Hinc morte fessam proxima / Non usitato te modo / Solatur, et nutrit Deus, / Dapem supernam porrigens.
Hence when thou wert tired, and death close by, / God consoled and nourished thee, / Not in the usual way / offering the heavenly banquet.

St. Juliana, pray for us!

Music for First Vespers of Corpus Christi

O how delightful, * o Lord, is thy Spirit, Who, that Thou may show Thy sweetness unto Thy children, having granted them most sweet bread from heaven, fillest the hungry with good things, and sendest away empty the scornful rich. (The Magnificat antiphon for First Vespers of Corpus Christi.)

Aña O quam suávis est, * Dómine, spíritus tuus, qui, ut dulcédinem tuam in filios demonstráres, pane suavíssimo de caelo prǽstito, esurientes reples bonis, fastidiósos dívites dimittens inánes.

A very nice polyphonic setting by the Spanish composer Alonso Lobo (1555-1617), a contemporary of Victoria, who held him in the highest regard.

Another by William Byrd (1540 ca. - 1623)

A particularly fine recording of the Gregorian melody of the hymn Pange, lingua, gloriosi Corporis mysterium, which is sung at both Vespers.

And finally, an absolutely splendid version by Victoria himself, alternating a different Gregorian melody with polyphony.

Corpus Christi 2024 Photopost (Part 1)

First of all, my apologies for the delay in getting around to posting these; after a long period of travel, I caught a bug and was feeling very much under the weather for several days. Secondly, there will be at least one more post in this series, possibly two, and there is always room and time for more, so please feel free to send in your photos of recent liturgies (Pentecost, Corpus Christ, Sacred Heart etc.) to photopost@newliturgicalmovement.org. Don’t forget to include the name and location of the church, and any other information you think important. Thanks once again to all our contributors!    

Shrine of Our Lady of Mt Carmel – New York City

Mass of the vigil of Pentecost

Ringing the bells at the Gloria.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

How Do Sins Against the Eucharist Cause Our Lord to Suffer?

On June 16, 1675, Our Lord said to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque at Paray-le-Monial:

I ask of you that the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi be set apart for a special Feast to honor My Heart, by communicating on that day, and making reparation to It by a solemn act, in order to make amends for the indignities which It has received during the time It has been exposed on the altars. I promise you that My Heart shall expand Itself to shed in abundance the influence of Its divine love upon those who shall thus honor It, and cause It to be honored.

It has never been a matter of doubt that the Lord Jesus can be sinned against in the Holy Eucharist in a variety of ways — unbelief, indifference, the contempt of irreverence, reception in a state of mortal sin, sacrilege — and that He is rightly offended by these actions, for human sin and divine righteousness cannot cohabitate. As Cardinal Ratzinger exclaimed in his 2005 Via Crucis in Rome:

Should we not also think of how much Christ suffers in his own Church? How often is the Holy Sacrament of his Presence abused, how often must he enter empty and evil hearts! How often do we celebrate only ourselves, without even realizing that he is there! How often is his Word twisted and misused! What little faith is present behind so many theories, so many empty words! How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to him! How much pride, how much self-complacency!

What we read of the Israelites in the Book of Numbers may be applied to the faithful who act unfaithfully: “Behold, we perish, we are undone, we are all undone. Everyone who comes near . . . shall die” (Num 17:12–13). The Eucharist is the sacrament of the Lord’s Passion. Those who approach and receive worthily are united to His mystical death and receive some share of its fruits; those who receive unworthily die the death of compounded mortal sin. All who come near can be said to die — some in order to live forever, and some, to incur the danger of dying forever (cf. Rev 20:6).

A much more difficult question arises, however, when we ask whether it is possible to say that Our Lord suffers when He is thus sinned against. Many such texts, from private revelations and from the works of theologians and spiritual writers, can be collated, all claiming that He can — as, for example, in St. John Vianney’s remarks about how an unworthy communicant crucifies the Lord again. To put the question more precisely: is there a way in which Our Lord may be said to suffer now, after His resurrection, by the things we do to His Most Holy Sacrament?

On the one hand, we know that Christ, having conquered sin and death, is no longer subject to suffering in His glorified state. The Protestant troops who desecrated hosts during the Reformation, trampling them underfoot or feeding them to the beasts, did not diminish Jesus, did not lessen His perfection or His glory; rather, the troops made themselves guilty of a horrendous crime for which they would have to suffer either in this life or in the next. On the other hand, in many approved private revelations over the span of many centuries, beginning in the Middle Ages and coming down to our own times, the Lord says that the sins of men cause Him to grieve, sorrow, and suffer. We must accept this as true in a mysterious way that we will never fully grasp in this life.

Bishop Athanasius Schneider weighed in on this question in the text of his “Sins Against the Blessed Sacrament and the Need of a Crusade of Eucharistic Reparation,” which was published many places online (e.g., here) and which was also published an an appendix to my book The Holy Bread of Eternal Life: Restoring Eucharistic Reverence in an Age of Impiety (Sophia, 2020). His Excellency writes, inter alia:

To say that the Lord is not suffering because of the outrages committed against Him in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist can lead to a minimizing of the great atrocities committed. Some people say: God is offended by the abuse of the Blessed Sacrament, but the Lord does not personally suffer. This is, however, theologically and spiritually too narrow a view. Although Christ is now in His glorious state and hence no more subject to suffering in a human way, He nevertheless is affected and touched in His Sacred Heart by the abuses and outrages against the Divine majesty and the immensity of His Love in the Blessed Sacrament….
          Frère Michel de la Sainte Trinité gave a profound theological explanation of the meaning of the “suffering” or “sadness” of God because of the offenses that sinners commit against Him: “This ‘suffering,’ this ‘sadness’ of the Heavenly Father, or of Jesus since His Ascension, are to be understood analogically. They are not suffered passively as with us, but on the contrary freely willed and chosen as the ultimate expression of Their mercy towards sinners called to conversion. They are only a manifestation of God’s love for sinners, a love which is sovereignly free and gratuitous, and which is not irrevocable.”
          This analogical spiritual meaning of the “sadness” or the “suffering” of Jesus in the Eucharistic mystery is confirmed by the words of the Angel in his apparition in 1916 to the children of Fatima and especially by the words and the example of the life of St. Francisco Marto. The children were invited by the Angel to make reparation for offenses against the Eucharistic Jesus and to console Him, as we can read in the memoirs of Sister Lucia: “…He gave the Host to me, and to Jacinta and Francisco he gave the contents of the chalice to drink, saying as he did so: ‘Take and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, horribly outraged by ungrateful men. Repair their crimes and console your God.’”…
          Jesus Christ continues in a mysterious way his Passion in Gethsemane throughout the ages in the mystery of His Church and also in the Eucharistic mystery, the mystery of His immense Love. Well-known is the expression of Blaise Pascal: ‘Jesus will be in agony even to the end of the world. We must not sleep during that time.’… Jesus Christ in the Eucharistic mystery is not indifferent and insensitive towards the behavior which men show in His regard in this Sacrament of Love. Christ is present in this Sacrament also with His soul, which is hypostatically united with His Divine Person…. “Christ in the sacramental state sees and in a certain divine way perceives all the thoughts and affections, the worship, the homages and also the insults and sins of all men in general, of all his faithful specifically and his priests in particular; He perceives homages and sins that directly refer to this ineffable mystery of love” (Cardinal Franzelin).

Let it not be said that such language is exaggerated, sentimental, or imprecise. The mysteries of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ endure as long as His glorified humanity endures, which is to say, forever; and our behavior toward the Sacrament is our way of receiving Him or rejecting Him (cf. Prologue of St. John’s Gospel), of entering with love into His Passion, as did St. John at the Last Supper and upon the hill of Golgotha, or, conversely, of turning our backs to Him in company with Judas and the high priests, clamoring: “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” We are all present to His soul and all have an effect on His soul.

All the sins that men have committed or will commit from the beginning of time until the end of time were distinctly present to Our Lord’s mind and heart throughout His Passion, from the Garden of Gethsemane until He breathed His last  upon the Cross, and therefore He has truly received injury and suffered pain from each of our sins, until the present order of creation shall be no more. Through the perfections of His human intellect (beatific and infused knowledge), Our Lord had knowledge of men’s sins, whenever they had been or would be committed, and for each sin He suffered pain. 

What St. Alphonsus says in his traditional Stations of the Cross, viz., that it is my sins that are driving in the nails, etc., is therefore perfectly correct: the mystical reality of this Passion — in its source, which is the charity of His heart; in its effect, which is our redemption; in its primary external sign, His wounds — remains present and active for all eternity. For Christ as our High Priest is “always living to make intercession for us” (Heb 7:25).

Moreover, we may say that Christ’s power of memory, being hypostatically united to a divine Person, has a greater depth and intensity than even our primary experience, dulled as it is by the limits of our nature and of our fallen condition. His ever-living memory of His Passion is more intensely real than the experience of the same suffering and death would have been to any other human being. Could we not say that Christ’s memory of His suffering during His mortal life is more truly called suffering than our actual sufferings are? And if this is true, would they not deserve the strongest words we could give them? Yet this point could be argued against by stating that the mere memory of suffering (as St Thomas points out in speaking about the causes of pleasure) seems rather a cause for happiness, if the suffering itself has passed by.

A theologian suggested to me the following (admittedly highly speculative) possibility. We know that the possession of the beatific vision would “normally” render the possessor immune to all pain and all sadness, and yet that during His earthy life our Lord prevented the beatific vision from producing all its effects in His soul, for the sake of the Redemption. Is it impossible that in heaven, out of charity, and to provoke our charity, Christ allows some part of His soul still not to benefit from the normal effect of the beatific vision, so that there may be still some drop of sorrow, of want, in the midst of the joy of heaven? Might the same be the case for the Blessed Virgin, since private revelations seem to speak of her in very much the same way?

I conclude once more with words by Cardinal Ratzinger in his Via Crucis meditations:

His betrayal by his disciples, their unworthy reception of his Body and Blood, is certainly the greatest suffering endured by the Redeemer; it pierces his heart. We can only call to him from the depths of our hearts: Kyrie eleison — Lord, save us.

Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s Substack “Tradition & Sanity”; personal site; composer site; publishing house Os Justi Press and YouTube, SoundCloud, and Spotify pages.

“The Old Leaven” of Catholic Truth, Part 2: Eucharist as Sacrifice in the Language of Medieval England

In the first part of this article, I discussed the relationship between eucharistic belief and eucharistic language, taking modern Catholicism and Reformation England as examples of belief and language deteriorating together. The counterexample I provided was medieval England, where devotion to the Real Presence was robust and had been nourished for centuries not only by the strong, poetic Latin of the liturgy but also by various English expressions that helped the faithful to understand and love the Blessed Sacrament.

As I mentioned in Part One, the term “eucharist” was not a part of English-language vocabulary until the fourteenth century. In the second part of this article, we’ll consider the words and phrases that Englishmen of the early and high Middle Ages used when they were speaking, writing, and thinking about the Holy Eucharist.[1]

The Mass of Saint Gregory, a woodcut by Albrecht Dürer (d. 1528) depicting a eucharistic miracle whose legendary account was popular among English Catholics in the late Middle Ages.

“Unhousel’d, disappointed, unanel’d”

The most standard item of eucharistic vocabulary in Old and Middle English is also one of the most unfamiliar in modern English: housel (pronounced “HOW-zuhl” and also spelled husel, housul, howsell, etc.). This word was used as a noun meaning primarily “the Eucharist” and as a verb meaning “to administer the Eucharist to.”

Actually, countless speakers and students of modern English have seen this word, but they may not have noticed it or understood its meaning. It appears in Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5, when the ghost of Prince Hamlet’s father describes his murder at the hands of “that adulterate beast” Claudius. The ghost laments that he was

Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatch’d;
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhousel’d, disappointed, unanel’d;
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head.
O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!

King Hamlet relates, with admirable horror, that the murder deprived him of a good Christian death, since he died “unhousel’d, disappointed, unanel’d,” that is, without receiving the Eucharist, unprepared (without confessing his sins), and unanointed (without receiving extreme unction).

Hamlet (with companions) and the Ghost, by Henry Fuseli (d. 1825).

The deeper psychological and emotional effects of a word are greatly influenced by the word’s etymology and its range of meanings. In the case of “housel,” the term’s origin and multiple meanings convey powerful truths about the nature of the Blessed Sacrament. It is related to Germanic words meaning “sacrifice” or “offering,” and in Old English it was used, though perhaps infrequently, to mean “sacrifice” in a non-eucharistic sense. Over time, “housel” became more closely associated with the Holy Eucharist, but not in a restrictive way: in addition to denoting the sacred species, it referred to receiving Communion and celebrating the eucharistic sacrifice.

Thus, the notion of sacrifice is encoded within the very word “housel,” which binds the Eucharist as spiritual nourishment to religious sacrifice in general and, more specifically, to the sacred liturgical sacrifice through which this nourishment is produced. A term that memorably conveys this association would be beneficial in any age and in our own would perhaps have an especially salutary effect.

The Body of God

There is a striking tendency in medieval English to use “God,” without any qualifying words, as a name for Christ. Here are a few examples:

“The old fiend led them astray with lying wiles, ... so that they crucified God himself” (Cynewulf, Elene; ninth century)

“Therein was closed a nail great / That was driven through God’s feet” (Short English Metrical Chronicle; fourteenth century)

“Here must God take out Adam” (stage direction, referring to Christ, in a cycle play for the Harrowing of Hell; late fourteenth century)

This usage is now officially deemed “obsolete,” and indeed, it clashes quite strongly with the speech patterns of modern English, despite being theologically sound. I find its forceful simplicity refreshing, and one could hardly find a more concise way to affirm the hypostatic union.

Medieval eucharistic terminology displaying this same tendency includes God’s flesh, the flesh and blood of God’s body, and Godes lichama, this last meaning in modern English “God’s body” or, perhaps more accurately, “God’s living body.” These titles are surely due for a revival. I for one would benefit from more frequently contemplating the Blessed Sacrament not only as corpus Christi but as corpus Dei, that is, as the sacrificial flesh of my dear Savior but also as the eternal and glorious Body of God—uncreated Light, infinite Love, and the very Principle of all that exists.

Detail of The Last Supper, by Giorgio Vasari (d. 1574).

Journey Bread

The idea of Holy Communion as preparation for death was far more pronounced in medieval England than it is today:

The reception of communion was not the primary mode of lay encounter with the Host. Everyone received at Easter, and one’s final communion, the viaticum or “journey money” given on the deathbed, was crucially important to medieval people.... For most people, most of the time the Host was something to be seen, not to be consumed.[2]

Infrequent Communion was the norm in this society, even for some religious. The clergy who attended the eleventh-century Council of Aenham expected the laity to receive three times per year, and the Laws of Cnut, issued around the same time and drafted by Archbishop Wulfstan, likewise mentioned thrice-yearly Communion. The thirteenth-century document Ancrene Wisse (i.e., Anchoresses’ Guide) states that anchoresses, like lay brothers, should receive only fifteen times per year, since “me let leasse of þe þing þet me haueð ofte” (“one values less the thing which one has often”).[3]

A page from the law code of King Cnut. Cotton MS Nero A I, f. 16r, courtesy of the British Library. I find this script captivating.

For ordinary Catholics of medieval England, the Eucharist was not consumed as a daily (or weekly, or maybe even monthly) Bread, and it naturally acquired greater prominence as viaticum—sanctifying Bread for that final and supremely important voyage toward the setting sun of earthly life. Thus, one of the Old English titles for the Blessed Sacrament was wegneste, meaning “provision for the journey” or, more literally, “way food.”

Fear, Love, and Adoration

The collection of terms given above is not exhaustive. Indeed, no exhaustive list could be compiled, for Old English manuscripts are few, and the eucharistic devotion of the Anglo-Saxons, a fervent and poetic people, was vast. I’ll conclude with the words of Thomas Bridgett, an English scholar and priest of the nineteenth century who converted to Catholicism after refusing to take the oath of royal supremacy:

For more than a thousand years the races that successively peopled [Great Britain] regarded the celebration of this Sacrament as the central rite of their religion, the principal means of divine worship, the principal channel of divine grace. The Holy Eucharist was the great mystery of faith, the object not only of fear and of love, but also of supreme adoration.[4]

NOTES

1. Much of the information in this article is built upon the doctoral research, completed in 1932, of Sister Mary Joseph Cravens.

2. Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400–1580, p. 95.

3. The author also stipulates the days on which the anchoresses will communicate: “(i) Mid-winter Dei, (ii) Tweofte Dei [Twelfth Day, i.e., Epiphany], (iii) Condelmeasse Dei, (iiii) a Sunnedei mid-weibitweonen [midway between] thet ant Easter, other Ure Leafdi Dei [or Our Lady’s Day, i.e., the Annunciation], yef he is neh the Sunnedei, forthe hehnesse, (v) Easter Dei, (vi) the thridde Sunnedei th’refter [the third Sunday after Easter], (vii) Hali Thursdei, (viii) Witsunne Dei, (ix) Midsumer Dei, (x) Seinte Marie Dei Magdaleine, (xi) the Assumptiun, (xii) the Nativite, (xiii) Seinte Mihales Dei, (xiii) Alle Halhene Dei [All Saints’ Day], (xv), Seint Andrews Dei.” See Ancrene Wisse: Part Eight, edited by Robert Hasenfratz.

4. Thomas Bridgett, History of the Holy Eucharist in Great Britain, Volume 1, p. 1.

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For thrice-weekly discussions of art, history, language, literature, Christian spirituality, and traditional Western liturgy, all seen through the lens of medieval culture, you can subscribe (for free!) to my Substack publication: Via Mediaevalis.

The Triumph of St Norbert

Today is the feast of St Norbert, the founder of the Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré, who died on this day in the year 1134. Religious orders have traditionally kept a variety of secondary feasts of their major Saints, and the Premonstratensians were no exception. Since June 6th often occurs within the octaves of Pentecost or Corpus Christi, for a time it was relegated in their liturgical books to a “Commemoration” of their founder’s death, and a “Solemnity of St Norbert” was instituted on July 11th, so the feast could more conveniently be kept with an octave, as was customary for all major Patron Saints. (This was also done by the Benedictines on the same day.) There was also a feast on May 7th of the translation of his relics, which were taken in 1627 from the cathedral of his episcopal see of Magdeburg, which had turned Protestant quite early on, to Strahov Abbey in Prague, where they remain to this day.

The shrine of St Norbert at Strahov Abbey, from this post of 2016.

Another of these secondary feasts is called “the Triumph of St Norbert”, commemorating his defeat of a particularly bizarre heresy in the Low Countries, especially in the area of Antwerp. Norbert was a great promoter of Eucharistic devotion, one of the characteristic features of his order, well over a century before Pope Urban IV promulgated the feast of Corpus Christi. As recounted in the Premonstratensian Breviary, Tanchelm, “a most wicked man and enemy of the whole Christian faith, and of all religion”, denied any value or purpose to the Blessed Sacrament, and had somehow succeeded in convincing his fanatical followers to worship himself, and venerate his bathwater as a relic. The local clergy, unable to make any headway against the sect, consigned one of their churches to the newly founded order of canons regular; St Norbert and his brethren completely defeated the heresy solely by the force of their preaching. Faithful Catholics who had managed to hide the Sacrament and sacred vessels from profanation, keeping them hidden in some cases for several years, brought them back to St Norbert, who restored to them to the churches.

The Citizens of Antwerp Return to St Norbert the Monstrance and Sacred Vessels They Had Hidden from Tanchelm - Cornelis de Vos, 1630

In the early 17th century, the same Abbot of Prémontré who presided over the translation of St Norbert’s relics, Pierre Gosset, granted the celebration of this feast to the province of the Order which included the Low Countries. It was extended to the entire Order by Pope Leo XIII, and originally assigned to the 3rd Sunday after Pentecost, then moved back a day after St Pius X’s Breviary reform. The Office for this feast is identical to that of Corpus Christi, except for the lessons of the second nocturn, which recount the story of the heresy’s defeat. A commemoration of St Norbert is added to both Vespers and Lauds; at the latter, the antiphon is taken from his principal feast.

Aña Antverpienses, Tanchelmi haeresi sacramentaria dementatos, verbo Dei sane propinato, ad fidei Catholicae communionem reduxit. - By soundly preaching the word of God, he brought the citizens of Antwerp, who had been driven mad by Tanchelm’s heresy on the Sacrament, back to the communion of the Catholic Faith.

The Parisian Mass for the Octave of Corpus Christi

Some of the oldest Roman octaves, such as those of Ss Peter and Paul and St Lawrence, have a Mass on the octave day itself which is different or partly different from that of the main feast; Peter and Paul also have another Mass for the days within the octave. However, by the time the feast of Corpus Christi was promulgated in the mid-13th century, this custom was no longer being developed for new celebrations, and the Mass of the feast was simply repeated though the octave. As I noted recently, the neo-Gallican Parisian Missal of 1738 added a proper Epistle and Gospel for each day within the octave of Corpus Christi, a development which by the standards of its time was certainly an innovation, but one in keeping with tradition. This Missal also contains a special Mass for the octave day, which is for the most part quite well composed from a literary point of view.

The Mass of the Octave of Corpus Christi, from the 1738 Parisian Missal

The introit is taken from the book of the Prophet Malachi (1, 11), a text which was already understood to be a reference to the Eucharistic sacrifice by St Justin Martyr in the mid-2nd century.

Introitus Ab ortu solis usque ad occasum, magnum est nomen meum in gentibus, et in omni loco sacrificatur et offertur nomini meo oblatio munda, quia magnum est nomen meum in gentibus, dicit Dominus exercituum. Ps. 49 Deus deorum Dominus locutus est, et vocavit terram a solis ortu usque ad occasum. Gloria Patri. Ab ortu solis.

Introit From the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation: for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts. Ps. 49 The God of gods, the Lord hath spoken: and he hath called the earth from the rising of the sun, to the going down thereof. Glory be. From the rising.

The Collect is taken from an ancient Sacramentary of the Gallican Rite.

Oratio Deus, qui magno misericordiae tuae munere, docuisti nos redemptionis nostrae sacrificium celebrare, sicut óbtulit Póntifex noster Jesus Chrifius in terris: da nobis, quaesumus, ut sanctifìcati per oblatiónem Córporis et Sanguinis ejus, cum ipso mereamur in sempiternum consummari; Qui tecum.

Prayer God, who by the great gift of Thy mercy, taught us to celebrate the sacrifice of our redemption, as our priest Jesus Christ offered (it) upon the earth: grant us, we ask, that sanctified by the offering of His Body and Blood, we may merit to be perfected for ever with Him who liveth and reigneth...

The neo-Gallican revisers were very fond of creating themes in the liturgy, and this Mass is no exception. The Epistle, Hebrews 7, 18-28, continues the thought of the Introit and Collect on the universal priestly offering of Christ. This passage is perhaps also chosen for Corpus Christi as a deliberate rebuke or challenge to the Calvinists, who often cited the words of verse 27, “Who needeth not daily (as the other priests) to offer sacrifices first for his own sins, and then for the people’s, for this He did once, in offering Himself”, against the Catholic doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Mass.

The Gradual joins the line of Psalm 109 quoted above by St Paul with the figure of Melchisedech, whose appearance in the book of Genesis (14, 17-20) is read as the Epistle on Friday within the Octave.

Graduale Melchisedech rex Salem, protulit panem et vinum, erat enim sacerdos Dei altissimi. V. Juravit Dominus, et non poenitebit eum: Tu es sacerdos in aeternum secundum ordinem Melchisedech.

Graduale Melchisedech, the king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine, for he was the priest of the most high God. V. The Lord hath sworn, and he will not repent: Thou art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech.

The Offerings of Abel and Melchisedech, mosaic from the Church of San Vitale in Ravenna, 526-547 AD. (Image from Wikipedia by Roger Culos - CC BY-SA 3.0)

The Alleluia is also taken from the Epistle to the Hebrews (9, 26), after which St Thomas’ Sequence Lauda, Sion is said as on the feast day.

Alleluia, alleluia. Christus in consummatione saeculorum, ad destitutionem peccati, per hostiam suam apparuit, alleluia. – Alleluia, alleluia. Christ at the end of ages hath appeared for the destruction of sin, by the sacrifice of Himself, alleluia.

The Gospel, John 6, 58-70, is the fourth of a series of readings chosen to give a broader selection from the Eucharistic discourse of that chapter than the four verses (56-59) originally provided by St Thomas’ version of the Mass. (Monday, verses 27-35; Tuesday, 41-44; Wednesday, 51-55.) The neo-Gallican revisers, like most “right-thinking” liturgists, were painfully obsessed with making the liturgy more Scriptural and more didactic; the results of their tinkering are often comically inept, as for example, in the damage which they did to St Thomas’ Office of Corpus Christi. Here, however, they have shown a commendable respect for the original tradition, while at the same time building from it, an example which the modern revisers of the lectionary might profitably have heeded.

The Offertory is taken from the First Epistle of St Peter, 2, 4-5.

Offertorium Ad Christum accedentes lapidem vivum, et ipsi tamquam lapides vivi superaedificamini, domus spiritualis, sacerdotium sanctum, offerre spirituales hostias, acceptabiles Deo per Jesum Christum, alleluia.

Offertory Coming unto Christ, as to a living stone, be you also as living stones built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ, alleluia.

The first part of the Secret (up to the asterisk) is taken from a very ancient prayer found in the Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries; in the latter, as in the Missal of St Pius V, it is assigned to the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost. (The Latin version of this prayer, moved to the 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time, somehow managed to survive the Consilium intact; the 1973 ICEL version of it was one of the old translation’s most grotesque failures, as Fr Zuhlsdorf noted here in this very useful commentary.) The second part was composed specifically for this Mass.

Secreta Deus, qui legalium differentias hostiarum unius sacrificii perfectione sanxisti: accipe sacrificium a devotis tibi famulis; et pari benedictione, sicut munera Abel, sanctifica; ut * Christo sacerdoti et victimae per fidem adunati, nosmetipsos tibi hostiam viventem, sanctam, et beneplacentem exhibere valeamus. Per eundem...

Secret O God, who by the perfection of the one sacrifice didst ratified variety of offerings prescribed by the Law; receive (this) sacrifice from the servants devoted to Thee, and sanctify it by a blessing (as Thou did with) the gifts of Abel; so that * we, united by faith to Christ, who is priest and victim, may be able to offer to Thee ourselves, as a living, holy and well-pleasing sacrifice. Through the same...

The Secret “Deus qui legalium” in the Echternach Sacramentary, 895AD. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Latin 9433) In the Gelasian Sacramentary, it appears in the third of sixteen Masses under the heading “for Sundays”, without further qualification. Later sacramentaries would reorganize the material in the Gelasian in broadly similar, but not identical ways; in the Echternach, it is assigned to the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, rather than the Seventh.

The Communion antiphon is taken from 1 Corinthians 11, 24-25, an unusual (for neo-Gallicans) example of a partial and inexact quotation.

Communio Hoc corpus quod pro vobis tradetur: hic calix novi testamenti еst in meo sanguine, dicit Dóminus: hoc facite, quotiescumque sumitis, in meam commemoratiónem.

Communion This (is the) body, which shall be delivered for you: this chalice is the new testament in my blood: do ye this, as often as you shall receive it, for the commemoration of me.

The Postcommunion is a new composition, which cites the idea of the Communion antiphon, again keeping to a theme.

Postcommunio Domine Jesu Christe, qui corpus et sanguinem tuum esse voluisti humanae salutis pretium, Ecclesiae tuae sacrificium, et nostrae infirmitatis alimentum; praesta, quaesumus, ut haec sancta, quae in tui commemorationem nos súmere praecepisti, sempiternam nobis redemptiónem operentur. Qui vivis.

Postcommunio Lord Jesus Christ, who willed that Thy Body and Blood be the price of man’s salvation, Thy Church’s sacrifice, and the nourishment of our weakness; grant, we ask, that these holy things, which Thou didst command us to receive in commemoration of Thee, may effect for us everlasting redemption. Who livest.

Our Lord’s Request for the Institution of the Feast of His Sacred Heart

The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus has deep roots; texts can be found in the ancient and medieval periods that speak of the love of His wounded and glorious Heart, and of the appropriate response of adoring love we should make to Him.

However, the devotion in the form more familiar to Catholics today is traceable to the private revelations made by Our Lord Jesus Christ to St Margaret Mary Alacoque in the later 17th century. The content of these revelations was written down for her spiritual director, St Claude de la Colombiere, and are widely available (see, e.g., here).

A priest mentioned to me a detail that had previously escaped my notice. When Our Lord appeared to St Margaret Mary on June 16, 1675, to request the institution of a feast in honor of His Sacred Heart, He spoke as follows:

I ask of you that the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi be set apart for a special Feast to honor My Heart, by communicating on that day, and making reparation to It by a solemn act, in order to make amends for the indignities which It has received during the time It has been exposed on the altars. I promise you that My Heart shall expand Itself to shed in abundance the influence of Its divine love upon those who shall thus honor It, and cause It to be honored.

The very Son of God — God from God, Light from Light, Word Incarnate, Eternal High Priest, Head of the Mystical Body, Creator, Savior, and Judge of the universe — refers as a matter of course to the “Octave of Corpus Christi” and places His request for a special feast precisely in this context. Moreover, He specifically asks that the feast be one of reparation, and that this reparation be connected with the extended Eucharistic adoration during the Octave of Corpus Christi. Finally, He promises to shed His divine love on those who shall thus honor His Heart, that is, honor It in the manner He has explained.

Is it not disturbing, then, to think of liturgical reformers under Pius XII simply chucking out this Octave of Corpus Christi, which had endured from the time of its widespread observance in the 14th century until 1955, at which time all octaves were abolished except those of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost? [1] The invisible supreme Head of the Church endorsed this octave and made His requests based on it, but no matter; committees know better, and popes always know better, as we can see today.

Although the feast of the Sacred Heart always possessed a reparatory character, this was underlined by the new Mass and Office for the feast promulgated by Pius XI in 1928, to replace the Mass and Office first approved by Clement XIII in 1765, and extended to the universal Church in 1856. For 41 years, this Collect, which so aptly mirrors Our Lord’s request, was recited at Mass:

O God, Who in the Heart of Thy Son, wounded by our sins, dost mercifully vouchsafe to bestow upon us the infinite wealth of Thy love; grant, we beseech Thee, that revering It with meet devotion, we may fulfil our duty of worthy reparation. Through the same our Lord Jesus Christ…

Moreover, the Postcommunion prays for detachment from worldly goods and attachment to heavenly ones, a petition characteristic of the usus antiquior in general, and fitting for this feast in particular, which is very much about the truth “where your heart is, there your treasure is also”:

May Thy holy mysteries, O Lord Jesus, produce in us a divine fervour, whereby, having tasted the sweetness of Thy most dear Heart, we may learn to despise earthly things and love those of heaven: Who livest and reigneth.

In contrast, the Novus Ordo Collect borrows some of its phrasing from Clement XIII, while recasting it in a more generic Christological way that does not emphasize the rationale behind the institution of the feast:

Grant, we pray, almighty God, that we, who glory in the Heart of your beloved Son and recall the wonders of his love for us, may be made worthy to receive an overflowing measure of grace from that fount of heavenly gifts. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son…

Happily, the Collect of Pius XI was added back as an option in the most recent edition of the Pauline missal, which will bring it back into circulation to some extent. The Postcommunion, regrettably, excises the unfashionable sentiment discamus terrena despicere, et amare caelestia, and, recasts the prayer to the Father, due to the subordinationist principle that we must nearly always address the Father rather than the Son in our public prayer:

May this sacrament of charity, O Lord, make us fervent with the fire of holy love, so that, drawn always to your Son, we may learn to see him in our neighbor. Through Christ our Lord.

As a friend commented on this prayer, “All man, all the time.” As Gaudium et Spes 12 begins, “According to the almost unanimous opinion of believers and unbelievers alike, all things on earth should be related to man as their center and crown.”

In 1904, Pope St Pius X added the threefold invocation Cor Iesu Sacratissimum, miserere nobis to the already-existing Leonine prayers after Low Mass. In 1964, the Instruction Inter Oecumenici abolished all of the prayers after Mass. For sixty years, Catholics on every continent, of every culture, in every conceivable situation, prayed, “Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.” But this was, one supposes, just another of those useless repetitions that had to be purged for the benefit of . . .

Come to think of it, cui bono? Why was the character of the feast tilted away from the theme of reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for sins, blasphemies, outrages, sacrileges, indifference, and worldliness? Why was the octave of Corpus Christi abolished, depriving the Church and the world of more solemn, calendrically set-apart opportunities to adore the Lord with Eucharistic adoration, exposition, and procession? Why did we abandon the humble collective invocations that united us to one another and to the merciful God at the end of Low Mass?

Indeed, the very Offertory of the Mass in which the priest says that he is offering sacrifice for his sins, offenses, and negligences, as also for the welfare of the living and the dead, was abolished, as was the Placeat tibi at the end of Mass:

May the homage of my bounden duty be pleasing to Thee, O Holy Trinity; and grant that the sacrifice which I, though unworthy, have offered in the sight of Thy Majesty may be acceptable to Thee, and through Thy mercy be a propitiation for me and for all those for whom I have offered it. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

What benefit did the reformers under Pius XII and Paul VI think they were bringing to the Church by removing so many references to the “sins, offenses, and negligences” for which we are called upon to make reparation?

On a good day in October 1946, a day when chopping off digits and limbs from the liturgical calendar wasn’t on the agenda, Pius XII said, “Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin.” Whatever else may be said, this much is clear: the changes to the liturgy have not helped us regain it.

Cor Iesu Sacratissimum, miserere nobis.
Cor Iesu Sacratissimum, miserere nobis.
Cor Iesu Sacratissimum, miserere nobis.

NOTE

[1] As the incomparable St. Andrew Daily Missal of 1945 tells us on p. 782: “To resist the attacks of renewed heresies against the Holy Eucharist and to revive in the Church a zeal which had somewhat grown cold, the Holy Ghost inspired, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, the solemnity of Corpus Christi. In 1208, the blessed Juliana of Mount Cornillon, near Liège, saw in a vision the full moon with an indentation indicating that a feast was missing in the liturgical cycle. . . . It was thought that immediately after Paschaltide a feast with an octave should be established. As the Last Supper took place on Thursday, the Bishop of Liège instituted in 1246 this solemnity in his diocese on the Thursday which follows the octave of Pentecost. In 1264, Pope Urban IV extended this feast to the whole world.”

This commentary brings several truths to mind: first, that the Holy Spirit is the principal agent of organic liturgical development, who also inspires the conservation of that which has been established; second, that the double fittingness of a Thursday feast followed by an octave was intuitively grasped, precisely because of the need to resist heresy and rekindle fervor; third, that if this feast was needed by medieval Catholics, a fortiori it is needed by Catholics today, who are facing heresy, apostasy, and indifference several magnitudes greater; fourth, that the Church observed this Corpus Christi octave for between 500 and 700 years (depending on the region, as the feast was of variable diffusion), before Pius XII unceremoniously scrapped the octave and later bishops bumped it to a Sunday (I refer not to the concept of a so-called “external solemnity,” but of a simple switch from the proper day to the nearest Sunday, thereby effectively surrendering to the Protestant conception of the secular work week). The changes offer another a textbook example of how badly mistaken recent popes and liturgists have been in “interpreting the signs of the times.”

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