The Anniversary of the Feast of Corpus Christi: Guest Article by Dr Donald Prudlo

We are very grateful to Dr Donald Prudlo, William K. Warren Professor of Catholic Studies at the University of Tulsa, for sharing with us this article to mark the anniversary of the Bull Transiturus, which promulgated the feast of Corpus Christi. He is the author of several books on medieval religious history, most recently Thomas Aquinas: A Historical, Theological, and Environmental Portrait.

On 11 August 1264 Pope Urban IV promulgated the Bull Transiturus, which published the Mass formulary and hymns for the Office of a new feast meant for the whole church, that of Corpus Domini -- the Body of the Lord. It was the culmination of an intensification of Eucharistic piety that had been percolating over the previous 100 years. During that time, the concept of Transubstantiation obtained substantial theological precision, until it was dogmatically defined at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. Accompanying this was a rise in Eucharistic devotion, particularly among the laity. It was they who pioneered the postures of kneeling and genuflection before the Blessed Sacrament, for until then the common clerical gesture had been the profound bow. In addition, the ceremony of elevation came to be widely practiced, with occasional reports of pious laity shouting out “lift it higher!” during Mass. The use of “warning bells” also increased, which let the congregation know when the sacred moment was about to arrive. In the rood screens of the period one can see numbers of “peep holes” that allowed the laity to gaze in at this most central of ritual moments. Some of this was in response to a profoundly anti-incarnational heresy known as Catharism, whose rejection of Saints and sacraments was spurned by the orthodox laity.

The Blessing of the Wheat in Artois, by Jules Breton, 1857

Yet it is clear that this rising tide of devotion did not accompany an increase in the reception of communion. Lateran IV laid down a single Easter communion as a sufficient minimum for a good Christian, while other local legislation specified just three times a year. Even the extraordinarily devout St Louis IX, King of France, communicated only six times a year. In fact, this was probably a by-product of increasing meditation on the magnitude of the gift of Christ Himself on the altar. The gift of God Himself ought not to be approached lightly, lest one “eat and drink judgment to himself.” (1 Cor. 11, 29) Even among the monastic orders, the community Mass was only a small part of the daily horarium and most Masses were celebrated without common communion. The heart of the spirituality of the religious life at that time was not Mass but the Divine Office, especially since most of the inhabitants of monastic houses were unordained. Indeed it appears that even among the laity who sought a deeper spirituality in the Middle Ages, the tendency was to attend more canonical hours, rather than to increase one’s reception of Communion.

Attitudes towards Mass began to change in the eleventh century. As a deepening sense of its sacrificial nature came to the fore, there was an increased desire to offered it for the living and the dead. This led to an increase in daily Masses and a proliferation of private Masses, producing the first “side altars” and beginning a transition to what became known as “low Mass.” Until the 1100s, all Masses were sung Masses, usually solemn. With the increased demand, the external ceremonial of the Mass became simplified, and the singing was reduced first to a sort of subdued chant, and then to a simple spoken rite. Solemn High Mass remained normative, but low Masses began to multiply. In addition, religious orders began to model their liturgical actions on the simplified ceremony of the itinerant Roman Curia, rather than on the complex local forms of Mass in the various territories of Christendom. Indeed, once worldwide orders appeared on the scene, the difficulty of celebrating complex local liturgies was compounded. Orders like the Franciscans and Dominicans needed a simple, direct rite that could be celebrated anywhere, and which was common throughout their brotherhoods.

It was the Dominicans especially who prepared the way for a spirituality that made Corpus Christi possible. They were the first order that was essentially priestly in nature from the very beginning, meant to be made up of ordained clerics who could preach. This meant that their priests, at least while at home in their convents, would attend not only the community high Mass, but also celebrate private Masses every day. The order was also incredibly innovative in creating the flexibility necessary to achieve its end: the salvation of souls. Nothing was to get in the way of study, which was a preparation for preaching and evangelization. This included the Divine Office. Dominic ordered his brothers (who were still bound to the Canonical Hours) to sing them “breviter et succincte.” It is not too far a stretch to translate “make it short and sweet.” Further, priors had authority to dispense the brethren from anything which impeded study. This included not only things like common meals, but also nearly all community celebration of the Office and attendance at the common Mass.

One of the first friars who benefitted from this system was St Thomas Aquinas. By the 1250s he had likely been dispensed from all forms of community devotion. The records only mention his attendance at Compline (a short and characteristically Dominican hour) and an occasional appearance at Matins. He ate in his room, and was rarely found anywhere but his study and in his classroom. All of the provisions of the order were directed to aiding his academic work, for the good of souls and of the Church. Any Catholic today can see how successful such provisions were.

All this meant that the main source of Thomas’ spirituality came from the devout celebration of his private, low Mass. Every morning before work he unfailingly celebrated not only his own Mass, but then acted as acolyte for the Mass of his secretary, Friar Reginald. It is humbling indeed to think of the brilliant doctor kneeling and making the simple replies of an altar server. In Thomas, we have one of the first examples in Church history of someone whose spiritual life revolved completely around not only the celebration of low Mass, but who was also a daily communicant. For the first time in history, we are privileged to witness a Saint who is wholly focused on the Sacrament of the Altar.

St Thomas Presents the Office of Corpus Christi to Pope Urban IV; by Taddeo di Bartolo, 1403

It was likely this Eucharistic piety that drove Urban IV to request that Thomas draw up the liturgy for Corpus Christi. There is no evidence that St. Bonaventure composed a rival liturgy and then destroyed his own upon hearing Thomas’. Bonaventure was nowhere near Orvieto during the period in question, nor do any contemporary sources aver to this episode. Urban, together with the Dominican Cardinal Hugh of St. Cher, Thomas’ confrère, had themselves witnessed the efflorescence of Eucharistic devotion in the Low Countries in the 1240s, where the feast was first celebrated. They wanted to communicate that devotion to the Universal Church.

In the past historians have questioned Thomas’ authorship of the liturgy aggressively, and for good reason. It is breathtakingly beautiful poetry, yet whoever reads any of Thomas’ other works knows that literary style is the furthest thing from his mind. Indeed such scholastic Latin was to the mind of the Renaissance simply barbaric. How could the author of the Summa have produced the Sacris solemniis? While careful historical research has now concluded with near certainty that Thomas was actually the author, we are still left with the issue of “how?” I propose that only an individual of stunning theological depth who was at the same time centered on daily Mass and Communion could have produced such a work. Only beginning at that particular moment in Church history could such an intersection have occurred.

Even so, Urban and Thomas were perhaps a bit avant garde. While the feast was celebrated twice in Orvieto in 1264, with the Pope’s death it fell into abeyance. It would not be until the 1310s that the Popes again proposed its universal celebration, a fact that points both to intense liturgical localism and the limited ability of the Popes to enforce liturgical conformity before the early modern period. Even the Dominican Order itself did not prescribe the feast until 1322. One should remember that Thomas wrote the office for the Roman Curia and not for the order, which had its own proper rite. As Thomas would be canonized in 1323 it made sense to add his beautiful liturgy to the Friars’ missal. It also does not appear that there is a connection between the “sacred corporal” of Bolsena and the institution of the feast. Neither Thomas’ liturgy nor Urban’s bull makes any mention of it. Indeed, it may be likely that the miracle is from a later date, as the first references to it are in the 1320s. It is possible that the miracle of Bolsena helped to encourage the re-introduction of the feast in the 14th century. It is also likely that it was St. Antoninus of Florence in the 1430s who first conflated the miracle with Thomas’ authorship of the liturgy.

The church of St Dominic in Orvieto, where St Thomas was living as the lector (the principal teacher of the house) when he composed the Mass and Office of Corpus Christi. It was during his sojourn here that he also started the Catena Aurea, did some of the work on the Summa contra Gentiles, and wrote several of his commentaries on the works of Aristotle. In 1932, the nave of the church was demolished to make way for the school building seen at the left; what remains today is only the nave of the original church. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Livioandronico2013, CC BY-SA 3.0) In the 13th century, the Popes often lived in Orvieto, a small and very pleasant hill-top town about 78 miles to the NNW of Rome.

In any case, Thomas’ compositions were masterworks. It is likely that even today most Catholics know St. Thomas from portions of his songs such as “Tantum ergo” and “O Salutaris Hostia” than for his theological and philosophical works. He presaged a period of Church history where the Mass would come to predominate in the lives of Christians, and in which devotion to the Eucharist would come to be more and more at the center of the Church’s life.

The Feast of St Peter Martyr - Guest Article by Dr Donald Prudlo

We are very grateful to Dr Donald Prudlo, Associate Professor of Ancient and Medieval History at Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, Alabama, for sharing with us this account of the festivities held in Milan in honor of St Peter Martyr a few days ago. Today, April 29th, is the traditional day of the feast, but at the Basilica of Saint Eustorgius, where the Saint’s relics are kept, it is usually transferred to the nearest Sunday. Dr Prudlo is a specialist in the study of the cult of the Saints, and has often provided commentary for Vatican Radio during canonization ceremonies.

Peter of Verona was an early Dominican inquisitor, brutally murdered in 1252 by Cathar heretics. He had been active in public ministry for nearly 30 years in northern and central Italy, and was one of the most powerful preachers of the age; after his martyrdom, he became the fastest canonized saint in history (less than 11 months after his death). His relics are kept in the Romanesque basilica of Sant’ Eustorgio in Milan, formerly also home to the relics of the Magi, which were later looted by Barbarossa and taken to Cologne. St Peter is co-patron of the quarter and the parish, and each year, on the Sunday closest to his feast, the local church celebrates in his honor.

The Basilica of Saint Eustorgius

I was privileged this year to be present for the festivities, which demonstrated the close connection between liturgy and the Saints: an excellent example of liturgical and extra-liturgical devotion, and a witness to an ancient cult still alive and well in the Church. Saints, even those canonized with a universal cult like St. Peter Martyr, are testaments to the intersection of catholicity and particularity. When one attends the feast of a Saint, one sees evidence of the organic growth of liturgy as it took place over the centuries, all the while embedded in the continuous traditions of the broader Church. Saints are the liturgical signposts of the year, marking in their lives the radical following of Christ, in the case of martyrs, even to death. They are the lived Anamneses of the Church. The celebration of their feasts is a present reminder of the unity of their sacrifice with that of Christ, made manifest in the celebration of the Sacrifice of the Mass over and near their tombs.

Yet even while recalling the universal nature of the Church, each local saint is an incarnational presence in a particular place. Each patron saint comes with interesting local customs, that one can usually only see in a certain location, usually only once a year. Peter’s feast is no different. It is still celebrated near its date on the traditional Calendar, April 29, something which is quite common, at least in Italy. This further increases the special nature of the feast, for it is like according an extra celebration to the patronal saint, one for the locality, and one for the Universal Church. (Peter’s was removed from the universal calendar in the post-Concilar reform, but he retains a commemoration in the Dominican order on June 4, the date of one of his relic translations).

The parish had two Masses on Sunday in Peter’s honor, each with its own particular characteristics. Both were in the revised Ambrosian rite which -- while much simplified -- retains certain carryovers from the old Ambrosian Rite that Peter would have been familiar with in his lifetime. (One particularly medieval moment was when a dog started barking in the back of church during the sermon, particularly apposite for Peter when one recalls the old nursery rhyme “Hark, hark the dogs do bark, the Beggars are coming to town.”) A common point between the two forms is the burning of a paper globe high above the Gospel side of the altar in a special wrought-iron carrier borne by two angels. On the globe was the word “Credo,” which to reminds us that Peter’s was a life lived for the Creed. His story begins with him defending the Creed against his angry heretical uncle as a seven-year-old, and ends as he begins to recite “Credo in unum Deum” when he was struck dead. Peter’s life was dedicated to a radical living out of the doctrine of the Church in all his endeavors: his preaching, his pursuit of heretics, and his warm relations with religious and laity. At Sant’ Eustorgio, the globe is set afire by a triple candle. This represents the fire of Charity which, when added to doctrine, sets afire the whole of the earth; the triple candle also stands for the faith in the Trinity, which is the principle of evangelization to light the world ablaze.

The paper globe which Dr Prudlo describes above, called a “faro” in Italian, is filled with oil soaked cotton, and set alight at the beginning of the liturgy, before the Mass proper begins. This is done only for feasts of Martyrs in their own churches in the Ambrosian Rite.

The first Mass concluded with a procession into the Portinari chapel, usually behind an annoyingly expensive paywall, but open to the faithful for prayer this one day of the year. As the procession entered, the skull of Peter of Verona was displayed in a marvelous reliquary. Discovered to be incorrupt at the translation of his relics in 1253, and again in 1340, his head was removed for the veneration of the faithful. Indeed, one can still see the beard and tonsure of the Dominican, as well as the brutal head wounds that caused his death. So many of the relics one sees in Europe are such remote and sometimes unknown figures it is difficult to associate their bones with their stories. With Peter we have powerful eyewitness accounts, and a clear record of cultic preservation, a fact that brings home the actions of that fateful Sabbato in Albis over 750 years ago and recorded in famous paintings from Fra Angelico to Titian.

Once past the skull, the glorious Portinari chapel was completely opened, a masterpiece of Christian architecture, with perfect renaissance proportions and frescoes painted by Vincenzo Foppa. (One of the more interesting is the rare image of a Virgin Mary with devil horns, an apparition sent by the devil, which Peter dispels by showing it the Blessed Sacrament).

Peter Martyr Routs an Apparition of the Devil, by Vincenzo Foppa, 1462-68. According to this story, when the devil had appeared to a group of heretics, disguised as the Virgin Mary, St Peter unmasked him by showing the consecrated Host and saying “If you are truly hte Mother of GOd, kneel before your Son and worship Him!”

But the crowning glory is Giovanni da Balduccio’s glorious freestanding ark tomb, raised aloft by female statues representing the Cardinal and Theological virtues (with Obedience added, to make a total of eight). Around the ark are masterful bas reliefs of Peter’s life, interspersed with the Doctors of the Church, and all surmounted by Mary and Jesus, who are flank by Peter and Dominic. The high point was that for this one day, the Saint’s ark was returned to its original purpose: people could freely pass right through the master work, underneath the tomb, and press their heads and hands to it, just as was done in the Middle Ages.

After that, deacons were present all day to present a relic of Peter for veneration, including a prayer against headaches very popular with the Milanese. (Peter’s patronage against headaches should be evident from his iconography; he is usually pictured with a giant knife sticking out of his head). This ritual included a prayer composed by Blessed Ildefonse Schuster.

O God, who did grant to your Blessed Priest and Martyr Peter the grace to write with his blood that Symbol of the Faith which, after he had diligently learned it as a child, and then become a Preacher of your Gospel, he preached undaunted to the people against the errors of the heretics; through his prayers grant that Your Church might preach the Faith and confirm it in good works. Through Christ our Lord.

Hundreds of the faithful came through the day to venerate the head and tomb, and to kiss the relic. Such lived devotion to the Saints, so rare in majority Protestant countries, one can find alive and well in the historically Catholic areas of the world. These are the deep roots of the much maligned “cultural Catholics,” whose appreciation of the faith is often far deeper than many realize (even if greatly restricted in scope). Indeed this residual devotion is certainly a foothold in the re-evangelization of the unchurched in these areas.

In the second Mass, we were privileged to see an assembly of various representatives of the Misericordia confraternities. Many ambulance services in Italy are run privately, by volunteers of the Misericordia. These were originally founded by Peter of Verona, and have been in existence for nearly 800 years, helping the sick and wounded. Another aspect of robustly Catholic culture, these fraternities were and, to a certain extent still are, religious in nature; it was Peter’s genius to see it as effective ways for the laity not only to have improved religious observance and to do good works, but to sanctify the world, and to firm up the ranks against heresy. Representatives of the Confraternities had the honor of processing in with the relic of the skull and enthroning it for Mass.

After the Gospel, the priest blessed the short black penitential robes, the symbols of lay piety, bound by a rosary, and including a black mask, originally to preserve the anonymity of the members, who also and promise to take no pay save for a glass of water. Peter knew that doctrine and works go together, and that Mercy has been at the heart of the Church’s mission from the very beginning. The postulants, dressed in their colorful emergency attire, then made their promises to observe the constitutions, and then were helped to vest by their sponsors.

Mass concluded with a solemn blessing in the name of St. Peter, and then the faithful came up for a chance to venerate the skull relic, guided by the new members of the confraternity.

The living veneration of the saints is one of the oldest manifestations of orthodox Christianity in the world, dating from the first years of the Church. It is something we hold in common with our Eastern brothers, a genuinely traditional ecumenical principle. The Saints are like divine strikes of lightning, creations of grace scattered throughout every region and time of the Church, models of the holiness and of the possibilities of graced human nature. The revival and cultivation of their cults, pilgrimages, veneration, and prayers for their intercession, must be a vital part of any genuine renewal.