Corpus Christi

The Feast of the Body of Christ

The Thursday after Trinity Sunday, in May or June; in the United States and some other countries, the Sunday after

Canon 1 teaches that Christ’s body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine, the bread being changed by divine power into the body and the wine into the blood. The word is transsubstantiatio. This is the teaching Corpus Christi later honors. It is not yet a feast.

Calls a synod in 1246 and orders a feast of the Supper in his diocese, to be kept the next year. The Catholic Encyclopedia says the reason given in the later bull is that on Maundy Thursday, which commemorates the institution, so many other rites took place that the principal event was almost lost sight of. Robert died in October 1246; the canons of St. Martin at Liège kept the feast first. Juliana of Cornillon, a nun, had long wished for such a feast and urged it on the bishop; her wish is said to have grown from a vision of the church as a full moon with one dark spot, the missing feast.

A popular story says a bleeding Host at Bolsena in 1263 moved Pope Urban IV to order the feast. The Catholic Encyclopedia gives the reason the bull itself states (H2) and does not mention Bolsena. The link is disputed, and it cannot be shown from the bull.

The bull Transiturus orders Corpus Christi for the whole church on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday and grants indulgences to those who attend Mass and the Office. Urban had been archdeacon of Liège. The Office is traditionally credited to Thomas Aquinas. Some sources give the bull’s date as August 11. Urban died in October, and the feast spread slowly.

Orders the feast again, with a decree that embodies Urban’s. John XXII, his successor, urges its observance. The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that neither decree speaks of the procession.

Grant indulgences to the procession of the Host, which was already held in some places. The procession is thus later than the feast itself, and later than both decrees.

Teaches that the faithful may give to the sacrament the worship of latria, due to the true God, and that the feast be celebrated every year with the sacrament borne in processions. Canon 6 pronounces anathema on anyone who says Christ in the Eucharist is not to be adored, or borne in processions, or that those who adore it are idolaters.

borne reverently and with honour in processions through the streets, and public places

Says that transubstantiation cannot be proved by Scripture, is repugnant to its plain words and has given occasion to many superstitions. The body of Christ is received in the Supper only after a heavenly and spiritual manner, and by faith. The Church of England had abolished the feast in 1548.

The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was not by Christ’s ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped.

Pew asks U.S. Catholics what they believe about the bread and wine at Mass. Sixty-nine percent say they are symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, and 31 percent say they actually become the body and blood of Jesus. Among those who attend Mass weekly, 63 percent accept the church’s teaching, and 37 percent do not (23 percent do not know the teaching, and 14 percent know it and do not believe it). Pew’s page does not state the sample size or the field dates.

Just one-third of U.S. Catholics (31%) say they believe that “during Catholic Mass, the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus.”

September 2023 (survey of July 11 - August 2, 2022)

A national survey of 1,031 adult Catholics (margin of error plus or minus 4.45 points). On a direct question, 44 percent say they believe Jesus Christ is truly present under the appearance of bread and wine, and 48 percent say the bread and wine are symbols. On a final clarifying question, 57 percent say He is truly present. After examining each person’s answers together, CARA finds that 64 percent give responses that indicate belief in the Real Presence. Thirty-eight percent know what the church teaches and believe it, 48 percent do not know what it teaches and hold another view, and 9 percent know the teaching and do not believe it. CARA says most who do not believe in the Real Presence are not rejecting the teaching, because they do not know it is what the church teaches. CARA reports that 95 percent of weekly Mass attenders believe in the Real Presence.

After examining each respondent's answers collectively, 64% of respondents provided responses that indicate they believe in the Real Presence.

The first Christians kept the Supper, not a feast of it. Juliana’s wish for a feast and Robert’s synod came in the 1240s, after the Fourth Lateran Council had named the change of the bread (H1). The stated reason was practical: on Maundy Thursday the institution “was almost lost sight of” among Holy Week’s rites (H2).

The feast is not in the Orthodox calendar, which has no Corpus Christi. The Church of England abolished it in 1548 and Article 28 rejects carrying about and worshiping the sacrament (H8).

A practical reason

A story of a miracle

Roman Catholics

Eastern Catholic churches

Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England

Evangelical Anglicans

Lutherans

Reformed, Baptist and other free churches

The Eastern Orthodox churches

The Churches of Christ

Mass and Office

The Office includes the hymns Pange Lingua, Lauda Sion and O Salutaris, and Tantum Ergo is sung at Benediction. The Office and its hymns are traditionally credited to Thomas Aquinas.

The Eucharistic procession

The Host is carried in a monstrance under a canopy through the streets, often stopping at outdoor altars. Trent ordered that it be borne in procession (H7). Neither the bull nor the Council of Vienne mentions it (H5).

Monstrance and Benediction

Display of the Host in a monstrance is first seen in the late 13th or 14th century. Benediction grew out of evening services to Mary, and exposition was added in the 16th and 17th centuries. Anglo-Catholic parishes also use it.

Flower carpets

Families lay designs of petals, grass, bark and sand along the route on the feast morning. Spycimierz and other Polish villages were listed by UNESCO in 2021, and the custom is kept in the Black Forest of Germany. Today they also draw tourists.

Mystery plays

Craft guilds in English towns staged Bible plays on pageant wagons on Corpus Christi Day. York’s cycle of 48 pageants is documented by 1376 and was suppressed in 1569. York stages modern revivals.

A public holiday

A statutory holiday in Austria and Poland, and in six German states and parts of two more. Croatia, Portugal and several Latin American countries also keep it.

The church’s remembrance is weekly, and it is the Supper itself

The New Testament gives the church the Supper on the first day of the week, to remember and proclaim His death (S1, S2).

The church gathered “upon the first day of the week” to break bread (S1). The Lord gave the memorial Himself, and Paul says what it proclaims: “the Lord’s death till he come” (S2). Apostolic example binds, and a specific appointment excludes other kinds: the church has no warrant to add a yearly feast of the Supper.

The feast’s own reason shows the gap. It was set up because the Supper’s institution was “almost lost sight of” among Holy Week’s rites (H2). A church that breaks bread every first day does not lose sight of it. And the feast is not found anywhere in the record before 1246 (H2), twelve hundred years after the church began.

The Supper is bread and cup, eaten; the text names no carrying and no adoring

The text commands taking, eating and drinking in remembrance, and names no reserving, display, procession or worship of the bread (S3, S4).

Jesus says, “Take, eat; this is my body”, and of the cup, “Drink ye all of it” (S3). Paul calls it a “communion of the body of Christ”, and then speaks of “one bread” of which all partake (S4). After the blessing it is still bread: “as often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup” (S2). Every verb is a verb of taking, eating and drinking.

The Catholic case, in its own terms: Christ “declared that which He offered under the species of bread to be truly His own body”, so the Council of Trent holds that the whole substance of the bread is changed into His body, while its appearance remains (H7). If Christ is there, He is to be adored, as the Magi and the apostles adored Him, and the feast and procession honor Him publicly. Catholics add that Paul calls the cup and the bread a communion of His blood and body (S4), and warns that the unworthy eater is guilty of the body (S11).

The text answers on both steps. On the first: after saying “this is my blood”, Jesus calls what is in the cup “this fruit of the vine” (Matthew 26:29), and Paul calls the bread bread after the blessing, three times (S2, S11). His body sat at the table as He spoke, and “This cup is the new covenant in my blood” (S2) plainly does not make a cup into a covenant. On the second: the Supper is a specific command, to take, eat and drink in remembrance when the church comes together. A specific command excludes other kinds. Reserving the bread to display it, carrying it in procession and bowing to it are not ways of eating it; they are acts of another kind, which no Gospel, Acts or letter shows any apostle doing. Declining them stands on the text. The record agrees: the procession came after the decrees that set the feast (H5, H6).

Christ’s offering is once for all

The offering of the body of Jesus Christ was made once for all, and by it he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified (S5).

Hebrews sets the priests of the law against Christ. Every priest stands day by day offering the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; Christ offered “one sacrifice for sins for ever” and sat down (S5). The Supper proclaims that death. Catholic teaching holds that the Mass does not repeat the sacrifice but makes the one sacrifice present, and Trent grants that Christ “always sitteth at the right hand of the Father in heaven, according to the natural mode of existing”, while holding Him present in the sacrament as well (H7). The text of Hebrews speaks of an offering finished, with Christ seated; the priests it sets Him against are the ones who stand day by day. Peter says the heaven must receive Him until the times of restoration (Acts 3:21), and the Supper proclaims His death “till he come” (S2): it remembers a finished offering and looks for a Lord who is to come. The New Testament shows no priest at the church’s table offering Him again, and no body of His on earth to be shown and adored.

Days are a matter of conscience for each believer, not a law for the church

Romans 14 leaves a believer free to regard a day, and Colossians 2 says no one may judge another by a feast day (S6, S7).

Paul writes of believers who differed over days: “One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let each man be fully assured in his own mind” (S6). The days at Rome were most likely Jewish days and fasts, so the passage does not set out to approve a Christian feast. It does give the rule for a Christian’s own regard for a day: it is between the believer and the Lord.

Colossians 2:16-17 adds that no one may judge a believer “in respect of a feast day or a new moon or a sabbath day” (S7). Scholars differ over which days Paul meant there, so the text is not used here as a direct charge against a Christian feast. It does mean days are not the test of a believer.

So a Christian may rest on the public holiday and give thanks at home. What they may not do is make it binding on others, or bring it into the church’s worship as a holy day (A1).

Bowing to a Host is bowing to a created thing, which the second commandment forbids.

The commandment forbids making images and bowing to them. Catholics reply that the Host is not a likeness, and that they bow to Christ, not to bread (Trent, canon 6). If Christ is in the bread, the objection fails; if He is not, it is the same fault in a new form. So the verse settles nothing alone. The question is whether Christ is in the bread, and the weight falls on the Supper texts (A2, S2, S4) and on the lack of any apostolic instruction to adore. The strongest argument against the practice is its absence from the text, not the second commandment.

Paul rebukes those who “observe days, and months, and seasons, and years”. Corpus Christi is such a day.

The Galatians were Gentiles who had once served “no gods”, and teachers were pressing the law on them (verses 4:21 and 5:4). Paul fears his labor was in vain because they were taking up the calendar as part of standing right with God. Read in context, the text strikes at any day made necessary for God’s favor, which fits a feast imposed as a duty on the church. It does not by itself forbid a believer’s private regard for a day, which Romans 14 allows (S6). The research behind this page asks that Galatians 4:10 not be cited against a Christian feast without that context, and it is given here.

Jesus says His flesh is “meat indeed” and His blood “drink indeed”, and that those who do not eat His flesh have no life. Catholics hold this means real presence, not a figure.

This is a strong text, and Catholics read it with the Supper. They note that Jesus did not soften His words when many disciples left Him (verse 66), and that verse 63 says “the flesh”, not “my flesh”. But the discourse was spoken about a year before the Supper (John 6:4), in a synagogue, and Jesus Himself explains the eating as coming and believing: “he that cometh to me shall not hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). He gives the same promise to both: “He that believeth hath eternal life” (6:47), and “He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life” (6:54). He ends by pointing to His words: “the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life” (6:63), and Peter answers, “thou hast the words of eternal life” (6:68). The text gives no change in any bread, and no instruction to reserve, display or adore. It cannot carry the feast (A2).

Paul says an unworthy eater is “guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord”. A man can only sin against the body if the body is truly present.

Paul’s warning is real and serious: each is to prove himself before eating, and not to eat without discerning the body. But the same passage calls the thing eaten “the bread” after the blessing (verses 26-28, S2). One can be guilty toward Christ’s body and blood without their being in the bread: Hebrews speaks of one who “hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing” (Hebrews 10:29). The sin at Corinth was eating the Supper in contempt of the death it proclaims and of the church (11:20-22, 11:26). Read so, the verses need no change in the bread, and Paul still calls it bread. Either way they set no procession or adoration. The warning is about how the church eats, in its assembly (A1).

Study

• Acts 20:7 shows the church breaking bread on the first day. If the Supper was kept every week, what need did Corpus Christi answer?
• 1 Corinthians 11:26 calls the thing eaten “this bread” after the blessing. How does a Catholic reader answer, and how does a Protestant? What does each need to assume?
• Hebrews 10 says Christ’s offering is once for all. How can the Supper be a remembrance, a proclamation and a sharing without being a repeated sacrifice?
• The procession of the Host is later than both papal decrees (H5, H6). Does a practice added after its feast was set belong to the feast, or stand on its own?
• Exodus 20:4-5 is quoted against adoration of the Host. Does the verse settle the matter, or does it depend on a prior answer? What is the prior question?

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