The Feast of Corpus Christi and the Changing Face of the Church

(In this paper, I make an attempt to link two concepts of Church as ‘Temple of God’ where Temple and Priesthood is the center; Church as ‘people of God ‘where ‘Laity’ is the center and Church as ‘mystical body of Christ’ where ‘Eucharist i.e. Body and Blood of Christ’ is the center that ‘unites’ both the hierarchy and the Faithful’)

The Feast of the Corpus Christi, ‘the most Holy Body and Blood of Christ’ that the Church celebrates today has a deep bearing in its vision and Mission and no wonder, the Church was defined as the ‘Mystical Body of Christ’by the Theologians of the Church. Before I venture some historical aspect of this feast, let me note three evolutionary names of the Church which are still prevalent, and the significant contributions each epoch these names bore upon the Church.

The first definition of the Church is seen as the ‘Temple of God’.  Jesus himself said, looking at the Jerusalem Temple, “You destroy this temple and I will build it up in three days.” The gospel further adds; he was talking about his own “body”. The early Judo-Christian considered ‘Temple as the Presence of God ‘and no wonder, following the exhortation of Nathan, the prophet, David and his son Solomon found it their noble duty to build the Temple with the most expensive woods and materials available in the whole world.  Every Jewish man above the age of 12 found it his bounden duty to visit the Temple at least once a year for the Festival and Jesus was of no exception.’ Arc of the Covenant’ and ‘Torah’ symbolized the presence of God. Rituals and Priesthood were of great significance in the Temple worship.

Following this ‘Semitic culture’, we find the Church as the ‘Temple of God ‘in which the ‘physical structure ‘and ‘artistic style’ like ‘Gothic’ takes predominant focus.  ‘Holy Eucharist and Bible’ represented the ‘presence of God’ in these magnificent Churches. The Art, sculptures and Architecture of Byzantine Churches and some of the European Churches became synonym to Eternal bliss here on earth, as the temple built on the hill top.

The Constantine Era

The era following Constantine Emperor, priesthood in the Church assumes a Royal nature. Thus, the first millennium, we find excessive display of wealth in building Churches excelling the ‘Beauty’ of the world that is beyond all compare in human civilizations and history. Similarly, Priesthood mixed in with temporal powers, rivalry in papacy and many corrupted practices creeping in to the Church which despite the emergence of many Saints in the Middle Ages, ends up in Schism by the first half of the Second millennium. Gradually, the gap between the laity and hierarchy begins, affecting the ‘unity’ ‘Communion’ of the Church for which Jesus prayed, “that all may be one” (Jn,17)

In the second half of the first Millennium, influenced by the effort to purify the Temple of God, as Jesus Himself did; Reformation, Counter –Reformation and Renaissance brought about an “introspection” within the Church if “the Presence of Eucharist and Word” had been lost from the Temple of God? The protestantanism   made a drive to do away with the “presence of Christ in the Eucharist” outside Eucharistic celebration and began to emphasize ‘Word of God” as means of ‘Salvation’. The translation of Bible into ‘lingua Franca” was an effort towards it. Thus, Eucharist, the ‘Symbol of God’s presence’ as Communion, the “Bread of the Presence” (OT.) begins to be divorced within the Church, leading to the second schism, the Protestantinism; the first being in 1050 between the East and the West. Revolutions and Wars could not be averted during this period.

 ‘Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist was already in the cloud by 11^th century. Then was born, the man, the Saint, St. Norbert who gave up his ‘royal family status’ and walked barefooted in Germany and France, who “Treasured Holy Eucharist close to his heart” wherever he went, proclaiming “peace and Reconciliation” within the Church and among the chieftains. With his 13 followers, he found an “Order in 1120 in a valley, later known as Premontre, in the Diocese of Laon (France) that came to be known as Order of ‘Pre-monstrance – station: viz.(Premonstratensian), to mean, the one who “raised up Monstrance for the first time” (O. Praem). The universal Church acclaimed him as the “Apostle of Eucharist”. This rapidly growing Order had been instrumental in carrying out the ‘Gregorian Reforms ‘in the Church on Liturgy and Music.

The Norbertine Period

Before ever, Protestantism was born, there was a Catholic priest whose name was Tanchelm, in Antwerp (Belgium) who preached and misled the people away from the ‘Real presence of Eucharist’ in the 12th century. It was during this period, the Norbertine were invited to Antwerp and through their presence and preaching, the Catholics were brought back to the Church and the Order, both the Norbertine Canon (clergy) and Canoness (nun) became popular in Bavaria, central and Eastern Europe.

The Eucharistic piety began to be restored in the Church. The institution of Corpus Christi as a feast in the Christian calendar resulted from approximately forty years of work on the part of Juliana of Liège, a 13th-century Norbertine canoness, also known as Juliana de Cornillon, born in 1191 or 1192 in Liège, Belgium, a city where there were groups of women dedicated to Eucharistic worship.

Guided by exemplary priests, they lived together, devoted to prayer and to charitable works. Orphaned at the age of five, she and her sister Agnes were entrusted to the care of the Augustinian nuns at the convent and leprosarium of Mont-Cornillon, where Juliana developed a special veneration for the Blessed Sacrament. St Juliana confessed the vision to Bishop Robert de Thorete, then Bishop of Liège, and Jacques Pantaléon, who later became Pope Urban IV. Bishop Robert was favorably impressed, and called a synod in 1246 which authorized the celebration of a feast dedicated to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament – Corpus Christi – to be held in the diocese in the following year. The first Eucharistic procession is said to have about the cathedral of ‘St. Michael’ of Antwerp.

Thus, renewed and strengthened with the “living body and blood of Christ” in the Church, history witness a myriad of Saints and flow of Missionaries into Asia and Africa. Thus, the “self-giving of Jesus” in the form of his “Body and Blood” began to transform the whole Church, shifting focus from “Physical structure of magnanimous buildings” to the “magnanimous heart”, the Church becomes, truly the ‘Mystical Body of Christ’

Vatican II with its ‘Lumen Gentium’, ‘Light to the Nations’ (Church in the Modern World) was a great effort to instill and insert ‘Lumen Christi’, “light of Christi”, rather “Corpus Christi” into every human endeavor including ecology, economy, sociology and Science. Thus, the theology of St. Paul that the “whole creation is groaning for Redemption’ became the thematic approach of LG.

In Vatican II, we find a shift from the definition of Church from ‘Temple of God’ to “Corpus Christi” i.e.” mystical body” incorporated into the “people of God”.  If the spirit of “mystical body, “Corpus Christi” is divorced from the “Temple of God’ and ‘People of God,’ the Church will turn into a “Coffin”.  Hence, St. John Paul II emphasizes the mission of the Church as, “Communio et Missio” i.e. forming “Eucharistic Communities as the mission of the Church”.  Thus, Vatican II made a big contribution to bridge the gap between laity and hierarchy, placing Eucharist as the center of unity.

As the Norbertine Order celebrates its 900 years in the history of the Church this year, may this Feast of ‘Corpus Christi” renew the Face of the Church into what St. John Paul II addressed the Order at the end of Communism in Poland, “Gloriously Eucharistic and Eucharistically Glorious”.