Corpus Christi - Celebrating the Institution of the Eucharist

The festival of Corpus Christi celebrates the Eucharist as the body of Christ. The name 'Corpus Christi' is Latin for 'the body of Christ' and the feast is celebrated by Roman Catholics and other Christians to proclaim the truth of the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the actual body of Christ during Mass. In some countries in the world, Catholic churches still celebrate the festival, not only with a Mass, but also with a procession that carries the consecrated wafer through the streets as a public statement that the sacrifice of Christ was for the salvation of the whole world.  

In the Church of England this feast is liturgically celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday and is known as the Day of Thanksgiving for the Institution of Holy Communion (Corpus Christi), which this year is June 3rd. Christians already mark the Last Supper, when Christ instituted the Eucharist, on Maundy Thursday (the day before Good Friday). Because Maundy Thursday falls during the solemn period of Holy Week, it was thought necessary to have a separate festival of the Eucharist that would allow the celebration not to be muted by sadness. The feast was proposed by Saint Thomas Aquinas who was inspired by the religious experience of St Juliana (1193-1258), a Belgian nun. He asked Pope Urban IV to create a feast focused solely on the Holy Eucharist, emphasising the joy of the Eucharist being the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ. For Catholics, the host contains the real presence of Christ, and it is displayed on a 'monstrance' and treated as Christ in human form would be treated, with reverence, ceremony and adoration. 

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The feast of Corpus Christi was suppressed in Protestant churches in the Reformation for theological reasons as Protestants deny the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist other than as a symbolic or spiritual presence. As the English Reformation progressed the Church of England abolished the feast of Corpus Christi in 1548, but later reintroduced it in Anglicised form. Most Anglican churches now observe Corpus Christi, sometimes under the name "Thanksgiving for the Institution of Holy Communion". 

The liturgy 

Corpus Christi is often marked by a service originally devised by Thomas Aquinas.  It includes five great hymns, including Panis Angelicus (part of a longer hymn called Sacris Solemniis, 'At this our solemn feast') and Pange lingua ('Sing, my tongue') 

Panis Angelicus

Corpus Christi was made an obligatory feast for Roman Catholics by Pope Clement V in 1311 at the Council of Vienne. The feast was celebrated in England from 1318 onwards with the Council of Trent in 1551 describing the festival as a 'triumph over heresy'. By this they meant that when Christians celebrated the festival they affirmed their belief in the doctrine of transubstantiation, and thus the victory of the Church over those "heretics" who denied that the consecrated wafer became the real body of Christ during the Mass. 

Corpus Christi Plays

From the Middle Ages onwards, special Corpus Christi plays were staged to mark the occasion. Whether these plays sprang up as a result of the Corpus Christi celebration or they already existed in some form before the feast was declared is unclear. Corpus Christi Plays were extremely popular in Northern England; however, in Europe, the most lavish productions were reserved for Passion plays - Easter celebrations that dramatised the events immediately around Christ's Crucifixion. 

The plays were a communal event that everybody participated in; the church, the guilds, the city officials, and the tourists. Records show the citizens of the town of York felt honoured to participate and they also made a significant profit from the visitors who came from all across the countryside to see these plays, which were considered excellent entertainment and included music, song, costumes, and in many cases lavish special effects. They were also considered a great way to preach to a public that was largely illiterate. The surviving York manuscript of 48 plays shows they were complex productions that required careful planning and incurred great expense, performed over 200 years until they were suppressed during the Reformation.  

Music for Corpus Christi

There are many obvious choices for music at Corpus Christi; "Panis Angelicus" by Franck or Casciolini, "O sacrum convivium" by Tallis or Byrd, "O taste and see" by Vaughan Williams  and MacMillan's Hymn to the "Blessed Sacrement". Or perhaps  Rachmaninov's "O Salutaris hostia" or Esquivel's "Ego sum panis vivus". (I am the bread of life.)

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The Eucharist

The Eucharist symbolises the new covenant given by God to his followers. The old covenant was the one given by God to Israel when he freed his people from slavery in Egypt. The new sacrament symbolises freedom from the slavery of sin and the promise of eternal life. Corpus Christi is not a feast we celebrate in our church, but celebrating the Eucharist is something which is common to almost all Christian denominations and it is at the heart of Christian worship. It is celebrated by Christians around the world as a memorial of the death and resurrection of Jesus, in response to his words at the final meal he shared with his disciples, ‘Do this in remembrance of me.’ Participation in the Eucharist enhances and deepens the communion of believers not only with Christ but also with one another, the institution of which deserves to be celebrated - however you choose to do so.