On the road with Christ

Celebrating Corpus Christi in the Year of the Eucharist

As this column goes to print, parishes across Australia are celebrating the festival of the Body and Blood of Christ – traditionally known as “Corpus Christi.” It is hoped that parishes in Melbourne took to heart Pope Benedict’s reminder that “in this year [of the Eucharist] the Solemnity of Corpus Christi must be celebrated in a particularly special way.” Pope John Paul II had already suggested that the traditional Corpus Christi procession would be an appropriately “special way” to mark the occasion in his letter Mane nobiscum Domine.

“This year let us also celebrate with particular devotion the Solemnity of Corpus Christi with its traditional procession,” wrote John Paul. “Our faith in the God who took flesh in order to become our companion along the way needs to be everywhere proclaimed, especially in our streets and homes, as an expression of our grateful love and as an inexhaustible source of blessings.”

In a “Eucharistic Procession,” the consecrated host is placed in a monstrance and carried by the celebrant in procession. If the processional route is to go beyond church property, permission is required from the diocesan bishop. However, such applications for permission are encouraged as long as the procession is well planned and executed with dignity.

In 1979, John Paul II reinstituted the traditional mile long Corpus Christi procession through the streets of Rome from Saint John’s Lateran to the Church of Saint Mary Major – a procession which had been abandoned in 1870 and reduced to a much smaller one within St Peter’s Square itself. Any who were in Rome for the Eucharistic Congress in 2000 will remember that the procession attracted a crowd of 70,000 and involved 250 Bishops, 50 Cardinals and over 1,000 priests walking before and behind the processional vehicle in which the Pope was in adoration before the monstrance containing the Body of Christ.

This year on 26 May, Pope Benedict continued this revived tradition. After the celebration of Mass at the Basilica of Siant John Lateran, the procession left in the mid-summer twilight at 7pm and arrived at Saint Mary Major at around 8.30pm. Along the way the crowd knelt down on their knees as the Eucharist was carried slowly past them. What is the purpose of such a procession? And why have our Popes so fervently encouraged the Church to continue this ancient custom? There are two reasons: Pilgrimage and Witness.

First of all, the Eucharistic Procession reminds us that the Church is a “pilgrim people” – a people on a journey. But that journey is not undertaken alone, nor is it an endless journey that has no goal. In Mane Nobiscum Domine, John Paul reminded us that Christ is the one who journeys with His Church, the one who “stays with us” through His presence in the Eucharist. Just as the Risen Christ went with the Emmaus disciples when they got up from the table and hurried back to Jerusalem, so He journeys with us in the Eucharist as we travel through the world.

Moreover, the previous Holy Father once compared the Corpus Christi procession to the 40 year pilgrimage of the Israelites through the wilderness. The Jews were accompanied by the miraculous gift of manna until they entered into the promised land. Today, as we reflect on the gift of the Eucharist, we realise that it is “precisely in virtue of that food and that drink [that] man [is] able to undertake the journey to the definitive promised land – to the Father’s house.”

“Ever since Pentecost,” wrote John Paul II, “when the Church...began her pilgrim journey towards her heavenly homeland, the Divine Sacrament has continued to mark the passing of her days, filling them with confident hope.”

Secondly, the Eucharistic Procession is a witness to the world. Just as the proclamation of the Word of God is closely linked to the celebration of the Eucharist in the liturgy, so there is a very close relationship between the Real Presence in the Eucharist and the proclamation of Christ’s presence in the world. At the feast of Corpus Christi in 2004, John Paul said that “entering into communion with [Christ] in the memorial of Easter also means becoming missionaries of the event which that rite actualises.”

By bearing the Eucharist in solemn procession, the Church publicly proclaims the sacrifice of Christ for the salvation of the whole world. The Corpus Christi procession is a “public profession of faith and worship of the Most Blessed Sacrament.” This is why I urge parish pastors – at least in preparation for next year’s festival if they were not able to do so this year – to consider an extended procession that actually brings the miracle of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist to the streets of Melbourne. In this way the Church shows in its most idiosyncratic way that “the path of Christ [lies] in solidarity with the history of man.” (John Paul II)

+ Denis J. Hart,
Archbishop of Melbourne.