Solemnity of Corpus Christi

I especially love that this solemnity is so important that it one of only five occasions in the year on which a diocesan bishop is not to be away from his diocese unless for a grave and urgent reason. It's that important.

Pope Leo, Corpus Christi procession 2025
(CNS Photo/Vatican Media, OSV)

This Solemnity goes back to the thirteenth century. It was first established in the diocese of Liége, and Pope Urban IV instituted it in 1264 for the whole Church. The meaning of this feast is the consideration of and devotion to the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The center of the feast was to be, as Pope Urban IV described it, a popular devotion reflected in hymns and joy. In the same year Saint Thomas Aquinas, at the Pope's request, composed for this day two Offices which have nourished the piety of many Christians throughout the centuries. In many different places the procession with the Monstrance through specially bedecked streets gives testimony of the Christian people's faith and love for Christ, who once again passes through our cities and towns. The procession began in the same way as the feast itself.

For many years God fed manna to the people of Israel as they wandered in the wilderness. This was an image and symbol of the pilgrim church and of each individual who journeys towards his or her definitive homeland -- Heaven. That food given in the desert of Sinai is a figure of the true food, the Holy Eucharist. This is the sacrament of the human pilgrimage ... Precisely because of this, the annual feast of the Eucharist that the Church celebrates today contains within its liturgy so many references to the pilgrimage of the people of the Covenant in their wanderings through the wilderness (John Paul II)....

Today is a day of thanksgiving and of joy because God has wanted to remain with us in order to feed us and to strengthen us, so that we many never feel alone. The Holy Eucharist is the viaticum, the food for the long journey of our days on Earth towards the goal of true Life. Jesus accompanies us and strengthens us here in this world, where our life is like a shadow compared to the reality that awaits us. Earthly food is a pale image of the food we receive in Holy Communion. The Holy Eucharist opens up our hearts to a completely new reality.

In Conversation With God Vol 6
Daily Meditations, Special Feasts: January - June

The Feast of Corpus Christi is a moveable feast, which means that it depends on the date of Easter Sunday. Corpus Christi is celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, which falls one week after Pentecost Sunday. As is often the case, many U.S. bishops have moved it to Sunday in their dioceses.

Some excellent historical information can be found in an old post at The Fathers of the Church where Mike Aquilina fills us in this feast and about the reality for the Church from the beginning.

One of the most telling pieces of evidence, to me, that this reality was the view of the early Christians on the Eucharist comes from St. Ignatius of Antioch's Letter to the Smyrnaeans (ca. AD 106) which was written about ten years after the death of the Apostle John. That means there wasn't time enough for him to have gotten "confused on this issue" (via John Bergsma, Word of the Lord, Year A).

But consider those who are of a different opinion with respect to the grace of Christ which has come unto us, how opposed they are to the will of God. ...

They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His greatness, raised up again. Those, therefore, who speak against this gift of God, incur death in the midst of their disputes. (emphasis added)

Statue of Jean Althen

Statue of Jean Althen, Papal Palace Gardens, Avignon, Belinda Del Pesco

Each Challenge is Supposed to Bring Out the Best in Us

Challenges will be with us until the day we die. But in God's mind, each challenge is supposed to bring out the best in us. ... Every outcome of every challenge should reveal how God supplies the grace to make it through the seemingly impossible.

Father Leo Patalinghug, Grace before Meals

Amen, amen. This makes all the difference when facing the hard things of life.

The Gardeners

Gustave Caillebotte, Les jardiniers, 1875

Go in Beauty

"When the dung beetle moves,” Hosteen Nashibitti had told him, “know that something has moved it. And know that its movement affects the flight of the sparrow, and that the raven deflects the eagle from the sky, and that the eagle’s stiff wing bends the will of the Wind People, and know that all of this affects you and me, and the flea on the prairie dog and the leaf on the cottonwood.” That had always been the point of the lesson. Interdependency of nature. Every cause has its effect. Every action its reaction. A reason for everything. In all things a pattern, and in this pattern, the beauty of harmony. Thus one learned to live with evil, by understanding it, by reading its cause. And thus one learned, gradually and methodically, if one was lucky, to always “go in beauty,” to always look for the pattern, and to find it.”

Tony Hillerman, Dance Hall of the Dead

This is a favorite part of the Tony Hillerman mysteries. He always includes something fascinating and insightful about the Navajo religion or culture.

In the Gardens

Im Schlossgarten
(on the estate of the Schloss Charlottenburg, in the gardens…)
painted by Edward B. Gordon

Feast of St. Charles Lwanga and Companions

St. Charles Lwanga and Companions
Source

Charles is #13 above and if you click on the photo to enlarge it you can see everyone much better. Look at how young some of these numbered images look. These young men are truly the same ages as royal pages we would think of it from European history which is more familiar to us.

Today, together with the whole Church, we honor twenty-two Ugandan martyrs. They are the first martyrs of Sub-Saharan Africa and true witnesses of the Christian faith. Charles Lwanga, a catechist and a young leader, was martyred in 1886 with a group of Catholic and Anglican royal pages, some of whom were not yet baptized. King Mwanga, who despised the Christian religion, gave orders that all the Christian pages in his service be laid upon a mat, bound, placed onto a pyre and burnt. This took place at Namugongo, just outside Kampala.

Catholic Culture

I am not sure where I first heard of St. Charles Lwanga and his companions but I think it may have been in My Life With the Saints by James Martin. (Martin supplies the reading in honor of the feast day.) This is a bit, but do go read it all because there is a good amount of background for context.

They were marched to Namugongo, where, bound with ropes, shackles, iron rings and slave yokes, they waited for one week. During that time the martyrs prayed and sang hymns; the Catholics among them recited morning and evening prayers, grace before and after meals, as well as the Angelus and the rosary, in preparation for their deaths. On June 3, before the execution of the rest of the young men, Charles Lwanga was put to death by the king's men. He was wrapped tightly in a reed mat, a yoke hung on his neck, and was thrown onto a pyre. As a taunt to his executioners, Charles is said to have shouted, "You are burning me, but it is as if you are pouring water over my body!" Before he died, he cried out, "Katonda" or "My God."

His companions were killed in the same gruesome fashion. Aylward Shorter writes, "As the flames rose, their voices could be heard praying and encouraging one another." The last words of the young Kizito were, "Goodbye friends, we are on our way." Forty-five Christians were martyred at Namugongo: 22 Catholics and 23 Anglicans.

I was really moved when I read of these young men who so bravely and honorably stood up for their faith until the end. Interestingly, I had completely forgotten the main reason they came under attack, which was that they rejected their king's sexual advances. In times when we have so many temptations to not respect our bodies or to turn away from chastity, these saints speak to our age.

I guess that is a good reason for revisiting these stories as we celebrate the saints every year. We never know what we have forgotten or not noticed until then.

More information can be found at Catholic Culture where there are also related activities and more reading suggestions.

Collect Prayer

O God, who have made the blood of Martyrs the seed of Christians,
mercifully grant that the field which is your Church,
watered by the blood shed by Saint Charles Lwanga and his companions,
may be fertile and always yield you an abundant harvest.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

Julie and Scott wanted to visit the Dance Hall of the Dead. Joe advised against it. He knows what happens to people who show up uninvited.

 Join us for episode 380 of A Good Story is Hard to Find, where we discuss Dance Hall of the Dead by Tony Hillerman.

Everyday life calls for the equipment provided by daily Scripture reading

What are you saying, man? It's not your business to pay attention to the Bible because you are distracted by thousands of concerns? Then Bible reading belongs more to you than to the monks! For they do not make as much use of the help of the divine Scriptures as those who always have a great many things to do. ... But you are always standing in the line of battle and are constantly being hit, so you need more medicine. For not only does your spouse irritate you, but your son annoys you, and a servant makes you lose your temper. An enemy schemes against you, a friend envies you, a neighbor insults you, a colleague trips you up. Often a lawsuit impends, poverty distresses, loss of possessions brings sorrow. At one moment success puffs you up; at another failure deflates you. Numerous powerful inducements to anger and anxiety, to discouragement and grief, to vanity and loss of sense surround us on every side. A thousand missiles rain down from every direction. And so we constantly need the whole range of equipment supplied by Scripture. ...

Since many things of this kind besiege our soul, we need the divine medicines, so that we might treat the wounds we already have, and so that we might check beforehand the wounds that are not yet, but are going to be, from afar extinguishing the missiles of the devil and repelling them through the constant reading of the divine Scriptures. for it is not possible, not possible for anyone to be saved who does not constantly have the benefit of spiritual reading.

St. John Chrysostom
via The New Jerusalem Bible Saints Devotional Edition

This quote above is only part of a longer piece. It is down to earth, pithy, and full of common sense. I always like seeing things that show our lives are not as different in the basic as we think they are. This one's full of reminders.

I really love this Saints Devotional Bible. It's got quotes that I haven't seen elsewhere but which are perfectly matched to the scripture being commented upon. I also really love Saint John Chrysostom. Every time I read something he's written, no matter where I come across it, I can see why he's called "Golden Tongue." I'm going to have to find a longer work and settle down to taking in his writing.

Celia Thaxter's Garden

Celia Thaxter's Garden, Isles of Shoals, Maine - Childe Hassam
Source

This just seems like the essence of summer!

I dream about forests

There was a tension to the thing, a feeling of mute straining and striving towards some distant and incomprehensible goal. As a wizard, it was something Ponder had only before encountered in acorns: a tiny, soundless voice which said, yes, I am but a small, green, simple object -- but I dream about forests.

Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times

I love the sense of potential ...

Colorful Night in the Forest

Colorful Night in the Forest, Remo Savisaar

Solemnity of the Blessed Trinity

Icon of the Old Testament Trinity, c. 1410, Andrei Rublev

Today the Church celebrates the feast of the Blessed Trinity. This, the ineffable mystery of God's intimate life, is the central truth of our faith and the source of all gifts and graces. The liturgy of the Mass invites us to loving union with each of the Three Divine Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This feast was established for the Latin Church by Pope John XXII, to be celebrated on the Sunday after the coming of the Holy Spirit, which is the last of the mysteries of our salvation. Today we can say many times, savoring it, the prayer: Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit...

[St. Teresa] writes: Once when I was reciting the "Quicumque vult," I was shown so clearly how it was possible for there to be one God alone and three Persons that it caused me both amazement and much comfort. It was of the greatest help to me in teaching me to know more of the greatness of God and of his marvels. When I think of the most Holy Trinity, or hear it spoken of, I seem to understand how there can be such a mystery, and it is a great joy to me.

The whole of a Christian's supernatural life is directed towards this knowledge of and intimate conversation with the Trinity, who become eventually the fruit and the end of our whole life (St. Thomas). It is for this end that we have been created and raised to the supernatural order: to know, to talk to and to love God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, who dwell in the soul in grace.

In Conversation With God Vol 6
Special Feasts: January - June

I love this portion of Proverbs which is always read aloud during this Mass. It is one of my all time favorites as it conveys God's creativity, mastery, craftsmanship, delight, playfulness, and ... love.

Thus says the wisdom of God:
"The LORD possessed me, the beginning of his ways,
the forerunner of his prodigies of long ago;
from of old I was poured forth,
at the first, before the earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no fountains or springs of water;
before the mountains were settled into place,
before the hills, I was brought forth;
while as yet the earth and fields were not made,
nor the first clods of the world.

"When the Lord established the heavens I was there,
when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep;
when he made firm the skies above,
when he fixed fast the foundations of the earth;
when he set for the sea its limit,
so that the waters should not transgress his command;
then was I beside him as his craftsman,
and I was his delight day by day,
playing before him all the while,
playing on the surface of his earth;
and I found delight in the human race."
PRV 8:22-31