Liturgical Feasts

07 June

Faith in God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Trinity), is not a distant and unattainable experience. Instead, it is as near since it is perennially “broken” for us: This is my Body… This is my blood.”
In 1207, a Belgian Augustinian nun, Giuliana di Cornillon, who had just turned fifteen, had a vision of a full moon with a dark spot sullying it. Contemporary experts interpreted it thus: the full moon symbolized the Church, the dark spot was the absence of a specific feast in honour of the Body of the Eucharistic Jesus. The following year, the same religious had an even clearer vision, but had to fight hard to get the feast instituted. She succeeded only at the diocesan level, when Robert de Thourette became bishop of Liège in 1247. In 1261, the former archdeacon of Liège, Jacques Panteléon, became Pope Urban IV. In 1264, impressed by a Eucharistic miracle that had taken place in Bolsena, near Orvieto in Italy where he was residing, he promulgated the bull Transiturus through which he instituted a new solemnity to be celebrated the Thursday after the Octave of Pentecost in honour of the Blessed Sacrament. Thomas Aquinas was given the task of composing the liturgical office. The last strophe of the hymns very famous hymn he wrote, Sacris Solemniis, which begins with the words Panis angelicus (Bread of angels), has often been set to different musical scores, apart from the rest of the hymn. Since Pope Urban IV died two months after having instituted the feast, the bull was never implemented, but Pope Clement V, the first Avignon Pope (1312), confirmed it later.

The now traditional procession of Corpus Christi was introduced by Pope John XXII in 1316. During his pastoral visit to Orvieto, Saint John Paul II said: “Even though the construction of this cathedral was not directly connected with the Solemnity of ‘Corpus Christi’, instituted by Pope Urban IV with the bull Transiturus, in 1264, nor with the miracle that took place in Bolsena the previous year, there is no doubt that the Eucharistic miracle is powerfully evidenced here due to the corporal of Bolsena for which the chapel was specifically built and which it now jealously guards. Since then, the city of Orvieto became known throughout the world due to that miraculous sign that reminds all of us of the merciful love of God who becomes the food and drink of salvation for humanity on its early pilgrimage. Because of the cult rendered to such a great mystery, your city preserves and nourishes the inextinguishable flame” (17 June 1990).

  

See All... Year C Year B Year A

12 June

The Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus – also the World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests – is celebrated on the Friday after the Solemnity of Corpus Christi. This suggests to us that the Eucharist (Corpus Christi) is none other than the Heart of Jesus himself, of the One who “takes care of us” with his “heart”.
On 20 October 1672, Father Giovanni Eudes, a priest from Normandy, celebrated this feast for the first time. But there had already been several German mystics that had begun cultivating devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Middle Ages: Mechtild of Magdeburg (1212-1283), Mechtilde of Hackeborn (1240/1-1298) and Gertrude of Helfta (1256-1302) – and the Dominican, Blessed Henry Suso (1295 – 1366).
But to popularize the devotion, the revelations of our Lord to the Visitation nun of the convent of Paray-le-Monial, Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690), contributed greatly. Margaret Mary had entered the French convent in Saône-et-Loire in 1671. She already had the reputation of being a mystic when on 27 December 1673 she received the first vision of Jesus who invited her to take John’s place, the only apostle who physically rested his head on Jesus’s chest, among those present at the Last Supper. “My Divine Heart is so passionately in love with humanity that it can no longer contain within itself the flames of its ardent love. It must pour them out. I have chosen you for this great plan,” Jesus told her. The following year, Margaret had two other visions. In the first, Jesus’s heart was on a throne enveloped in flames brighter than the sun and more transparent than crystal, surrounded by a crown of thorns. In the other, she saw Christ shining in glory. Flames of fire were coming out of every part of his chest to the point that it looked like a furnace. Jesus spoke to her and asked her to receive Communion every first Friday for nine consecutive months and to prostrate herself on the ground for an hour the night between Thursday and Friday. This is how the practice of the nine first Fridays originated and the Holy Hour of Adoration. Then in a fourth vision, Christ asked for the institution of a feast to honour his Heart and to make reparation through prayer for offenses received.
Pope Pius IX made it an obligatory feast throughout the universal Church in 1856. In 1995, Saint John Paul II instituted the World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests on this same day so that the priesthood might be protected in the hands of Jesus, rather in his heart, so it could be open to everyone.

  

See All... Year C Year B Year A

24 June

Today the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, and on 29 August, we will celebrate the memorial of his martyrdom. There is no other saint for whom the Church celebrates both of these moments. Generally, it celebrates only their “birth into heaven”, with the exception, of course, of Jesus, the Son of God (25 December – his birth; and Good Friday – his death) and the Virgin Mary (8 September – her birth; and 15 August – her Assumption into heaven).
Jesus himself said, “Amen, I say to you, among those both of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist” (Mt. 11:11). He was the last of the great prophets of Israel, the first to testify to Jesus, who initiated a baptism for the forgiveness of sins and, in this context, baptized Jesus; he was a martyr who died defending the Judaic law.
As early as the 4th century, we find a liturgical commemoration for Saint John the Baptist celebrated on a variety of dates. The date of 24 June was established based on Lk 1:36a where speaking of Elizabeth it says, “this is the sixth month for her who was called barren”, therefore, six months before Christmas. Since the 6th century, this Feast also had a vigil.

  

See All...

29 June

Peter, wrap your cloak around you and follow me
Today we celebrate the solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul. In the first reading, taken from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear about Peter’s experience of being freed from prison by an angel, at which point Peter exclaims: “Now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent His angel and rescued me from Herod’s clutches and from everything the Jewish people were hoping would happen.” This experience must be read and understood in light of what the community itself did for Peter: “So Peter was kept in prison, but the Church was earnestly praying to God for him.” The “liberation” is therefore closely linked to the intercessory prayer that rises to God on the part of the community. 

  

See All...