Today, Sunday, June 22, 2014, is also the Feast Day of Corpus Christi. The feast day is considered a moveable feast in that it depends on the date of Easter Sunday. Corpus Christ is traditionally celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. Trinity Sunday falls one week after Pentecost Sunday which make the day, this past Thursday, June 19, 2014. The dioceses of the United States, however, transferred the feast day to the closest Sunday which has the feast day celebrated today, June 22, 2014.
When I was growing up, Corpus Christi was one of the first feast days of the summer. It was celebrated on Thursday and provided an air of excitement to the day because Mass was celebrated at seven in the evening.
During the day, many young people, now on summer break, showed up at the church early in the day to help in any way needed to prepare for the Mass. It was not only a Mass but a procession and Benediction at three altars in the course of the celebration. The wall of the garden shed back of the church was transformed into a beautiful altar with satin fabrics draped down the rough planks of the wall and a hall table turned into a reverent altar. One year, one of the men thought it would be better to bank the shed wall with daisies but after snapping several off their stems in stapling them to the wall, he decided the women could continue with the draping of beautiful cloth.
The second altar was a walk down to the back of the church lot along a gravel path that led to a Marian grotto. What better place to celebrate our Lord than within site of His Blessed Mother.
Thirty minutes before the schedule times, people gathered to line up the procession and make sure everything was in place and ready. In those days, it was considered a celebration that required everyone to show up in their Sunday best. All the First Communicants from the last few months wore their white dresses and suits, the Knights of Columbus showed up, and the choir did a last-minute run through the musical liturgy for the event.
You could feel the excitement building as the procession started lining up. No one was there that didn’t want to be there. There is so much talk about ‘building community’ these days yet a church feast day provided that without forced contemplation. The scent of rose petals grew stronger as many feet walked over the flowers dropped by the little girls in their white dresses.
The last Benediction took place at the church altar. Father gave a brief homily and Mass began. The choir’s hard work send beautiful music throughout the church. Not a person was worried about the late hour as this was a celebration to be savored not something to be endured.
“I place before your eyes this Table where we communicate together, and the figures of my salvation which I consecrate with the same mouth with which I present a request to you, this sacrament which raises us to heaven.” St. Gregory of Nazianzen: Orations, (4th century)
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