The Season of Novenas: Starting with the Holy Spirit

May and June seem to be prime Novena months. We start with the one Novena that the Catholic Church recommends to all for prayer: the Novena--nine days of prayer--between the Solemnity of the Ascension and Pentecost (Friday after Ascension Thursday to Saturday, the Vigil of Pentecost). EWTN's website describes the Novena to the Holy Spirit as:

 . . . the prototype of all novenas. It commemorates the nine days between the Ascension of Our Lord and the descent of the Holy Spirit on the first Pentecost Sunday. During this time Our Lady and the twelve Apostles prayed in the upper room for the coming of the Paraclete.

After Pentecost, there are two other great Solemnities to prepare for: Corpus Christi (celebrated on Sunday, June 2) and the Sacred Heart of Jesus (celebrated on Friday, June 7), which will overlap. Add to that a Novena for Life, sponsored by the USCCB, leading up to the Feast of the Visitation: this is the season of Novenas indeed. 

And in my diocese of Wichita, Kansas, we're encouraged to pray a Novena from June 1 to 9 "for Father Kapaun’s cause, that meetings this summer in Rome may see him named Venerable". On the website for the Novena, we're told the source for these days of prayer:

While stationed in Japan before the outbreak of the Korean War, Chaplain Emil Kapaun gave a series of radio broadcasts based on the Eight Beatitudes to his troops. Two months later he and his men were sent to the defense of South Korea. Over the last year of his life, both on the front lines and facing inhumane captivity, Chaplain Kapaun’s actions showed his own deep understanding and fidelity to the Beatitudes. Aside from day one and a few additions, each of the reflections in this novena comes from these radio broadcasts.

A portion of the final two days of the broadcast were recorded on audio- the only surviving sound we have of Father Kapaun’s voice.

You may listen to Servant of God, Father Emil J. Kapaun's voice here.

There's also an update on the status of his cause. Today, May 23, is the anniversary of his death in 1951.

The practice of prayers for Nine Days or Nine Weeks, or Nine Months, of course, begins with the nine months between the Annunciation and the Nativity of Our Lord: from March 25 to December 25. There are also connections to prayers for the recently departed souls of loved ones. More on novenas here at the old Catholic Encyclopedia.

Corpus Christi, have mercy on us.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.

St. Elizabeth, pray for us.

St. John the Baptist, pray for us.

Servant of God, Emil J. Kapaun, pray for us.

Image source (Public Domain): Father Emil Kapaun celebrating Mass using the hood of a jeep as his altar, October 7, 1950

Preview: Newman and Corpus Christi

Since the Catholic dioceses in the USA will begin the USCCB's Eucharistic Revival following the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi) on Sunday, June 19, Matt Swaim and I will discuss St. John Henry Newman and the Holy Eucharist on Monday, June 20. As you know, I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time: about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern time. Please listen live on EWTN Radio.

This may seem a strange place to begin, but whenever I think of Newman and the Holy Eucharist this passage at the end of the Apologia Pro Vita Sua comes to my mind:

In Chapter 5, Newman proclaims that after becoming a Catholic, he had “no further history of my religious opinions to narrate”. Of course he was still thinking about theological and doctrinal matters, but he didn't have to form private judgments about them in the same way as he did before. For instance, he mentions the Catholic Church's teaching on transubstantiation:

People say that the doctrine of Transubstantiation is difficult to believe; I did not believe the doctrine till I was a Catholic. I had no difficulty in believing it, as soon as I believed that the Catholic Roman Church was the oracle of God, and that she had declared this doctrine to be part of the original revelation. It is difficult, impossible, to imagine, I grant;—but how is it difficult to believe?

Then he cites a comment by Thomas Babington Macaulay:

Yet Macaulay thought it so difficult to believe, that he had need of a believer in it of talents as eminent as Sir Thomas More, before he could bring himself to conceive that the Catholics of an enlightened age could resist "the overwhelming force of the argument against it." "Sir Thomas More," he says, "is one of the choice specimens of wisdom and virtue; and the doctrine of transubstantiation is a kind of proof charge. A faith which stands that test, will stand any test."

For your reference, here's the passage from Newman's Tract 90, in which he attempted to reconcile the doctrines of the Catholic Church with the Thirty-Nine articles of the Church of England. He focuses on Transubstantiation in this article. Tract 90 was the last of the Tracts for the Times and presaged the end of the Tractarian or Oxford Movement, and particularly Newman's leadership of it. The Tract was condemned by the University and Oxford's Bishop (presiding at the Cathedral of Christ Church) and Newman barely escaped censure. He moved out to the College at Littlemore.

This is the statement from the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England against the Real Presence of Jesus in Holy Communion:

The supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves; but rather is a Sacrament of our redemption by Christ's death: insomuch that to those who rightly and with faith, receive the same, the bread that we break is a partaking of the body of Christ, likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ. Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine) in the supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ; but is repugnant to the plain words of scripture, overthroweth the nature of the Sacrament and hath given occasion to many superstitions. The Body of Christ is given, taken and eaten in the Supper, only after an Heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up or worshipped.
— Articles of Religion No.28 "The Lord's Supper": Book of Common Prayer 1662

As an Anglican minister, Newman did speak of Holy Communion, as in one of his Parochial and Plain Sermons, "The Eucharistic Presence":

The text speaks of the greatest and highest of all the Sacramental mysteries, which faith has been vouchsafed, that of Holy Communion. Christ, who died and rose again for us, is in it spiritually present, in the fulness of His death and of His resurrection. We call His presence in this Holy Sacrament a {137} spiritual presence, not as if "spiritual" were but a name or mode of speech, and He were really absent, but by way of expressing that He who is present there can neither be seen nor heard; that He cannot be approached or ascertained by any of the senses; that He is not present in place, that He is not present carnally, though He is really present. And how this is, of course is a mystery. All that we know or need know is that He is given to us, and that in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. . . 

Nothing can show more clearly how high the blessing is, than to observe that the Church's tendency has been, not to detract from its marvellousness, but to increase it. The Church has never thought little of the gift; so far from it, we know that one very large portion of Christendom holds more than we hold. That belief, which goes beyond ours, shows how great the gift is really. I allude to the doctrine of what is called Transubstantiation, which we do not admit; or that the bread and wine cease to be, and that Christ's sacred Body and Blood are directly seen, touched, and handled, under the appearances of Bread and Wine. This our Church considers there is no ground for saying, and our Lord's own words contain marvel enough, even without adding any thing to them by way of explanation. Let us, then, now consider them in themselves, apart from additions which came afterwards. . . .

So that's enough proof of Newman's difficulties and disbelief while he was an Anglican in the True, Real, Substantial Presence of Jesus Christ in Holy Communion, as defined by the Council of Trent: "by the consecration of the bread and of the wine, a conversion is made of the whole substance of the bread into the substance (substantia) of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of His blood; which conversion is, by the holy Catholic Church, suitably and properly called Transubstantiation". (While the outward accidents of bread and wine remain.)

Now, if you consult his Meditations and Devotions, you'll see Newman's great love of the Mass and of Holy Communion, and particularly of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament after he became a Catholic and also a Catholic priest.

He composed a prayer for "A Short Visit to the Blessed Sacrament before Meditation":

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

I place myself in the presence of Him, in whose Incarnate Presence I am before I place myself there.

I adore Thee, O my Saviour, present here as God and man, in soul and body, in true flesh and blood.

I acknowledge and confess that I kneel before that Sacred Humanity, which was conceived in Mary's womb, and lay in Mary's bosom; which grew up to man's estate, and by the Sea of Galilee called the Twelve, wrought miracles, and spoke words of wisdom and peace; which in due season hung on the cross, lay in the tomb, rose from the dead, and now reigns in heaven.

I praise, and bless, and give myself wholly to Him, who is the true Bread of my soul, and my everlasting joy. Amen.

That might be useful for those of us with an assigned time of prayer in an Adoration Chapel or during a Forty Hours celebration.

He translated the Anima Christi (this is the translation I use every day):

Soul of Christ, be my sanctification;
Body of Christ, be my salvation;
Blood of Christ, fill all my veins;
Water of Christ’s side, wash out my stains;
Passion of Christ, my comfort be;
O good Jesu, listen to me;
In thy wounds I fain would hide,
Ne’er to be parted from Thy side;
Guard me, should the foe assail me;
Call me when my life shall fail me;
Bid me come to Thee above,
With Thy saints to sing Thy love,
World without end. Amen.

And, finally, this excerpt from his meditation on receiving Holy Communion, part of his "Meditations on Christian Doctrine":

O my God, holiness becometh Thy House, and yet Thou dost make Thy abode in my breast. My Lord, my Saviour, to me Thou comest, hidden under the semblance of earthly things, yet in that very flesh and blood which Thou didst take from Mary. Thou, who didst first inhabit Mary's breast, dost come to me. My God, Thou seest me; I cannot see myself. Were I ever so good a judge about myself, ever so unbiassed, and with ever so correct a rule of judging, still, from my very nature, I cannot look at myself, and view myself truly and wholly. But Thou, as Thou comest to me, contemplatest me. When I say, Domine, non sum dignus—"Lord, I am not worthy"—Thou whom I am addressing, alone understandest in their fulness the words which I use. Thou seest how unworthy so great a sinner is to receive the One Holy God, whom the Seraphim adore with trembling. Thou seest, not only the stains and scars of past sins, but the mutilations, the deep cavities, the chronic disorders which they have left in my soul. Thou seest the innumerable living sins, though they be not mortal, living in their power and presence, their guilt, and their penalties, which clothe me. Thou seest all my bad habits, all my mean principles, all wayward lawless thoughts, my multitude of infirmities and miseries, yet Thou comest. Thou seest most perfectly how little I really feel what I am now saying, yet Thou comest. O my God, left to myself should I not perish under the awful splendour and the consuming fire of Thy Majesty. Enable me to bear Thee, lest I have to say with Peter, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!"

I cannot omit this brief quotation from Newman's Sermon Notes on May 25, 1856 (Sunday within the Octave of Corpus Christi), "Devotion to the Holy Eucharist":

. . . Our Lord came 1800 years ago. How shall we feel reverence of what took place 1800 years ago? . . .

How almighty love and wisdom has met this. He has met this by living among us with a continual presence. He is not past, He is present now. And though He is not seen, He is here. The same God who walked the water, who did miracles, etc., {129} is in the Tabernacle. We come before Him, we speak to Him just as He was spoken to 1800 years ago, etc. . . .

[I can't help but hear G.K. Chesterton's echo of that statement: "Christ is on earth today; alive on a thousand altars; and He does solve people’s problems exactly as He did when He was on earth in the more ordinary sense."]

[Yes, the feast of Corpus Christi once had an Octave; Pope Pius XII suppressed it in 1955.]

So although Newman may have begun believing in the fullness of the Catholic Church's teaching on the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, in Transubstantiation, in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, etc., simply because he had come to be believe that "the Catholic Roman Church was the oracle of God, and that she had declared this doctrine to be part of the original revelation" he obviously grew in his dedication to celebrating the Mass, receiving Holy Communion, and adoring Jesus Christ, truly Present in the Holy Eucharist.

Blessed be Jesus in the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Image Credit (public domain): Christ with the Eucharist, Vicente Juan Masip, 16th century.

G.K. Chesterton, RIP

So last Friday night, on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, our Greater Wichita Chesterton Society local chapter (including residents of Derby, St. Mark's, Hutchinson and Newton) met in The Ladder to finish our discussion of Joseph Pearce's biography of G.K. Chesterton. As you might expect, the last event in Chesterton's life to be discussed was his death, 85 years ago today (June 14, 1936).

There were two very beautiful anecdotes about Chesterton's decline and death. One was that he had memorized the Sequence for the Feast of Corpus Christi (having published his great work on St. Thomas Aquinas just three years before in 1933). Pearce quoted the last two stanzas of Lauda Sion, with its prayer to see God face-to-face at the Heavenly Banquet:

Bone pastor, panis vere,

Jesu, nostri miserére:

Tu nos pasce, nos tuére:

Tu nos bona fac vidére

In terra vivéntium.

Tu, qui cuncta scis et vales:

Qui nos pascis hic mortáles:

Tuos ibi commensáles,

Cohærédes et sodáles,

Fac sanctórum cívium.

Amen. Alleluia.

He also cited the last words of Verbum supernum prodiens, reflecting on Heaven as being in patria (our true native land!). For a man who loved England so much, this was remarkable statement.

UPDATE: I think that the feast of Corpus Christi was celebrated on Thursday, June 11 in 1936. (Easter was on April 12; Pentecost on May 31, and Trinity Sunday on June 7.)

The other anecdote was that Pope Pius XI sent telegrams to Frances Chesterton and Cardinal Hinsley, referring to Chesterton as a "Defender of the Catholic Faith". The telegram was read at a memorial Requiem Mass celebrated at Westminster Cathedral on June 27, 1936. The British press would not publish the pope's telegram because it gave Chesterton the title which, in its view, belonged only to the King of England, Edward VIII. (Edward VIII had not been crowned yet and never would be because he abdicated in December of 1936 because he could not reign "without the help and support of the woman" he loved.)

Since he had not been crowned or anointed, or sworn his coronation oath to defend the faith, the future Duke of Kent was not really the Defender of the Faith at that time at all! 

I wonder what Chesterton would have made of all the ironies of Edward VIII's abdication in his column for G.K.'s Weekly.

Pearce reminded us, of course, that King Henry VIII had received the title "Fidei Defensor" from Pope Leo X "shortly before the King had rebelled against the Church". It was actually in 1521, about six years before Henry started seeking an annulment of his marriage to Katherine of Aragon. We could date his rebellion against the Catholic Church and Papal authority to 1532, so perhaps not that "shortly before". Pearce also comments that Chesterton had little in common with the king, "except perhaps the size of their girths."! (p. 485)

You may see a digitized image (showing the damage incurred in a fire) of the Papal Bull of Pope Leo X proclaiming Henry VIII the Defender of the Faith at the British Library's Medieval Manuscripts blog, reminding us why he received that title:

Henry was given the title Defender of the Faith in recognition for his Assertio Septem Sacramentorum (Defence of the Seven Sacraments). Possibly written in consultation with Thomas More (b. 1478, d. 1535) and Cardinal Wolsey (b. c. 1473, d. 1530), Henry’s principal statesmen at this point in his reign, this theological treatise acted as a response to the pronouncements of the German theologian Martin Luther (b. 1483, d. 1546), whose ideas helped to shape the Protestant Reformation movement during the 16th century. . . .

Henry’s positive relationship with the Papacy did not last. Only a decade after Leo X issued the papal bull, Henry decided to break away from the Church of Rome, following Pope Clement VII’s refusal to annul his marriage to his first wife Catherine of Aragon (b. 1485, d. 1536). He also distanced himself from the Assertio, claiming that he had been manoeuvred into writing it by his bishops. His actions ultimately resulted in his own excommunication by Clement’s successor Paul III (b. 1468, d. 1549) in 1538 and he was stripped of the title Defender of the Faith.

However, towards the end of Henry’s reign, in 1543, the English Parliament passed an act that restored the title for him and his successors. Since then, it has continued to be used as part of the styling of British monarchs (including the reigning Elizabeth II) to indicate their role as Head of the Church of England. It even features on coins of the realm, with the Latin Fidei defensor appearing in its abbreviated form F.D beside the Queen’s portrait.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Defender of the Catholic Faith, Rest in Peace in Our True Native Land!

Saint Thomas More for Corpus Christi (The Body of Christ)

While he was in the Tower of London, St. Thomas More wrote a treatise on Holy Communion: To receive the Blessed Body Of Our Lord Sacramentally and Virtually both. Since my last post was about Macaulay's wonder that St. Thomas More believed in the Real Presence of Christ in Holy Communion, I thought this was good follow up. This document written by More shows how devoutly he did believe in that Presence. You can read the entire treatise here.

And, therefore, have we great cause with great dread and reverence to consider well the state of our own soul when we shall go to the Board of God, and as near as we can (with the help of His special Grace diligently prayed for before) purge and cleanse our souls by Confession, Contrition, and Penance, with full purpose of forsaking from thenceforth the proud desires of the devil, the greedy covetousness of wretched worldly wealth, and the foul affection of the filthy flesh, and being in full mind to persevere, and continue in the ways of God, and holy cleanness of Spirit: lest that, if we presume so irreverently to receive this precious Margarite, this pure Pearl, the Blessed Body of our Saviour Himself, contained in the Sacramental sign of bread, that like a sort of swine, rioting in the dirt, and wallowing in the mire, we tread it under the filthy feet of our foul affections, while we set more by them than by It, intending to walk and wallow in the puddle of foul, filthy sin; therewith, the legion of devils may get leave of Christ so to enter into us as they got leave of Him to enter into the hogs of Genezareth; and as they ran forth with them, and never stinted till they drowned them in the sea, so run on with us, (but if God of His great mercy refrain them and give us the grace to repent) and not fail to drown us in the deep sea of everlasting sorrow. . . .

We must (I say) see, that we firmly believe that this Blessed Sacrament is not a bare sign, or a figure, or a token of that Holy Body of Christ: but that It is in perpetual remembrance of His bitter Passion, that He suffered for us, the self-same precious Body of Christ that suffered it, by His own Almighty power and unspeakable goodness consecrated and given unto us.

St. Thomas More urges both careful preparation before receiving Holy Communion and prayerful gratitude and meditation after:

Now, when we have received our Lord, and have him in our body, let us not then let him alone… and get us forth about other things, and look no more unto him (for little good could he… that so would serve any guest); but let all our busyness be about him. Let us by devout prayer talk to him, by devout meditation talk with him. Let us say with the prophet, “Audiam quid loquatur in me Dominus”—“I will hear what our Lord will speak within me.” (Psalm 85:9) For surely, if we set aside all other things… and attend unto him, he will not fail with good inspirations to speak such things to us within us… as shall serve to the great spiritual comfort and profit of 30 our soul. And therefore let us with Martha provide… that all our outward busyness may be pertaining to him: in making cheer to him, and to his company for his sake; that is to wit, to poor folk—of which he taketh every one… not only for his disciple, but also as for himself. For himself saith, “Quamdiu fecistis uni de his fratribus meis minimis, mihi fecistis”—“That that you have done to one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it to myself.” (Matthew 25:40) And let us with Mary also sit in devout meditation… and hearken well what our Savior, being now our guest, will inwardly say unto us. Now have we a special time of prayer: while he that hath made us, he that hath bought us, he whom we have offended, he that shall judge us, he that shall either damn us or save us… is, of his great goodness, become our guest, and is personally present within us… and that for none other purpose but to be sued unto for pardon—and so, thereby, to save us. Let us not lose this time, therefore; suffer not this occasion to slip… which we can little tell whether ever we shall get it again… or never.

I think that for a time More was allowed to attend Mass in the Tower and perhaps he received Holy Communion a few times--but he must have known that those opportunities would probably end. There's no record of him receiving any Sacraments (Confession or Viaticum) before his execution. 

Very appropriate reading for the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, celebrated in Catholic Churches today (on some calendars it was celebrated on Thursday, June 3).

Image Credit (public domain) Thomas Morus (1478-1535), based on Hans Holbein.

June 14: Corpus Christi, Flag Day, my Father, and Chesterton

Today, Sunday, June 14 is certainly a day filled with significance: The Catholic Church, in the Novus Ordo of the Latin Liturgy of the Roman Rite, celebrates the Solemnity of Corpus Christi in many places; it is a Sunday, and therefore a Solemnity under any circumstance in that Rite; it is also Flag Day in the U.S.A.; it's the 10th anniversary of my father's funeral, and the 84th anniversary of G.K.Chesterton's death. June 14 was the Sunday after the Thursday celebration of Corpus Christi in 1936. As Joseph Pearce asserts in an article for The Catholic World Report, Chesterton appreciated both the Truth and the Beauty of St. Thomas Aquinas' hymns for the feast of Corpus Christi.

In chapter five of Chesterton's The Dumb Ox, he discusses those hymns and Aquinas' poetry:

But the composer of the Corpus Christi service was not merely what even the wild and woolly would call a poet; he was what the most fastidious would call an artist. His double function rather recalls the double activity of some great Renaissance craftsman, like Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci, who would work on the outer wall, planning and building the fortifications of the city; and then retire into the inner chamber to carve or model some cup or casket for a reliquary. The Corpus Christi Office is like some old musical instrument, quaintly and carefully inlaid with many coloured stones and metals; the author has gathered remote texts about pasture and fruition like rare herbs; there is a notable lack of the loud and obvious in the harmony; and the whole is strung with two strong Latin lyrics. Father John O'Connor has translated them with an almost miraculous aptitude; but a good translator will be the first to agree that no translation is good; or, at any rate, good enough. How are we to find eight short English words which actually stand for "Sumit unus, sumunt mille; quantum isti, tantum ille"? How is anybody really to render the sound of the "Pange Lingua", when the very first syllable has a clang like the clash of cymbals?

I've been listening the past few weeks to the Cardinall's Musicke's recording of the Propers for Ascension, Pentecost, and Corpus Christi composed by William Byrd. It includes a section on Devotions to the Blessed Sacrament with Byrd's settings of O salutarius hostia (one verse), Pange lingua gloriosi, and of course, O Sacrum Convivium, the antiphon for the Magnificat of Second Vespers, but not the sequence of the Mass, Lauda, Sion. Speaking of translations, this resource includes translations by Edward Caswall, John Mason Neale, and Gerard Manley Hopkins! The Father John O'Connor that Chesterton mentions was the priest who inspired the Father Brown character and received Chesterton into the Catholic Church in 1922.

My brother and sister and I will gather to celebrate our father's life later this afternoon, after I attend the External Celebration of Corpus Christi in the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite in the late morning.

James Monroe Joseph Boyer died on June 10, 2010 and his Funeral Mass was on Monday, June 14, Flag Day.

Corpus Christi Thursday and Sunday

I have already celebrated the Solemnity of Corpus Christi: our Latin Mass (Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite) community and Blessed Sacrament Parish collaborated on a Thursday night Mass with a Eucharistic Procession and Benediction. The choir of Blessed Sacrament sang the Sine Nomine Mass of Palestrina--and will again this morning at the 11:00 Mass today--and we chanted St. Thomas Aquinas' great sequence for the feast during Mass and the Pange Lingua during the procession, concluding with Tantum Ergo back at the Altar. Father Thomas Hoisington offered Mass beautifully and offered a great homily on the Paschal Mystery: the Passion and the Mass.

Pope St. John Paul II expressed the Church's doctrine of and his own love for the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in his 2013 encyclical letter ECCLESIA DE EUCHARISTIA:

3. The Church was born of the paschal mystery. For this very reason the Eucharist, which is in an outstanding way the sacrament of the paschal mystery, stands at the centre of the Church's life. This is already clear from the earliest images of the Church found in the Acts of the Apostles: “They devoted themselves to the Apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (2:42). The “breaking of the bread” refers to the Eucharist. Two thousand years later, we continue to relive that primordial image of the Church. At every celebration of the Eucharist, we are spiritually brought back to the paschal Triduum: to the events of the evening of Holy Thursday, to the Last Supper and to what followed it. The institution of the Eucharist sacramentally anticipated the events which were about to take place, beginning with the agony in Gethsemane. Once again we see Jesus as he leaves the Upper Room, descends with his disciples to the Kidron valley and goes to the Garden of Olives. Even today that Garden shelters some very ancient olive trees. Perhaps they witnessed what happened beneath their shade that evening, when Christ in prayer was filled with anguish “and his sweat became like drops of blood falling down upon the ground” (cf. Lk 22:44). The blood which shortly before he had given to the Church as the drink of salvation in the sacrament of the Eucharist, began to be shed; its outpouring would then be completed on Golgotha to become the means of our redemption: “Christ... as high priest of the good things to come..., entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” (Heb 9:11- 12).

4. The hour of our redemption. Although deeply troubled, Jesus does not flee before his “hour”. “And what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour?' No, for this purpose I have come to this hour” (Jn 12:27). He wanted his disciples to keep him company, yet he had to experience loneliness and abandonment: “So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation” (Mt 26:40- 41). Only John would remain at the foot of the Cross, at the side of Mary and the faithful women. The agony in Gethsemane was the introduction to the agony of the Cross on Good Friday. The holy hour, the hour of the redemption of the world. Whenever the Eucharist is celebrated at the tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem, there is an almost tangible return to his “hour”, the hour of his Cross and glorification. Every priest who celebrates Holy Mass, together with the Christian community which takes part in it, is led back in spirit to that place and that hour.

“He was crucified, he suffered death and was buried; he descended to the dead; on the third day he rose again”. The words of the profession of faith are echoed by the words of contemplation and proclamation: “This is the wood of the Cross, on which hung the Saviour of the world. Come, let us worship”. This is the invitation which the Church extends to all in the afternoon hours of Good Friday. She then takes up her song during the Easter season in order to proclaim: “The Lord is risen from the tomb; for our sake he hung on the Cross, Alleluia”.

5. “Mysterium fidei! - The Mystery of Faith!”. When the priest recites or chants these words, all present acclaim: “We announce your death, O Lord, and we proclaim your resurrection, until you come in glory”.

In these or similar words the Church, while pointing to Christ in the mystery of his passion,also reveals her own mystery: Ecclesia de Eucharistia. By the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost the Church was born and set out upon the pathways of the world, yet a decisive moment in her taking shape was certainly the institution of the Eucharist in the Upper Room. Her foundation and wellspring is the whole Triduum paschale, but this is as it were gathered up, foreshadowed and “concentrated' for ever in the gift of the Eucharist. In this gift Jesus Christ entrusted to his Church the perennial making present of the paschal mystery. With it he brought about a mysterious “oneness in time” between that Triduum and the passage of the centuries.

The thought of this leads us to profound amazement and gratitude. In the paschal event and the Eucharist which makes it present throughout the centuries, there is a truly enormous “capacity” which embraces all of history as the recipient of the grace of the redemption. This amazement should always fill the Church assembled for the celebration of the Eucharist. But in a special way it should fill the minister of the Eucharist. For it is he who, by the authority given him in the sacrament of priestly ordination, effects the consecration. It is he who says with the power coming to him from Christ in the Upper Room: “This is my body which will be given up for you This is the cup of my blood, poured out for you...”. The priest says these words, or rather he puts his voice at the disposal of the One who spoke these words in the Upper Room and who desires that they should be repeated in every generation by all those who in the Church ministerially share in his priesthood.

This morning, I'll attend Mass of the External Celebration of the Solemnity of Corpus Christi at the Spiritual Life Center. Professor Bradley Birzer, author of Sanctifying the World: The Augustinian Life and Mind of Christopher Dawson and other works will speak on Russell Kirk and J.R.R. Tolkien on the last day of the Fourth Annual Catholic Culture Conference:

1:30 p.m. Bradley Birzer, presenting “The Christian Humanism of Russell Kirk—one of Catholicism’s greatest (but largely forgotten) 20th century figures”

A convert, Kirk went from spiritualism to Stoic Paganism to Catholicism in the first 45 years of his life. From 1964 to his death in 1994, he served the Church faithfully, in word, if not always in deed. He was, however, one of the single most charitable men of his age.

2:30 p.m. Break, and book signing/continued conversation with Dr. Birzer

3:00 p.m. Bradley Birzer, presenting “The Inklings and J.R.R. Tolkien’s mythology”

Most of you know something about J.R.R. Tolkien and his monumental work, The Lord of the Rings, and the literary impact of his friendship with C.S. Lewis and the rest of the “Inklings”. Below the surface, however, there is much in Tolkien’s work that lies hidden to the casual reader. In this lecture, Dr. Birzer will explore Tolkien’s mythology as a Catholic answer to the terrorist ideologies of the previous century.

Popery in 1908: The Eucharistic Congress

In the United States of America, at least, many Catholics are celebrating the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of Christ. I hope that we all sing the entire Sequence by St. Thomas Aquinas, hear an excellent homily, and participate in a great outdoor procession, Adoration and Benediction of the Most Holy Blessed Sacrament, singing Aquinas' other great Eucharistic hymns, the Salutoris Hostia and Tantum Ergo. Exposition and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is a great traditional devotion of the Catholic Church. The Real Presence, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the source and summit, the center of our Sacramental life.

Before the Reformation in England, Corpus Christi was a day of great ritual, with processions comparable to Holy Thursday and the performance of the Mystery Plays, which enacted salvation history from Creation to the Second Coming. This Feast was introduced in England during the early 14th century (1318) with the Office by St. Thomas Aquinas, but it gained almost immediate popularity among the English, according to both Eamon Duffy and Miri Rubin. The English expressed their devotion to the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist with the formation of Corpus Christi Guilds to prepare for the annual celebrations. The cycle of Mystery plays required months of preparation and fundraising for the decorations. Anthony Esolen interprets the Wakefield cycle of plays here. Corpus Christi College in Cambridge was founded by such a guild in 1352.

Adoration and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament was essential to pre-Reformation Catholic spirituality in England. The Corpus Christi was the center of the entire Paschal Mystery of Incarnation, Redemption and Resurrection. For the individual Christian, Christ's Real Presence in Mass and in adoration outside of Mass, symbolized their participation in that Mystery--even though they in the normal course of the liturgical year received Holy Communion rarely.

Of course, this all ended after the English Reformation and was revived among Catholics in England only after Emancipation in 1829 and Restoration of the Hierarchy in 1850. In September of 1908, a great Eucharistic Congress was held in London. The Spectator editorial page commented on the event, raising some concerns:

IT is typical of the national detachment from the practice and institutions of the Church of Rome that the Eucharistic Congress now being held at Westminster should come upon us as a novelty, and that its purport should require elaborate explanation. "An International Eucharistic Congress," we are told officially, "is an assembly of Bishops, priests, and lay-folk from all parts of the world who meet together to proclaim their belief in the Real Presence of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, to assert the supremacy of the Holy Eucharist in human life, to discuss all matters connected with the Great Mystery, and to endeavour to promote and to develop practical devotion to the great Gift of our Lord's love." The present is the eighteenth of these annual gatherings, and its purely religious aspect is emphasised in the statement of Cardinal Vannutelli to a representative of the Times. "The members of the Congress are not assembling in England with any political intent. They come with an object which is exclusively religious,—to affirm with all simplicity their faith in the Eucharist, recalling the time when that faith was universal in England." It is impossible to deny, however, that this assemblage of princes of the Church and of lesser members of the Roman hierarchy from all parts of the world wears the appearance of a demonstration, and almost of a challenge, which excites apprehension in respectable quarters, and has given rise to regrettable effusions of bigotry in others. An unfounded idea has been disseminated that the Congress is a move in the campaign for the restoration of the temporal power of the Papacy, and for the re-establishment of direct diplomatic relations with the Vatican. Others regard it as a great proselytizing agency. The visit to England of a Papal Legate, after an interval of three centuries and a half, cannot fail to recall memories of Reginald Pole and his disastrous Mission of Reconciliation; while the triumphant progress of Cardinal Vannutelli from Dover to Westminster, the cheering crowds in the streets, the hoisting of the Papal flag as the Legate crossed the threshold of his archiepiscopal host, have all combined to administer a series of shocks to a people by temperament and conviction distrustful of anything that smacks of "Popery." . . . 

Since Cardinal Pole had not visited England for 350, who had any living memory of it? What immediate memories were there to recall? What they had was the memory of the hatred of Catholicism.

The Spectator editorial then goes on to comment on the progress that Catholics had made in England since Emancipation in 1829 and indeed the progress English Protestants had made in accepting the progress that Catholics had made. But then, the editors note one problem: the public procession of the Blessed Sacrament:

One jarring note, and one only, has been struck. The solemn closing of the Congress on Sunday afternoon is to be marked by a "Great Procession of the Blessed Sacrament," which is to follow the celebration of Pontifical vespers and to precede the " Te Deum " and "Benediction". The route has been carefully chosen in the quieter streets round Westminster Cathedral, and has received the approval of the police authorities. Unfortunately, however, such a procession "falls within the mischief" of the twenty-sixth section of the Catholic Emancipation Act, which subjects all persons taking part in it to a substantial fine. The Protestant societies are up in arms, are appealing to the Sovereign to forbid it by Proclamation, and are calling upon the Ministry and upon the head of the Metropolitan Police to enforce the statute. The law is the law, and we do not deny that it is on the side of the protest. But the Protestant position is so safe in this country, so deep-rooted in the convictions of the people, that we should deeply regret open unpleasantness in the streets, not only as a discourtesy to our visitors, but as something like a declaration of weakness,—a distrust in our great tradition of toleration. . . .

Read the rest there. You may also peruse this record of the presentations, homilies, and addresses given during the course of the Congress here.

Chesterton on St. Thomas Aquinas's Eucharistic Poetry

In chapter five of his study of St. Thomas Aquinas ("The Real Life of St. Thomas), Chesterton tries to convey some of the mystery of the saint in spite of the efforts of hagiography. He highlights the great vision St. Thomas had when Jesus asked him, "You have written well of me, Thomas. What reward would you have for your labor?":

Nobody supposes that Thomas Aquinas, when offered by God his choice among all the gifts of God, would ask for a thousand pounds, or the Crown of Sicily, or a present of rare Greek wine. But he might have asked for things that he really wanted: and he was a man who could want things; as he wanted the lost manuscript of St. Chrysostom. He might have asked for the solution of an old difficulty; or the secret of a new science; or a flash of the inconceivable intuitive mind of the angels, or any one of a thousand things that would really have satisfied his broad and virile appetite for the very vastness and variety of the universe. The point is that for him, when the voice spoke from between the outstretched arms of the Crucified, those arms were truly opened wide, and opening most gloriously the gates of all the worlds; they were arms pointing to the east and to the west, to the ends of the earth and the very extremes of existence. They were truly spread out with a gesture of omnipotent generosity; the Creator himself offering Creation itself; with all its millionfold mystery of separate beings, and the triumphal chorus of the creatures. That is the blazing background of multitudinous Being that gives the particular strength, and even a sort of surprise, to the answer of St. Thomas, when he lifted at last his head and spoke with, and for, that almost blasphemous audacity which is one with the humility of his religion; "I will have Thyself." Or, to add the crowning and crushing irony to this story, so uniquely Christian for those who can really understand it, there are some who feel that the audacity is softened by insisting that he said, "Only Thyself."

Because G.K. Chesterton was a poet himself he appreciated St. Thomas's poetry in the hymns and sequence for the Feast of Corpus Christi:

The one exception permitted to him was the rare but remarkable output of his poetry. All sanctity is secrecy; and his sacred poetry was really a secretion; like the pearl in a very tightly closed oyster. He may have written more of it than we know; but part of it came into public use through the particular circumstance of his being asked to compose the office for the Feast of Corpus Christi: a festival first established after the controversy to which he had contributed, in the scroll that he laid on the altar. It does certainly reveal an entirely different side of his genius; and it certainly was genius. As a rule, he was an eminently practical prose writer; some would say a very prosaic prose writer. He maintained controversy with an eye on only two qualities; clarity and courtesy. And he maintained these because they were entirely practical qualities; affecting the probabilities of conversion. But the composer of the Corpus Christi service was not merely what even the wild and woolly would call a poet; he was what the most fastidious would call an artist. His double function rather recalls the double activity of some great Renaissance craftsman, like Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci, who would work on the outer wall, planning and building the fortifications of the city; and then retire into the inner chamber to carve or model some cup or casket for a reliquary. The Corpus Christi Office is like some old musical instrument, quaintly and carefully inlaid with many coloured stones and metals; the author has gathered remote texts about pasture and fruition like rare herbs; there is a notable lack of the loud and obvious in the harmony; and the whole is strung with two strong Latin lyrics. Father John O'Connor has translated them with an almost miraculous aptitude; but a good translator will be the first to agree that no translation is good; or, at any rate, good enough. How are we to find eight short English words which actually stand for "Sumit unus, sumunt mille; quantum isti, tantum ille"? How is anybody really to render the sound of the "Pange Lingua", when the very first syllable has a clang like the clash of cymbals?

Several years ago I highlighted those hymns for Catholic Exchange. St. Thomas Aquinas also wrote great prayers for before and after receiving Holy Communion.

The painting above is by Peter Paul Rubens, depicting St. Thomas among the other "Defenders of the Eucharist." More about the painting here.

St. Thomas Aquinas, pray for us!

My Favorite Feast: Corpus Christi

Next to attending Mass, my favorite devotion is Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction. Today's feast, traditionally celebrated on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday but usually moved to the following Sunday, combines both: Mass with special emphasis on the doctrine of the Real Presence, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in Exposition (the Host in the Monstrance), a public procession, and Benediction.

Penn State University Press published a book about the development of this feast in 2006:

The feast of Corpus Christi, one of the most solemn feasts of the Latin Church, can be traced to the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 and its resolution of disputes over the nature of the Eucharist. The feast was first celebrated in Liège in 1246, thanks largely to the efforts of a religious woman, Juliana of Mont Cornillon, who not only popularized the feast, but also wrote key elements of an original office.

This volume presents for the first time a complete set of source materials germane to the study of the feast of Corpus Christi. In addition to the multiple versions of the original Latin liturgy, a set of poems in Old French, and their English translations, the book includes complete transcriptions of the music associated with the feast. An introductory essay lays out the historical context for understanding the initiation and reception of the feast.

In 2012, during his homily for the celebration of this feast, Pope Benedict XVI spoke about the important connection between actual participation in Holy Communion at the Sacrifice of the Mass and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament outside of Mass, commenting upon the unfortunate idea that the latter detracts from the former:

First of all, a reflection on the importance of Eucharistic worship and, in particular, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. We shall experience it this evening, after Mass, before the procession, during it and at its conclusion. A unilateral interpretation of the Second Vatican Council penalized this dimension, in practice restricting the Eucharist to the moment of its celebration. Indeed it was very important to recognize the centrality of the celebration in which the Lord summons his people, gathers it round the dual table of the Word and of the Bread of life, nourishes and unites it with himself in the offering of the Sacrifice.

Of course, this evaluation of the liturgical assembly in which the Lord works his mystery of communion and brings it about still applies; but it must be put back into the proper balance. In fact — as often happens — in order to emphasize one aspect one ends by sacrificing another. In this case the correct accentuation of the celebration of the Eucharist has been to the detriment of adoration as an act of faith and prayer addressed to the Lord Jesus, really present in the Sacrament of the Altar.

This imbalance has also had repercussions on the spiritual life of the faithful. In fact, by concentrating the entire relationship with the Eucharistic Jesus in the sole moment of Holy Mass one risks emptying the rest of existential time and space of his presence. This makes ever less perceptible the meaning of Jesus’ constant presence in our midst and with us, a presence that is tangible, close, in our homes, as the “beating Heart” of the city, of the country, and of the area, with its various expressions and activities. The sacrament of Christ’s Charity must permeate the whole of daily life.

Actually it is wrong to set celebration and adoration against each other, as if they were competing. Exactly the opposite is true: worship of the Blessed Sacrament is, as it were, the spiritual “context” in which the community can celebrate the Eucharist well and in truth. Only if it is preceded, accompanied and followed by this inner attitude of faith and adoration can the liturgical action express its full meaning and value. The encounter with Jesus in Holy Mass is truly and fully brought about when the community can recognize that in the Sacrament he dwells in his house, waits for us, invites us to his table, then, after the assembly is dismissed, stays with us, with his discreet and silent presence, and accompanies us with his intercession, continuing to gather our spiritual sacrifices and offer them to the Father.

In this regard I am pleased to highlight the experience we shall be having together this evening too. At the moment of Adoration, we are all equal, kneeling before the Sacrament of Love. The common priesthood and the ministerial priesthood are brought together in Eucharistic worship. It is a very beautiful and significant experience which we have had several times in St Peter’s Basilica, and also in the unforgettable Vigils with young people — I recall, for example, those in Cologne, London, Zagreb and Madrid. It is clear to all that these moments of Eucharistic Vigil prepare for the celebration of the Holy Mass, they prepare hearts for the encounter so that it will be more fruitful.

To be all together in prolonged silence before the Lord present in his Sacrament is one of the most genuine experiences of our being Church, which is accompanied complementarily by the celebration of the Eucharist, by listening to the word of God, by singing and by approaching the table of the Bread of Life together. Communion and contemplation cannot be separated, they go hand in hand. If I am truly to communicate with another person I must know him, I must be able to be in silence close to him, to listen to him and look at him lovingly. True love and true friendship are always nourished by the reciprocity of looks, of intense, eloquent silences full of respect and veneration, so that the encounter may be lived profoundly and personally rather than superficially. And, unfortunately, if this dimension is lacking, sacramental communion itself may become a superficial gesture on our part.

Our Extraordinary Form of the Latin Rite community, which usually gathers for Mass on Sunday at the Church of St. Anthony of Padua at 1 p.m., will instead worship today at the same hour at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament. The choir and a small orchestra will sing and play one of Mozart's Credo Masses, and other music proper to the feast:

- Asperges Me, Stephen A. Erst
- Gloria, Mozart's Credo Mass
- Lauda Sion (sequence), Samuel Webbe
- Sacerdotes Domini (offertory antiphon), William Byrd
- Ave Maria, Jacob Arcadelt
- Sanctus, Mozart Credo Mass
- Benedictus, Mozart Credo Mass
- Agnus Dei, Mozart Credo Mass
- Ave Verum Corpus, Mozart
- Pange Lingua, Thomas Aquinas

And there will be Exposition of the Blessed, a procession and Benediction after Mass.

Fortunately for me, there will be two more opportunities for Exposition, Adoration, and Benediction next week: First Friday on June 3rd at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and the Parish Holy Hour next Sunday on June 5th at Blessed Sacrament! 

And there's also First Friday Benediction at Blessed Sacrament on June 3rd!

Why Do I Remain a Catholic? Corpus Christi!

Today is the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, whom I receive sacramentally in Holy Communion at Holy Mass. On Thursday, June 4, our Extraordinary Form of the Latin Liturgy of the Roman Rite community at the parish of St. Anthony of Padua celebrated Holy Mass and then processed around a block with the Blessed Sacrament before concluding with Benediction in the church. We chanted the first four verses of Pange Lingua as we processed in the evening sunlight and concluded with the Tantum Ergo once back in the church--with a rousing "Holy God We Praise Thy Name" as the recessional. The Knights of Columbus honor guard was there too!

Pange, lingua, gloriósi

Córporis mystérium,

Sanguinísque pretiósi,

Quem in mundi prétium

Fructus ventris generósi

Rex effúdit géntium.

Nobis datus, nobis natus

Ex intácta Vírgine,

Et in mundo conversátus,

Sparso verbi sémine,

Sui moras incolátus

Miro clausit órdine.

In suprémæ nocte coenæ

Recúmbens cum frátribus

Observáta lege plene

Cibis in legálibus,

Cibum turbæ duodénæ

Se dat suis mánibus.

Verbum caro, panem verum

Verbo carnem éfficit:

Fitque sanguis Christi merum,

Et si sensus déficit,

Ad firmándum cor sincérum

Sola fides súfficit.

TANTUM ERGO SACRAMÉNTUM

Venerémur cérnui:

Et antíquum documéntum

Novo cedat rítui:

Præstet fides suppleméntum

Sénsuum deféctui.

Genitóri, Genitóque

Laus et jubilátio,

Salus, honor, virtus quoque

Sit et benedíctio:

Procedénti ab utróque

Compar sit laudátio.Amen.

The Thursday after Trinity Sunday is traditionally the date of this feast (as Pope Francis observed it at the Vatican), but in the United States it is being celebrated today. There was a beautiful connection with the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary on Corpus Christi Thursday, since the fifth mystery is the Institution of the Eucharist.

In England before the Reformation there was tremendous devotion to the Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament--although the laity did not often receive Holy Communion. English Catholics eagerly embraced the feast of Corpus Christi with processions and adoration--and the cycle of Mystery Plays depicting salvation history from the Old Testament to the New. More about that background from a previous year here.

Inspired by a post by Tod Worner on the the Patheos Catholic Channel, Elizabeth Scalia has asked other Catholic bloggers to post an answer to the question: Why Do I Remain a Catholic? I am not unique among those answering the question when I say that the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is one of the main reasons I am a practicing Catholic. (#WhyRemainCatholic)

In keeping with my interest in Church History, however, I would say that another reason I remain a practicing Catholic is that the past has demonstrated, even to historians not sympathetic to her cause like Thomas Babington Macaulay for example, that we may face hard times in the Church today but the Church has faced harder times and greater dangers before from enemies within and without. Except that the Church has been led and protected by Jesus and inspired by the Holy Spirit, we would have failed completely a long time ago. I do not fear Church history and in fact it helps me face Church presence with Hope--not pollyanna, cover-it-up, ignore that man behind the curtain folly--but real Hope. Especially because of our troubles in the past, I am confident in the midst of the troubles in the present. If we survived Roman persecution, the Renaissance popes, the Protestant Reformation, the French Revolution, etc, etc, we will survive--Christ has promised; He fulfills His promises.

The history of Catholicism in England demonstrates this reason perfectly. Catholicism should have been eradicated completely from the country by the eighteenth century. Between fines, imprisonment, martyrdom, and other penal and recusant laws, every Catholic in England should have become an Anglican and given up the Faith. But Catholics did not abandon the Faith; missionary priests kept coming, the laity kept hiding them, and the Catholic community endured. Bringing this post back to the theme of Corpus Christi, here is a link to a recording of the great sequence for the feast, Lauda Sion, with a handout including the Latin original, a literal translation--and St. Robert Southwell's translation in English.

Why did Catholics remain during English persecution? Because of Corpus Christi!

CORPUS CHRISTI, Sts. John Fisher & Thomas More, and the Fortnight for Freedom

Today is the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ in most dioceses of the United States of America, the feast having been moved from the Thursday after Trinity Sunday to the following Sunday. On the sanctoral calendar, it is the feast of Sts. John Fisher and Thomas More, two of the greatest and best known of the Catholic martyrs of the English Reformation. It is also the memorial of St. Alban, the first English martyr. Quite a combination of events--but wait, there's more!

In the United States we are observing another Fortnight For [Religious] Freedom from June 21 to July 4, our Independence Day. In the last two years, Fisher and More have really been emblems of the struggle for religious freedom in the U.S. as the Catholic Bishops, many Catholic and non-Catholic organizations have worked against HHS contraceptive, abortafacients, and sterilization mandates. This year the focus is "on the freedom to serve the poor and vulnerable in accord with human dignity and the Church's teaching."

So how to put it all together? The Solemnity of Corpus Christi, obviously, is the most important event today--all three martyrs would say so themselves. To focus on the two English Reformation martyrs, referenced so prominently during the Fortnight for Freedom in 2012 and 2013: St. John Fisher, clearly as a priest, bishop, and cardinal of the Catholic Church, was ordained to celebrate the Sacraments, especially the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The feast of Corpus Christi, with its special office written by St. Thomas Aquinas, the procession with the Blessed Sacrament, and the English people's great love and devotion to the Real Presence was part of his life. He wrote apologetic works defending the priesthood, the Mass, and the Real Presence against the teachings of Martin Luther and Oecolampidus.

St. Thomas More spent the last years of his life, from the time he resigned as Chancellor of England and retired to his study at Chelsea, meditating on the Holy Eucharist and on the Passion and Death of Jesus. He also wrote to defend the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence against the Protestant reformers attacks while he was Chancellor.

Indeed, the man who sent the holy bishop and his former friend to their deaths also defended the Real Presence. Henry VIII, even though he separated himself and his country from the universal Catholic Church, continued to defend the Church's teaching about the Holy Eucharist. Even as he sentenced Sts. John Fisher and St. Thomas More to death, commuting their sentences from being hung, drawn, and quartered to being beheaded, he had those who denied the Real Presence sentenced to being burned alive at the stake. What the holy martyrs knew, however, was that without the unity of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church the reality of the Holy Eucharist cannot hold. While Henry VIII held on to Christ's teaching about the Eucharist as His body and blood, necessary for communion with Him in His Church, Henry's Anglican Church would soon deny it (during the reign of Edward VI in Archbishop Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer).

Reflecting on the focus of the Fortnight for Freedom, "on the freedom to serve the poor and vulnerable in accord with human dignity and the Church's teaching", these two martyrs also demonstrated their dedication to service and charity. St. John Fisher was also renowned for his personal poverty and simple life combined with his great efforts to help the poor of his diocese--materially and spiritually. The great project of his life was to improve the education of priests and the quality of their preaching, so that the Church could serve the flock of Christ more effectively and completely.

As a layman, husband, and father, St. Thomas More took no vows of poverty--although he had considered a vocation as a Carthusian in the Charterhouse on London--but he fulfilled the usual obligation of a layman to give alms and help the poor. Since the great work of his public life was the administration of justice, More was renowned for his fairness, incorruptibility, and impartiality in dispensing justice and following the law to those rich or poor.

There is much to meditate on today about this great feast and these great martyrs. I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show tomorrow morning to talk about St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More (after the  7:45 a.m. Eastern news update). The date of their shared feast, June 22, is the commemoration of St. John Fisher's martyrdom. Henry VIII had no good choice of a date on which to execute this great holy man: the symbolism of the martyrdom of St. John the Baptist, to whom the bishop of Rochester had compared himself in his defense of the sacrament of Holy Matrimony, loomed in the days after his trial and condemnation (June 24)--and the vigil of that feast, June 23 was just as bad, as was the Octave after--so Henry's choice was June 22, the feast of the first English martyr, St. Alban.

In Honor of Corpus Christi @ The Morgan Library in NYC

Thanks to the Ad Imaginem Dei blog, I found out about a fascinating exhibit at the Morgan Library in New York City, focused on The Eucharist in Medieval Life and Art:

When Christ changed bread and wine into his body and blood at the Last Supper, he instituted the Eucharist and established the central act of Christian worship. For medieval Christians, the Eucharist (the sacrament of Communion) was not only at the heart of the Mass—but its presence and symbolism also wielded enormous influence over cultural and civic life. Featuring more than sixty-five exquisitely illuminated manuscripts, Illuminating Faith offers glimpses into medieval culture, and explores the ways in which artists of the period depicted the celebration of the sacrament and its powerful hold on society.

The exhibition presents some of the Morgan's finest works, including the Hours of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, one of the greatest of all Books of Hours; the exquisite Preparation for Mass of Pope Leo X, which remained at the Vatican until it was looted by Napoleon's troops in 1798; a private prayer book commissioned by Anne de Bretagne, queen of France, for her son the dauphin, Charles-Orland; and a number of rarely-exhibited Missals. Also on display will be objects used in medieval Eucharistic rituals, such as a chalice, ciborium, pax, altar card, and monstrances.

This exhibition is made possible by Virginia M. Schirrmeister, with further generous support from the Janine Luke and Melvin R. Seiden Fund for Exhibitions and Publications, and from James Marrow and Emily Rose.

You can see selected images from the exhibition here and follow Margaret Duffy's detailed examination and interpretation of the exhibition on the Ad Imaginem Dei blog:

The exhibition is presented in a respectful and serious way, with wall cards and labeling providing orthodox explanations of the meaning of the Eucharist, including some words, such as transubstantiation, that are seldom heard in today’s culture. The more than sixty-five items in the show, drawn almost entirely from the Morgan’s own collections, offer views of many aspects of the iconography of the Eucharist, and go well beyond images of the Last Supper. It is organized around six themes: The Institution of the Eucharist; The Introduction of the Elevation; The Eucharist and the Old Testament; Domestic Devotion to the Eucharist; The Feast of Corpus Christi and Eucharistic Miracles. I will be discussing several of these themes in the next few days.

I don't know how many of the images might come from English sources, but it is important for me to note that before the English Reformation, as demonstrated by Eamon Duffy and others, Catholics in England were most devoted to the Holy Eucharist. As Peter Marshall notes:

Late medieval religion was profoundly sacramental, that is, it held that God's cleansing power (his ‘grace’) became available to people by being channelled through particular ritual actions, and forms of words, through special material objects and sacred places. There were seven official sacraments (baptism, confirmation, marriage, the ordination of priests, the anointing of the sick and dying, penance and the eucharist). The first five of these were essentially ‘rites of passage’, performed once to sanctify particular moments in an individual's life cycle. The other two – penance (the confessing of one's sins to a priest) and the eucharist (the ritual re-enactment of Christ's Last Supper in the ceremony known as the mass) – were endlessly repeated, serving continually to renew grace in the penitent sinner. The mass had a special place in the contemporary religious imagination. Here, uniquely, Christ became physically present among his people. Mass was said in Latin by a priest standing with his back to the congregation at a high altar situated at the far east end of the church (the chancel). He was separated from the lay people in the body (the nave) of the church by an elaborately carved semi-solid ‘rood screen’ (so-called because of the great crucifix or rood which surmounted it). When the priest repeated Jesus' words ‘This is my Body … This is my Blood’, the ‘elements’ used in the ritual ceased to be bread and wine and became the real body and blood of Christ, a daily miracle which the theologians referred to as transubstantiation. Lay people received the body of Christ in the form of a fine wheaten disc or ‘host’, but this communion was for most people infrequent, taking place usually once a year at Easter time. For the rest of the year there was greater emphasis on seeing the sacrament – at the moment of consecration when the priest elevated the host above his head, bells would be rung, candles lit and (according to later Protestant accounts at least) people would jostle with each other for the privilege of ‘seeing their Maker’. Popular belief held that people would not go blind or die suddenly on a day when they had gazed upon God.

The mass was not just an occasion for intense individual devotion, but also for the expression and restoration of social harmony. No one ‘out of charity’ with their neighbours was to be admitted to receive communion. The custom of annual confession in the week before Easter was designed to impel people to make amends to those they had wronged, as well as to clear their consciences before God. During the mass an engraved plate known as a pax (literally, peace) was passed round for the worshippers to kiss as a sign of being at peace with each other. The consecrated host was itself the most powerful symbol of unity (an idealized microcosm of the totality of Christian believers who, according to St Paul, constituted ‘one body in Christ’). On Corpus Christi, the special summer feast day of the body of Christ, the host was carried in elaborate procession through the streets of Bristol, Coventry, York and other places, a means of demonstrating, and of restoring, the social unity of towns all too given to faction and internal conflict.

And certainly after the English Reformation, especially after the great via media of Elizabeth I's reign was established, and attending Mass made illegal, and then being a priest in England being made an act of treason, the Catholic Mass was the emblem and desire of being a Catholic in England--and Catholics' desire to receive Holy Communion was so great that they would risk capture, arrest, imprisonment, torture, trial, and even execution to assist a Catholic priest (and the Catholic priest risked greatly himself of course)--but those Catholics were exceptional in that age--and would be or are in ours.

The Five Wounds and the Sacred Heart

In 15th century England, the Friday following the Octave of the Feast of Corpus Christi was dedicated to the Five Wounds of Christ. Devotion to the Five Wounds of Christ, as I mentioned to Brian Patrick on the Son Rise Morning Show last week, is kind of a medieval precursor of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which the Catholic Church celebrates today as a Solemnity. The Five Wounds are the piercing wounds to the hands, the feet, and side of Jesus on the cross.

As Eamon Duffy demonstrated in The Stripping of the Altars, this was a very popular devotion to the Passion of Christ in England before the Reformation. Through prayers and meditiations, the penitent recalled the suffering of Jesus on the cross and pleaded for the forgiveness of sins.

During the English Reformation, it developed a powerful symbolism beyond the devotion: Pilgrims opposed to the dissolution of the monasteries carried banners depicting the Five Wounds; Blessed Margaret Pole was attainted of treason because an emblem of the Five Wounds was found in her belongings so Thomas Cromwell argued that she favored the Pilgrimage of Grace. During the Northern Rebellion, the banners flew again, an obvious reference to that earlier rebellion--and a statement to Elizabethan regime that, the Act of Uniformity notwithstanding, some in England still wanted the old time religion of Catholicism.

The connection between the devotion to the Sacred Heart and the Five Wounds of Jesus is surely most clearly seen in the piercing of His Heart by the Roman soldier: "But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one soldier thrust his lance into his ide, and immediately blood and water flowed out." (John: 19:34). The blood and water were interpreted from early on in the Church's history as symbolic of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, and as the life and spirit of the Church, itself a Sacrament of God's Grace. You might notice that the banner of the Five Wounds makes that connection very clearly, with the Heart and the Chalice at the center instead of a pierced heart.

More on the connection between the Solemnities celebrating the Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus Christ (Corpus Christi) and the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus here.

Corpus Christi in England after Emancipation and Restoration

My first post today was about the Solemnity of Corpus Christi before the English Reformation, and I mentioned the first procession after the Reformation led by Blessed Dominic Barberi. With Emancipation in 1829 and the restoration of the hierarchy in 1850, devotion to the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ became manifest in England again with churches (including Westminster Cathedral, which is dedicated to the Most Precious Blood) and processions.

For example, Corpus Christi Catholic Church in London's West End:

The Parish of Maiden Lane is situated in the Westminster Deanery. It was founded in 1873 and consecrated on the 18th of October, 1956. Often referred to as the “hidden gem” of the West End, the then Archbishop Cardinal Henry Manning said during his homily at the opening mass that “a sanctuary has been opened to be specifically devoted to the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament”.

This was the first church dedicated to the Blessed Sacrament after the Reformation. The famous hymns Sweet Sacrament Divine and O Sacred Heart were written by the parish priest Fr Francis Stanfield (1835-1914). It is also known as “the actors’ church” and is the home of the Catholic Association of the Performing Arts (formerly, the Catholic Stage Guild).

This link provides some pictures of the interior of the church, and here are the lyrics to the first hymn mentioned above:

Sweet Sacrament divine,
hid in thine earthly home;
lo! round thy lowly shrine,
with suppliant hearts we come;
Jesus, to thee our voice we raise
In songs of love and heartfelt praise
sweet Sacrament divine.

Sweet Sacrament of peace,
dear home of every heart,
where restless yearnings cease,
and sorrows all depart.
there in thine ear, all trustfully,
we tell our tale of misery,
sweet Sacrament of peace.

Sweet Sacrament of rest,
ark from the ocean's roar,
within thy shelter blest
soon may we reach the shore;
save us, for still the tempest raves,
save, lest we sink beneath the waves:
sweet Sacrament of rest.

Sweet Sacrament divine,
earth's light and jubilee,
in thy far depths doth shine
the Godhead's majesty;
sweet light, so shine on us, we pray
that earthly joys may fade away:
sweet Sacrament divine.

This article describes the revival of the Corpus Christi procession in Arundel, home of the Dukes of Norfolk in Sussex. The Arundel Cathedral website has notes about the procession, which was celebrated on Thursday, June 7 this year.