Corpus Christi (Latin for Body of Christ) is a Western Catholic feast. It is also celebrated in someAnglican and Lutheran churches. It honors the Eucharist, which believers hold to be the actual body and blood of Christ, and as such it does not commemorate a particular event in Jesus' life. It is held on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday or, in some places, on the following Sunday. Its celebration on a Thursday is meant to associate it with institution by Jesus of the Eucharist during the Last Supper, commemorated on Maundy Thursday, and this is the first free Thursday after Paschaltide. In the Ordinary form of the Roman rite of the Catholic Church, the feast is officially known as the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.
In many English-speaking countries, Corpus Christi is transferred to the Sunday after Trinity Sunday by both Catholics and Anglicans. At the end of the Mass, it is customary to have aProcession of the Blessed Sacrament (often outdoors), followed by Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament
“The worship given to the Trinity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit... must fill our churches also outside the timetable of Masses…This worship must be prominent in all our encounters with the Blessed Sacrament… Adoration of Christ in this sacrament of love must also find expression in various forms of Eucharistic devotion: personal prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, hours of adoration, periods of exposition – short, prolonged, and annual (Forty Hours) - Eucharistic benediction, Eucharistic processions, Eucharistic Congresses… Let us be generous with our time in going to meet him in adoration and in contemplation that is full of faith and ready to make reparation for the great faults and crimes of the world. May our adoration never cease.”
Pope John Paul II
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