“The Old Leaven” of Catholic Truth, Part 2: Eucharist as Sacrifice in the Language of Medieval England

In the first part of this article, I discussed the relationship between eucharistic belief and eucharistic language, taking modern Catholicism and Reformation England as examples of belief and language deteriorating together. The counterexample I provided was medieval England, where devotion to the Real Presence was robust and had been nourished for centuries not only by the strong, poetic Latin of the liturgy but also by various English expressions that helped the faithful to understand and love the Blessed Sacrament.

As I mentioned in Part One, the term “eucharist” was not a part of English-language vocabulary until the fourteenth century. In the second part of this article, we’ll consider the words and phrases that Englishmen of the early and high Middle Ages used when they were speaking, writing, and thinking about the Holy Eucharist.[1]

The Mass of Saint Gregory, a woodcut by Albrecht Dürer (d. 1528) depicting a eucharistic miracle whose legendary account was popular among English Catholics in the late Middle Ages.

“Unhousel’d, disappointed, unanel’d”

The most standard item of eucharistic vocabulary in Old and Middle English is also one of the most unfamiliar in modern English: housel (pronounced “HOW-zuhl” and also spelled husel, housul, howsell, etc.). This word was used as a noun meaning primarily “the Eucharist” and as a verb meaning “to administer the Eucharist to.”

Actually, countless speakers and students of modern English have seen this word, but they may not have noticed it or understood its meaning. It appears in Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5, when the ghost of Prince Hamlet’s father describes his murder at the hands of “that adulterate beast” Claudius. The ghost laments that he was

Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatch’d;
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhousel’d, disappointed, unanel’d;
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head.
O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!

King Hamlet relates, with admirable horror, that the murder deprived him of a good Christian death, since he died “unhousel’d, disappointed, unanel’d,” that is, without receiving the Eucharist, unprepared (without confessing his sins), and unanointed (without receiving extreme unction).

Hamlet (with companions) and the Ghost, by Henry Fuseli (d. 1825).

The deeper psychological and emotional effects of a word are greatly influenced by the word’s etymology and its range of meanings. In the case of “housel,” the term’s origin and multiple meanings convey powerful truths about the nature of the Blessed Sacrament. It is related to Germanic words meaning “sacrifice” or “offering,” and in Old English it was used, though perhaps infrequently, to mean “sacrifice” in a non-eucharistic sense. Over time, “housel” became more closely associated with the Holy Eucharist, but not in a restrictive way: in addition to denoting the sacred species, it referred to receiving Communion and celebrating the eucharistic sacrifice.

Thus, the notion of sacrifice is encoded within the very word “housel,” which binds the Eucharist as spiritual nourishment to religious sacrifice in general and, more specifically, to the sacred liturgical sacrifice through which this nourishment is produced. A term that memorably conveys this association would be beneficial in any age and in our own would perhaps have an especially salutary effect.

The Body of God

There is a striking tendency in medieval English to use “God,” without any qualifying words, as a name for Christ. Here are a few examples:

“The old fiend led them astray with lying wiles, ... so that they crucified God himself” (Cynewulf, Elene; ninth century)

“Therein was closed a nail great / That was driven through God’s feet” (Short English Metrical Chronicle; fourteenth century)

“Here must God take out Adam” (stage direction, referring to Christ, in a cycle play for the Harrowing of Hell; late fourteenth century)

This usage is now officially deemed “obsolete,” and indeed, it clashes quite strongly with the speech patterns of modern English, despite being theologically sound. I find its forceful simplicity refreshing, and one could hardly find a more concise way to affirm the hypostatic union.

Medieval eucharistic terminology displaying this same tendency includes God’s flesh, the flesh and blood of God’s body, and Godes lichama, this last meaning in modern English “God’s body” or, perhaps more accurately, “God’s living body.” These titles are surely due for a revival. I for one would benefit from more frequently contemplating the Blessed Sacrament not only as corpus Christi but as corpus Dei, that is, as the sacrificial flesh of my dear Savior but also as the eternal and glorious Body of God—uncreated Light, infinite Love, and the very Principle of all that exists.

Detail of The Last Supper, by Giorgio Vasari (d. 1574).

Journey Bread

The idea of Holy Communion as preparation for death was far more pronounced in medieval England than it is today:

The reception of communion was not the primary mode of lay encounter with the Host. Everyone received at Easter, and one’s final communion, the viaticum or “journey money” given on the deathbed, was crucially important to medieval people.... For most people, most of the time the Host was something to be seen, not to be consumed.[2]

Infrequent Communion was the norm in this society, even for some religious. The clergy who attended the eleventh-century Council of Aenham expected the laity to receive three times per year, and the Laws of Cnut, issued around the same time and drafted by Archbishop Wulfstan, likewise mentioned thrice-yearly Communion. The thirteenth-century document Ancrene Wisse (i.e., Anchoresses’ Guide) states that anchoresses, like lay brothers, should receive only fifteen times per year, since “me let leasse of þe þing þet me haueð ofte” (“one values less the thing which one has often”).[3]

A page from the law code of King Cnut. Cotton MS Nero A I, f. 16r, courtesy of the British Library. I find this script captivating.

For ordinary Catholics of medieval England, the Eucharist was not consumed as a daily (or weekly, or maybe even monthly) Bread, and it naturally acquired greater prominence as viaticum—sanctifying Bread for that final and supremely important voyage toward the setting sun of earthly life. Thus, one of the Old English titles for the Blessed Sacrament was wegneste, meaning “provision for the journey” or, more literally, “way food.”

Fear, Love, and Adoration

The collection of terms given above is not exhaustive. Indeed, no exhaustive list could be compiled, for Old English manuscripts are few, and the eucharistic devotion of the Anglo-Saxons, a fervent and poetic people, was vast. I’ll conclude with the words of Thomas Bridgett, an English scholar and priest of the nineteenth century who converted to Catholicism after refusing to take the oath of royal supremacy:

For more than a thousand years the races that successively peopled [Great Britain] regarded the celebration of this Sacrament as the central rite of their religion, the principal means of divine worship, the principal channel of divine grace. The Holy Eucharist was the great mystery of faith, the object not only of fear and of love, but also of supreme adoration.[4]

---

[1]. Much of the information in this article is built upon the doctoral research, completed in 1932, of Sister Mary Joseph Cravens.

[2]. Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400–1580, p. 95.

[3]. The author also stipulates the days on which the anchoresses will communicate: “(i) Mid-winter Dei, (ii) Tweofte Dei [Twelfth Day, i.e., Epiphany], (iii) Condelmeasse Dei, (iiii) a Sunnedei mid-weibitweonen [midway between] thet ant Easter, other Ure Leafdi Dei [or Our Lady’s Day, i.e., the Annunciation], yef he is neh the Sunnedei, forthe hehnesse, (v) Easter Dei, (vi) the thridde Sunnedei th’refter [the third Sunday after Easter], (vii) Hali Thursdei, (viii) Witsunne Dei, (ix) Midsumer Dei, (x) Seinte Marie Dei Magdaleine, (xi) the Assumptiun, (xii) the Nativite, (xiii) Seinte Mihales Dei, (xiii) Alle Halhene Dei [All Saints’ Day], (xv), Seint Andrews Dei.” See Ancrene Wisse: Part Eight, edited by Robert Hasenfratz.

[4]. Thomas Bridgett, History of the Holy Eucharist in Great Britain, Volume 1, p. 1.

The Cordocentrism of Father Damien and His Congregation

A portrait of Fr. Damien by my Damien High School classmate, Geoffrey Butz

The great Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which we celebrate today, is an opportunity to delight in God’s unspeakable love for us and to respond to His love with an unconditional “Yes.” As Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger writes:

In the Heart of Jesus, the center of Christianity is set before us. It expresses everything, all that is genuinely new and revolutionary in the New Covenant. This Heart calls to our heart. It invites us to step forth out of the futile attempt of self-preservation and, by joining in the task of love, by handing ourselves over to him and with him, to discover the fullness of love which alone is eternity and which alone sustains the world.[1]

Recently my wife Alexandra and I had the privilege of visiting the grave of someone who joined Jesus in the task of love, someone who handed himself over to Him and to the least of his brethren, and someone whose religious charism was ordered towards the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Visiting the grave of Saint Damien of Molokai (1840-1889) was a dream come true. I attended Damien High School in LaVerne, California, named after the great missionary to the lepers long before he was even declared Venerable because the religious community that founded the school was the same as Father Damien’s: the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and of the Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. One of the requirements in our freshman religion class was to read John Farrow’s Damien the Leper, a riveting account of the saint’s life that I highly recommend. Even the origin of the biography is interesting. John Farrow was a filmmaker and the father of the actress Mia Farrow, who describes her father in the foreword as a believing Catholic despite his chronic womanizing. After Farrow learned about Father Damien as he was wandering about in the South Pacific, he was determined to share the story with a wider audience.

John Farrow, John Wayne, and Lana Turner

Damien the Leper

In the biography we learned that Damien de Veuster was from Flanders, Belgium and that he joined the Sacred Heart (aka Picpus) Fathers in imitation of his older brother; that he was transferred to Hawaii, which was a territory bequeathed to the Sacred Heart Fathers by the Pope; that he served the natives for eight years, learning their language, administering the sacraments, and rooting out bad pagan practices (he once dramatically tore up a voodoo doll of himself to show that witchcraft had no power over a servant of God); that when the bishop of Honolulu asked his priests for volunteers to the notorious leper colony of Molokai, three other men besides Damien bravely stood up but Damien was the one chosen; and that Damien labored tirelessly in the colony under the worst of conditions for sixteen years before succumbing to the disease himself.

And the conditions were indeed the worst. There was no law and order in the colony when he arrived because the police were terrified of the contagious disease: all a leper had to do was rush at a policeman with his open wounds and the latter would flee in terror. Amid unbearable stench (which he used his pipe to counteract), rotting limbs, and grotesque bodies, Damien built several churches and buildings, 2,000 coffins, and a 3.5 mile fresh-water supply. He baptized and buried, and celebrated the liturgical year with great pomp and grandeur (especially Corpus Christi) as a way of inspiring his flock and bringing them consolation.

Alexandra Foley with the great-granddaughter of a man who built churches with Fr. Damien

The Hawaiian authorities had chosen for the location of the colony Kalaupapa, a peninsula on the island of Molokai that is almost impossible to escape without the aid of a ship or plane since it is surrounded either by the sea or steep cliffs that are especially difficult to climb for someone whose limbs are falling off. In the 1940s a cure was finally found for Hansen’s disease, as leprosy is more properly called, and the Hawaiian Department of Health finally ended its policy of containment in 1969, granting Kakaupapa’s patients the option to leave the island. The majority, however, stayed: even though they were no longer contagious, most of their friends and family were gone, and the antibiotic that stopped the leprosy bacillus could not reverse the disfiguring effects of the disease. Incredibly, there are still a few patients left on Kalaupapa to this day: the oldest is 100. When the last patient passes away, the settlement will become a National Park.

The Kalaupapa peninsula and the current location of the settlement

The Visit

Kalaupapa is still run by the Department of Health, and so to visit the settlement we needed a resident to sponsor us and petition the department for permission to come. I contacted the Catholic priest on Kalaupapa (who turned out to be a Sacred Heart Father), and he graciously agreed to help us out. Without his sponsorship, it would have been impossible to buy a ticket for a ride in the local airline’s tiny prop plane to the Kalaupapa airport (which is smaller than some parking lots and did not have a single employee there when we visited). Our host Father Patrick was an affable Irishman who kindly showed us around, as did two sisters from St. Marianne Cope’s Franciscan order, Sr. Barbara Jean and Sr. Alicia.[2]

St. Philomena Church and Father Damien's Grave

Most of the original buildings are long gone because of the power of the elements on these windswept shores to erode and corrupt. But St. Philomena Church, which was standing when Fr. Damien arrived and which he restored and later expanded, is still there. The structure includes holes drilled into the floorboard of the original nave. One of the effects of leprosy is a violent vomiting of black blood. Rather than leave Mass, lepers could now create a funnel with banana leaves and vomit into the holes.

Floorboard with square holes

 Devotion to the Sacred Heart

Damien, as I have mentioned, was a member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and of the Perpetual Adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. The Sacred Heart Fathers model their lives on the four ages of our Lord: His infancy “by the instruction of children and by the formation of youths for the priesthood”; His hidden life “by the exercise of Adoration”; His public life, “by preaching and by missionary work”; His crucified life “by the works of Christian mortification.” Damien’s own imitation of these four ages is captured by four mosaics outside St. Damien of Molokai Church on the topside of the island. The mosaics were made by 93-year-old Sister Dorothy Santos.

Damien mosaics, with Sr. Dorothy

Damien’s religious calling also served him in other ways. It was the custom of the Sacred Hearts to put a funeral pall over the candidate during the profession ceremony. This custom came to his mind when the bishop asked for a volunteer to Molokai. Damien wrote: “So, remembering that on the day of my profession I had already put myself under the funeral pall, I offered myself to his lordship [the bishop] to meet, if he thought it well, this second death.” By a strange coincidence, when someone contracted leprosy in the Middle Ages, a Requiem Mass was held for him, and he attended his own funeral underneath a black canopy near the altar.

Praying at Father Damien’s grave, I noticed an inscription that I had not seen before: V.C.J.S. I later learned that it was the motto of the Sacred Heart Congregation: Vivat Cor Jesu Sacratissimum, Long live the most Sacred Heart of Jesus! It is a fit sentiment for the feast today, and every day.

Notes

[1] Joseph Ratzinger, Behold the Pierced One, p. 69. 

[2] St. Marianna Cope and her sisters came to the settlement as Fr. Damien lay dying of leprosy and made even more improvements. She was canonized in 2012, three years after Fr. Damien.

A Liturgical Curiosity for the Feast of the Sacred Heart

Just as devotion to the Blessed Sacrament is older than the liturgical feast of Corpus Christi, devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus predates the formal institution of a feast in its honor, by many centuries in fact. For example, St Gertrude the Great, who lived from 1256 to the first years of the following century, writes of a vision of St John the Evangelist which she beheld on his feast day, in which he brought her to lay her head upon the breast of the Lord, as he himself had done at the Last Supper. St Gertrude than ask John if he had also heard the beating of the Lord’s heart as she did, and when he replied that he had, and that the sweetness of it had penetrated into his very marrow, she asked him why he had not written about this in the Gospel. St John replied:

My duty was to write to the young Church only about the uncreated Word of God the Father, ... To speak of the sweet beatings of (this heart) was reserved for modern times, so that from the hearing of such things, the world might grow warm again when it had become old and tepid in the love of God. (The Herald of Divine Piety, 4, 4)

The Last Supper, by Ugolino di Nerio, 1325-28

Like the feast of Corpus Christi, that of the Sacred Heart was first proposed in a vision vouchsafed to a nun; during a Forty-hours Devotion held within the octave of Corpus Christi in 1675, the Lord appeared to the French Visitandine St Margaret-Mary Alacoque, the consummation of a long series of visions. He then asked her to work for the institution of a feast in reparation for the ingratitude and indifference which so many show to Him “in the sacrament of love,” to be kept on the day after the Octave of Corpus; this day is of course Friday, the day of His Passion. Within the Saint’s lifetime, the feast had begun to be celebrated by her order and among certain other congregations; as it slowly gained ground, it was formally recognized and permitted by Pope Clement XIII in 1765, and extended to the universal calendar of the Church by Blessed Pius IX in 1856.

When the neo-Gallican Missal of Paris was issued in 1738 by the Archbishop Charles de Vintimille, the feast had not yet been formally approved by Rome or widely accepted outside a few religious orders; however, the new Parisian Missal did fulfill one aspect of the request made by the Lord to St Margaret Mary. Among the collection of votive Masses is a special Mass “for the reparation of injuries done to Christ in the Most Holy Sacrament.” This Mass is placed between the votive Mass of the Sacrament and that of the Passion; furthermore, a rubric after the Octave of Corpus Christi prescribes this Mass be said on the following day, which is now kept everywhere as the feast of the Sacred Heart. Here is the full text of the Mass. The translations of the prayers are my own; the Scriptural quotations are taken from the Douay-Rheims translation, with a few modifications necessary to the sense.

The Apparition of Our Lord to St Margaret Mary Alacoque; stained glass window in St Brendan’s Church, Birr, County Offaly, Ireland. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE)

Introit Quanta malignatus est in- imicus in sancto! in terra pollue- runt tabernaculum nominis tui, Domine. Usquequo, Deus, irri- tat adversarius nomen tuum in finem?	What things the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary! they have defiled the dwelling place of thy name on the earth. How long, O God; doth the adversary provoke thy name forever?  Psalm 73
Psalm. Ut quid, Deus, repulisti in finem? iratus est furor tuus super oves pascuae tuae. Gloria Patri. Quanta malignatus...	O God, why hast thou cast us off unto the end: why is thy wrath enkindled against the sheep of thy pasture? Glory be. What things.
Oratio Gementes et dolentes su- per cunctis abominationibus quae fiunt in domo tua, propi- tius respice, Deus omnipotens; et pro contumeliis quibus in Sa- cramento sui amoris impetitur Dominus Jesus, ipsum fac pro nobis esse apudte propitiatio- nem. Qui tecum.	The Collect Look with mercy, God almighty, upon those who mourn and grieve for all the abominations that take place in Thy house; and for the injuries by which the Lord Jesus is assailed in the Sacrament of His love, make Him the propitiation before Thee for our sake. Who liveth and reigneth with Thee...

The Epistle, Hebrews 10, 22-31 Brethren: Let us draw near with a true heart in fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with clean water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering (for he is faithful that hath promised), And let us consider one another, to provoke unto charity and to good works: Not forsaking our assembly, as some are accustomed; but comforting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching. For if we sin willfully after having the knowledge of the truth, there is now left no sacrifice for sins, but a certain dreadful expectation of judgment, and the rage of a fire which shall consume the adversaries. A man making void the law of Moses, dieth without any mercy under two or three witnesses: how much more, do you think he deserveth worse punishments, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath esteemed the blood of the testament unclean, by which he was sanctified, and hath offered an affront to the Spirit of grace? For we know him that hath said: Vengeance belongeth to me, and I will repay. And again: The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Graduale Viderunt altare profa- natum, et sciderunt vestimenta sua, et planxerunt planctu ma- no. V. Imposuerunt cinerem su- per caput suum, et ceciderunt in faciem super terram, et cla- maverunt in caelum.	They saw the altar profaned, and they rent their garments, and made great lamentation. V. They put ashes on their heads, and fell down to the ground on their faces, and they cried towards heaven. 1 Macc. 4, 38-40
Alleluja, alleluja. Zelus domus tuae comedit me, et opprobria exprobrantium tibi ceciderunt super me. Alleluja,	Alleluja, alleluja. Zeal of Thy house hath eaten me up, and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fal- len upon me. Alleluja. Ps. 68, 10

The Gospel, Matthew 22, 1-14 At that time: Jesus spoke again in parables to the chief priests and Pharisees, saying: The kingdom of heaven is likened to a king, who made a marriage for his son. And he sent his servants, to call them that were invited to the marriage; and they would not come. Again he sent other servants, saying: Tell them that were invited, Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my calves and fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come ye to the marriage. But they neglected, and went their own ways, one to his farm, and another to his merchandise. And the rest laid hands on his servants, and having treated them contumeliously, put them to death. But when the king had heard of it, he was angry, and sending his armies, he destroyed those murderers, and burnt their city. Then he saith to his servants: The marriage indeed is ready; but they that were invited were not worthy. Go ye therefore into the highways; and as many as you shall find, call to the marriage. And his servants going forth into the ways, gathered together all that they found, both bad and good: and the marriage was filled with guests. And the king went in to see the guests: and he saw there a man who had not on a wedding garment. And he saith to him: Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? But he was silent. Then the king said to the waiters: Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen.

Offertorium Ad Christum acce- damus cum vero corde in ple- nitudine fidei, aspersi corda a conscientia mala, et considere- mus invicem in provocationem caritatis, et bonorum operum.	Let us draw near to Christ with a true heart in fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil con- science, and let us consider one an- other, to provoke unto charity and to good works. Hebrews 10, 22 & 24
Secreta Deus, qui Unigenitum tuum in Cruce pro transgresso- ribus orantem exaudisti; quae- sumus, ut nos, qui in altari tuo ipsum offerimus pro contami- atoribus mensae illius orantes, clementer exaudire digneris. Per eundem.	The Secret O God, who didst harken to Thy Only-Begotten Son as He prayed upon the Cross for the trans- gressors; we ask that Thou mercifully deign to hear us, as we pray upon Thy altar for them that defile His table. Through the same.
Communio Quanta putatis me- reri supplicia, qui Filium Dei conculcaverit, et sanguinem testamenti pollutum duxerit, in quo sanctificatus est?	Communion How great punisments do you think he deserveth, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath esteemed the blood of the testament unclean, by which he was sanctified? Hebrews 10, 29
Postcommunio Domine Jesu Christe, qui zelo domus Dei succensus, vendentes et e- mentes de templo ejecisti: da comedentibus panem tuum, eodem zelo animari; et propter reos corporis tui aut tabescere gementes, aut ad prohibendum fortes ignescere. Qui vivis..	Post Communion Lord Jesus Christ, who, kindled with zeal for the house of God, didst cast out from the tem- ple them that bought and sold: grant to those that eat Thy bread, that they may be filled with the same zeal; and either to languish with mourning over those guilty of Thy body, or to burn mightily to stop them. Who livest and reignest.

The Triumph of St Norbert

Today is the feast of St Norbert, the founder of the Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré, who died on this day in the year 1134. Religious orders have traditionally kept a variety of secondary feasts of their major Saints, and the Premonstratensians were no exception. Since June 6th often occurs within the octaves of Pentecost or Corpus Christi, for a time it was relegated in their liturgical books to a “Commemoration” of their founder’s death, and a “Solemnity of St Norbert” was instituted on July 11th, so the feast could more conveniently be kept with an octave, as was customary for all major Patron Saints. (This was also done by the Benedictines on the same day.) There was also a feast on May 7th of the translation of his relics, which were taken in 1627 from the cathedral of his episcopal see of Magdeburg, which had turned Protestant quite early on, to Strahov Abbey in Prague, where they remain to this day.

The shrine of St Norbert at Strahov Abbey, from this post of 2016.

Another of these secondary feasts is called “the Triumph of St Norbert”, commemorating his defeat of a particularly bizarre heresy in the Low Countries, especially in the area of Antwerp. Norbert was a great promoter of Eucharistic devotion, one of the characteristic features of his order, well over a century before Pope Urban IV promulgated the feast of Corpus Christi. As recounted in the Premonstratensian Breviary, Tanchelm, “a most wicked man and enemy of the whole Christian faith, and of all religion”, denied any value or purpose to the Blessed Sacrament, and had somehow succeeded in convincing his fanatical followers to worship himself, and venerate his bathwater as a relic. The local clergy, unable to make any headway against the sect, consigned one of their churches to the newly founded order of canons regular; St Norbert and his brethren completely defeated the heresy solely by the force of their preaching. Faithful Catholics who had managed to hide the Sacrament and sacred vessels from profanation, keeping them hidden in some cases for several years, brought them back to St Norbert, who restored to them to the churches.

The Citizens of Antwerp Return to St Norbert the Monstrance and Sacred Vessels They Had Hidden from Tanchelm - Cornelis de Vos, 1630

In the early 17th century, the same Abbot of Prémontré who presided over the translation of St Norbert’s relics, Pierre Gosset, granted the celebration of this feast to the province of the Order which included the Low Countries. It was extended to the entire Order by Pope Leo XIII, and originally assigned to the 3rd Sunday after Pentecost, then moved back a day after St Pius X’s Breviary reform. The Office for this feast is identical to that of Corpus Christi, except for the lessons of the second nocturn, which recount the story of the heresy’s defeat. A commemoration of St Norbert is added to both Vespers and Lauds; at the latter, the antiphon is taken from his principal feast.

Aña Antverpienses, Tanchelmi haeresi sacramentaria dementatos, verbo Dei sane propinato, ad fidei Catholicae communionem reduxit. - By soundly preaching the word of God, he brought the citizens of Antwerp, who had been driven mad by Tanchelm’s heresy on the Sacrament, back to the communion of the Catholic Faith.

The Parisian Mass for the Octave of Corpus Christi

Some of the oldest Roman octaves, such as those of Ss Peter and Paul and St Lawrence, have a Mass on the octave day itself which is different or partly different from that of the main feast; Peter and Paul also have another Mass for the days within the octave. However, by the time the feast of Corpus Christi was promulgated in the mid-13th century, this custom was no longer being developed for new celebrations, and the Mass of the feast was simply repeated though the octave. As I noted recently, the neo-Gallican Parisian Missal of 1738 added a proper Epistle and Gospel for each day within the octave of Corpus Christi, a development which by the standards of its time was certainly an innovation, but one in keeping with tradition. This Missal also contains a special Mass for the octave day, which is for the most part quite well composed from a literary point of view.

The Mass of the Octave of Corpus Christi, from the 1738 Parisian Missal

The introit is taken from the book of the Prophet Malachi (1, 11), a text which was already understood to be a reference to the Eucharistic sacrifice by St Justin Martyr in the mid-2nd century.

Introitus Ab ortu solis usque ad occasum, magnum est nomen meum in gentibus, et in omni loco sacrificatur et offertur nomini meo oblatio munda, quia magnum est nomen meum in gentibus, dicit Dominus exercituum. Ps. 49 Deus deorum Dominus locutus est, et vocavit terram a solis ortu usque ad occasum. Gloria Patri. Ab ortu solis.

Introit From the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation: for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts. Ps. 49 The God of gods, the Lord hath spoken: and he hath called the earth from the rising of the sun, to the going down thereof. Glory be. From the rising.

The Collect is taken from an ancient Sacramentary of the Gallican Rite.

Oratio Deus, qui magno misericordiae tuae munere, docuisti nos redemptionis nostrae sacrificium celebrare, sicut óbtulit Póntifex noster Jesus Chrifius in terris: da nobis, quaesumus, ut sanctifìcati per oblatiónem Córporis et Sanguinis ejus, cum ipso mereamur in sempiternum consummari; Qui tecum.

Prayer God, who by the great gift of Thy mercy, taught us to celebrate the sacrifice of our redemption, as our priest Jesus Christ offered (it) upon the earth: grant us, we ask, that sanctified by the offering of His Body and Blood, we may merit to be perfected for ever with Him who liveth and reigneth...

The neo-Gallican revisers were very fond of creating themes in the liturgy, and this Mass is no exception. The Epistle, Hebrews 7, 18-28, continues the thought of the Introit and Collect on the universal priestly offering of Christ. This passage is perhaps also chosen for Corpus Christi as a deliberate rebuke or challenge to the Calvinists, who often cited the words of verse 27, “Who needeth not daily (as the other priests) to offer sacrifices first for his own sins, and then for the people’s, for this He did once, in offering Himself”, against the Catholic doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Mass.

The Gradual joins the line of Psalm 109 quoted above by St Paul with the figure of Melchisedech, whose appearance in the book of Genesis (14, 17-20) is read as the Epistle on Friday within the Octave.

Graduale Melchisedech rex Salem, protulit panem et vinum, erat enim sacerdos Dei altissimi. V. Juravit Dominus, et non poenitebit eum: Tu es sacerdos in aeternum secundum ordinem Melchisedech.

Graduale Melchisedech, the king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine, for he was the priest of the most high God. V. The Lord hath sworn, and he will not repent: Thou art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech.

The Offerings of Abel and Melchisedech, mosaic from the Church of San Vitale in Ravenna, 526-547 AD. (Image from Wikipedia by Roger Culos - CC BY-SA 3.0)

The Alleluia is also taken from the Epistle to the Hebrews (9, 26), after which St Thomas’ Sequence Lauda, Sion is said as on the feast day.

Alleluia, alleluia. Christus in consummatione saeculorum, ad destitutionem peccati, per hostiam suam apparuit, alleluia. – Alleluia, alleluia. Christ at the end of ages hath appeared for the destruction of sin, by the sacrifice of Himself, alleluia.

The Gospel, John 6, 58-70, is the fourth of a series of readings chosen to give a broader selection from the Eucharistic discourse of that chapter than the four verses (56-59) originally provided by St Thomas’ version of the Mass. (Monday, verses 27-35; Tuesday, 41-44; Wednesday, 51-55.) The neo-Gallican revisers, like most “right-thinking” liturgists, were painfully obsessed with making the liturgy more Scriptural and more didactic; the results of their tinkering are often comically inept, as for example, in the damage which they did to St Thomas’ Office of Corpus Christi. Here, however, they have shown a commendable respect for the original tradition, while at the same time building from it, an example which the modern revisers of the lectionary might profitably have heeded.

The Offertory is taken from the First Epistle of St Peter, 2, 4-5.

Offertorium Ad Christum accedentes lapidem vivum, et ipsi tamquam lapides vivi superaedificamini, domus spiritualis, sacerdotium sanctum, offerre spirituales hostias, acceptabiles Deo per Jesum Christum, alleluia.

Offertory Coming unto Christ, as to a living stone, be you also as living stones built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ, alleluia.

The first part of the Secret (up to the asterisk) is taken from a very ancient prayer found in the Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries; in the latter, as in the Missal of St Pius V, it is assigned to the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost. (The Latin version of this prayer, moved to the 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time, somehow managed to survive the Consilium intact; the 1973 ICEL version of it was one of the old translation’s most grotesque failures, as Fr Zuhlsdorf noted here in this very useful commentary.) The second part was composed specifically for this Mass.

Secreta Deus, qui legalium differentias hostiarum unius sacrificii perfectione sanxisti: accipe sacrificium a devotis tibi famulis; et pari benedictione, sicut munera Abel, sanctifica; ut * Christo sacerdoti et victimae per fidem adunati, nosmetipsos tibi hostiam viventem, sanctam, et beneplacentem exhibere valeamus. Per eundem...

Secret O God, who by the perfection of the one sacrifice didst ratified variety of offerings prescribed by the Law; receive (this) sacrifice from the servants devoted to Thee, and sanctify it by a blessing (as Thou did with) the gifts of Abel; so that * we, united by faith to Christ, who is priest and victim, may be able to offer to Thee ourselves, as a living, holy and well-pleasing sacrifice. Through the same...

The Secret “Deus qui legalium” in the Echternach Sacramentary, 895AD. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Latin 9433) In the Gelasian Sacramentary, it appears in the third of sixteen Masses under the heading “for Sundays”, without further qualification. Later sacramentaries would reorganize the material in the Gelasian in broadly similar, but not identical ways; in the Echternach, it is assigned to the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, rather than the Seventh.

The Communion antiphon is taken from 1 Corinthians 11, 24-25, an unusual (for neo-Gallicans) example of a partial and inexact quotation.

Communio Hoc corpus quod pro vobis tradetur: hic calix novi testamenti еst in meo sanguine, dicit Dóminus: hoc facite, quotiescumque sumitis, in meam commemoratiónem.

Communion This (is the) body, which shall be delivered for you: this chalice is the new testament in my blood: do ye this, as often as you shall receive it, for the commemoration of me.

The Postcommunion is a new composition, which cites the idea of the Communion antiphon, again keeping to a theme.

Postcommunio Domine Jesu Christe, qui corpus et sanguinem tuum esse voluisti humanae salutis pretium, Ecclesiae tuae sacrificium, et nostrae infirmitatis alimentum; praesta, quaesumus, ut haec sancta, quae in tui commemorationem nos súmere praecepisti, sempiternam nobis redemptiónem operentur. Qui vivis.

Postcommunio Lord Jesus Christ, who willed that Thy Body and Blood be the price of man’s salvation, Thy Church’s sacrifice, and the nourishment of our weakness; grant, we ask, that these holy things, which Thou didst command us to receive in commemoration of Thee, may effect for us everlasting redemption. Who livest.

St Boniface, the Apostle of Germany

On the Roman calendar, June 5th is the feast of St Boniface, archbishop of the important German see of Mainz, who was martyred on this day in the year 754, around the age of 80, after several decades of missionary activity in western Germany and the Low Countries. The English historian Christopher Dawson once wrote of him that he “had a deeper influence on the history of Europe than any Englishman who has ever lived;” his feast, however, was not added to the general calendar until 1874. This was done in part as Bl. Pius IX’s response to Bismarck’s Kulturkampf, which sought to detach the Catholic Church in Germany from its loyalty to Rome. (je mehr es sich ändert...) Boniface’s first, unsuccessful attempt at preaching the Gospel in Frisia “convinced him that if he was to succeed he must have a direct commission from the Pope; and in 718 he presented himself before St Gregory II in Rome.” (Butler’s Lives). The whole of his subsequent career, included the establishment of the most ancient sees and abbeys of that part of the world, depended on the authority he drew from Rome.

St Boniface, by Cornelius Bloemaert, ca. 1630 (Public domain image from Wikipedia.)

The curious representation of him with a sword on which a book is spiked derives from a tradition concerning his martyrdom. At the moment when he was attacked by a group of pagans, he was reading a book, which he held above his head to keep it from being damaged by their weapons. (In the mid-8th century, any book was by definition an incredibly rare and precious thing.) His relics were taken to the abbey of Fulda, which he and a disciple, St Sturmi, had founded in 741; the abbey also had the book in question, which was venerated as a relic, its cover marked with sword-cuts, and stains believed to be his blood. The same story is represented in a Sacramentary produced at Fulda around the year 1000, now kept at the State Library of Bamberg.

Chalice Palls Hand Embroidered by Kathryn Laffrey

Kathryn Laffrey is currently studying for her Master of Sacred Arts at Pontifex University. You can commission works from her, and I recommend her embroidery, particularly at kl-artstudio.com. Kathryn came to Princeton for the last Scala Foundation Conference, in Princeton in 2022, and it was a pleasure to see her there.

The pelican is a symbol of the Eucharist because it was once believed that pelicans fed their young on their own flesh, pecked from their breasts. This is a symbol of the faithful, who are part of the mystical body of Christ, eating the body and blood of Christ. 

Our Lord’s Request for the Institution of the Feast of His Sacred Heart

The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus has deep roots; texts can be found in the ancient and medieval periods that speak of the love of His wounded and glorious Heart, and of the appropriate response of adoring love we should make to Him.

However, the devotion in the form more familiar to Catholics today is traceable to the private revelations made by Our Lord Jesus Christ to St Margaret Mary Alacoque in the later 17th century. The content of these revelations was written down for her spiritual director, St Claude de la Colombiere, and are widely available (see, e.g., here).

A priest mentioned to me a detail that had previously escaped my notice. When Our Lord appeared to St Margaret Mary on June 16, 1675, to request the institution of a feast in honor of His Sacred Heart, He spoke as follows:

I ask of you that the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi be set apart for a special Feast to honor My Heart, by communicating on that day, and making reparation to It by a solemn act, in order to make amends for the indignities which It has received during the time It has been exposed on the altars. I promise you that My Heart shall expand Itself to shed in abundance the influence of Its divine love upon those who shall thus honor It, and cause It to be honored.

The very Son of God — God from God, Light from Light, Word Incarnate, Eternal High Priest, Head of the Mystical Body, Creator, Savior, and Judge of the universe — refers as a matter of course to the “Octave of Corpus Christi” and places His request for a special feast precisely in this context. Moreover, He specifically asks that the feast be one of reparation, and that this reparation be connected with the extended Eucharistic adoration during the Octave of Corpus Christi. Finally, He promises to shed His divine love on those who shall thus honor His Heart, that is, honor It in the manner He has explained.

Is it not disturbing, then, to think of liturgical reformers under Pius XII simply chucking out this Octave of Corpus Christi, which had endured from the time of its widespread observance in the 14th century until 1955, at which time all octaves were abolished except those of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost? [1] The invisible supreme Head of the Church endorsed this octave and made His requests based on it, but no matter; committees know better, and popes always know better, as we can see today.

Although the feast of the Sacred Heart always possessed a reparatory character, this was underlined by the new Mass and Office for the feast promulgated by Pius XI in 1928, to replace the Mass and Office first approved by Clement XIII in 1765, and extended to the universal Church in 1856. For 41 years, this Collect, which so aptly mirrors Our Lord’s request, was recited at Mass:

O God, Who in the Heart of Thy Son, wounded by our sins, dost mercifully vouchsafe to bestow upon us the infinite wealth of Thy love; grant, we beseech Thee, that revering It with meet devotion, we may fulfil our duty of worthy reparation. Through the same our Lord Jesus Christ…

Moreover, the Postcommunion prays for detachment from worldly goods and attachment to heavenly ones, a petition characteristic of the usus antiquior in general, and fitting for this feast in particular, which is very much about the truth “where your heart is, there your treasure is also”:

May Thy holy mysteries, O Lord Jesus, produce in us a divine fervour, whereby, having tasted the sweetness of Thy most dear Heart, we may learn to despise earthly things and love those of heaven: Who livest and reigneth.

In contrast, the Novus Ordo Collect borrows some of its phrasing from Clement XIII, while recasting it in a more generic Christological way that does not emphasize the rationale behind the institution of the feast:

Grant, we pray, almighty God, that we, who glory in the Heart of your beloved Son and recall the wonders of his love for us, may be made worthy to receive an overflowing measure of grace from that fount of heavenly gifts. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son…

Happily, the Collect of Pius XI was added back as an option in the most recent edition of the Pauline missal, which will bring it back into circulation to some extent. The Postcommunion, regrettably, excises the unfashionable sentiment discamus terrena despicere, et amare caelestia, and, recasts the prayer to the Father, due to the subordinationist principle that we must nearly always address the Father rather than the Son in our public prayer:

May this sacrament of charity, O Lord, make us fervent with the fire of holy love, so that, drawn always to your Son, we may learn to see him in our neighbor. Through Christ our Lord.

As a friend commented on this prayer, “All man, all the time.” As Gaudium et Spes 12 begins, “According to the almost unanimous opinion of believers and unbelievers alike, all things on earth should be related to man as their center and crown.”

In 1904, Pope St Pius X added the threefold invocation Cor Iesu Sacratissimum, miserere nobis to the already-existing Leonine prayers after Low Mass. In 1964, the Instruction Inter Oecumenici abolished all of the prayers after Mass. For sixty years, Catholics on every continent, of every culture, in every conceivable situation, prayed, “Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.” But this was, one supposes, just another of those useless repetitions that had to be purged for the benefit of . . .

Come to think of it, cui bono? Why was the character of the feast tilted away from the theme of reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for sins, blasphemies, outrages, sacrileges, indifference, and worldliness? Why was the octave of Corpus Christi abolished, depriving the Church and the world of more solemn, calendrically set-apart opportunities to adore the Lord with Eucharistic adoration, exposition, and procession? Why did we abandon the humble collective invocations that united us to one another and to the merciful God at the end of Low Mass?

Indeed, the very Offertory of the Mass in which the priest says that he is offering sacrifice for his sins, offenses, and negligences, as also for the welfare of the living and the dead, was abolished, as was the Placeat tibi at the end of Mass:

May the homage of my bounden duty be pleasing to Thee, O Holy Trinity; and grant that the sacrifice which I, though unworthy, have offered in the sight of Thy Majesty may be acceptable to Thee, and through Thy mercy be a propitiation for me and for all those for whom I have offered it. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

What benefit did the reformers under Pius XII and Paul VI think they were bringing to the Church by removing so many references to the “sins, offenses, and negligences” for which we are called upon to make reparation?

On a good day in October 1946, a day when chopping off digits and limbs from the liturgical calendar wasn’t on the agenda, Pius XII said, “Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin.” Whatever else may be said, this much is clear: the changes to the liturgy have not helped us regain it.

Cor Iesu Sacratissimum, miserere nobis.
Cor Iesu Sacratissimum, miserere nobis.
Cor Iesu Sacratissimum, miserere nobis.

NOTE

[1] As the incomparable St. Andrew Daily Missal of 1945 tells us on p. 782: “To resist the attacks of renewed heresies against the Holy Eucharist and to revive in the Church a zeal which had somewhat grown cold, the Holy Ghost inspired, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, the solemnity of Corpus Christi. In 1208, the blessed Juliana of Mount Cornillon, near Liège, saw in a vision the full moon with an indentation indicating that a feast was missing in the liturgical cycle. . . . It was thought that immediately after Paschaltide a feast with an octave should be established. As the Last Supper took place on Thursday, the Bishop of Liège instituted in 1246 this solemnity in his diocese on the Thursday which follows the octave of Pentecost. In 1264, Pope Urban IV extended this feast to the whole world.”

This commentary brings several truths to mind: first, that the Holy Spirit is the principal agent of organic liturgical development, who also inspires the conservation of that which has been established; second, that the double fittingness of a Thursday feast followed by an octave was intuitively grasped, precisely because of the need to resist heresy and rekindle fervor; third, that if this feast was needed by medieval Catholics, a fortiori it is needed by Catholics today, who are facing heresy, apostasy, and indifference several magnitudes greater; fourth, that the Church observed this Corpus Christi octave for between 500 and 700 years (depending on the region, as the feast was of variable diffusion), before Pius XII unceremoniously scrapped the octave and later bishops bumped it to a Sunday (I refer not to the concept of a so-called “external solemnity,” but of a simple switch from the proper day to the nearest Sunday, thereby effectively surrendering to the Protestant conception of the secular work week). The changes offer another a textbook example of how badly mistaken recent popes and liturgists have been in “interpreting the signs of the times.”

Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s Substack “Tradition & Sanity”; personal site; composer site; publishing house Os Justi Press and YouTube, SoundCloud, and Spotify pages.

Other Readings for the Octave of Corpus Christi

The Roman Rite has various ways of arranging the Masses during an octave. That of Easter, for example, has a completely proper Mass for every day, that of Pentecost for every day but Thursday, which was originally an “aliturgical” day; when its Mass was instituted later, it was given proper readings, but everything else is repeated from Sunday. The feast of Ss Peter and Paul is continued with one Mass for the days within the octave, and another for the octave day itself, plus the special Commemoration of St Paul on June 30th. Some others, however, especially the relatively late ones like Ascension and All Saints, simply repeat the Mass of the day throughout the octave.

Folio 87r of the 9th century Lectionary of Alcuin, showing the Epistle then in use for the Octave of Ss Peter and Paul, Galatians 2, 6-10.

Corpus Christi, originally instituted in the mid-13th century, and slow to be received in many places, falls into the latter category, although the Mass of the Sunday within the octave, which is much older than the octave itself, is different. Octaves are for the contemplation of mysteries that are too great for a single day, and it is certainly true that “repetita juvant”, a proverb which the Roman Rite, with its habitual conservatism, historically took very much to heart.

In the mid-17th century, most of the churches of France began revising their liturgical books on their own initiative, and without reference to the authority of the Holy See, as part of the liturgical movement which we now often call “neo-Gallican.” Paris was, of course, one of the leaders of this trend, and the first See of importance to change the order of the Breviary Psalter, which would later become the model for the reformed Psalter of St Pius X.

When the first neo-Gallican Parisian Missal came out in 1685, the Mass of Corpus Christi remained unchanged. However, the Mass for the Sunday within the Octave was extensively revised to make it fit in more with the theme of the feast. (The neo-Gallican revisers were very fond of easily grasped themes.) The 1602 Paris Missal has the same Epistle as the Roman Rite, 1 John 3, 13-18; the 1685 Missal changes it to 1 Corinthians, 10, 16-21, principally because of the opening words, “The chalice of benediction, which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? And the bread, which we break, is it not the partaking of the body of the Lord? For we, being many, are one bread, one body, all that partake of one bread.” This is clearly very suitable for Corpus Christi, and in fact provides the text for a responsory of the feast which was composed by St Thomas, and found in almost every liturgical Use apart from the Roman. The Gospel, Luke 14, 16-24, beginning with the words “A certain man made a great supper, and invited many,” is left unchanged for obvious reasons.

If one Archbishop of Paris could arrogate to his office the right to re-edit the liturgical books used in his See without reference to the Roman authorities, there was no particular reason why subsequent Archbishops should not avail themselves of the same right. Consequently, the liturgical books of Paris went through multiple revisions between 1680 and their definitive abolition in 1873. The most momentous of these were the editions of Abp Charles de Vintimille, the Breviary of 1736, and the Missal of 1738.

The frontispiece of the 1685 Parisian Missal; conspicuously absent are the words “ad formam sacrosancti concilii Tridentini emendatum – emended according to the form (laid down by) the sacred council of Trent.”

This newer revised Parisian Use is in many respects inspired by tradition, but did not shy away from innovations, which vary in quality; in regard to the Mass lectionary, it retained the traditional two-reading structure, while expanding the corpus of readings considerably. For the octave of Corpus Christi, a separate pair of readings is provided for each day; the Sunday readings of the 1685 Missal are retained as part of the series.

Friday: Genesis 14, 17-20 – Matthew 26, 26-29
Saturday: Exodus 12, 1-11 – Luke 22, 7-20
Sunday: 1 Corinthians 10, 12-21 – Luke 14, 16-24
Monday: Exodus 16, 13-18 – John 6, 27-35
Tuesday: Wisdom 16, 20-28 – John 6, 41-44
Wednesday: 2 Corinthians 6, 14 - 7, 1 – John 6, 51-55
Thursday: Hebrews 7, 18-28 – John 6, 58-70

The first two of the added Gospel readings are taken from Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts of the Institution of the Eucharist; a parallel passage from St Mark (14, 17-25) is added to the readings assigned for the Votive Mass of the Blessed Sacrament. The four Gospels from John 6 (Monday to Thursday) give a broader selection from the long passage known as the Eucharistic Discourse, ending with St John’s account of St Peter’s confession. “Then Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go away? And Simon Peter answered him: Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have known, that thou art the Christ, the Son of God.”

Christ Giving the Keys to St Peter, by Perugino, 1482; Sistine Chapel, Vatican City. The background on the left represents Christ speaking to the people at Capharnaum in John 6; on the right, the figures that seem like they are dancing are actually trying to stone Him, in response to some of the sayings like “Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.” In the foreground, St Peter is rewarded for his confession of Christ.

The passage from Genesis 14 tells of the bread and wine given to Abraham by Melchisedech, the king of Salem, after the defeat of the five kings. These have been taken from the most ancient times as a symbol of the elements of the Eucharist, as described by St Cyprian in the Matins readings of Tuesday within the octave. “In Genesis, therefore, in order that the blessing might in due order be pronounced upon Abraham through the priest Melchisedech, there was first offered the image of the sacrifice, consisting of bread and wine. And the Lord, completing this and perfecting it, offered bread and a cup of wine mingled with water; and He that is the fullness fulfilled the truth of that which was prefigured.” This is also, of course, why Melchisedech is mentioned in the Canon of the Mass.

Of the two readings from Exodus, the first is repeated from Good Friday, describing the preparation of the Paschal Lamb; the second is the instruction given to the children of Israel about collecting the manna in the desert. These were certainly inspired by the citation of the same passages in the first two Matins responsories of St Thomas’ Office for Corpus Christi.

The second half of the book of Wisdom (from verse 10, 16 to the end) is a long meditation on the events of the Exodus; the passage given above for Tuesday also refers to the manna with which God fed the children of Israel in the desert, and to which Christ and His interlocutors refer in John 6. The words of verse 20, “Thou gavest them bread from heaven ... having in it all that is delicious”, are the versicle of Vespers of the feast, and also sung at Benediction.

The Wednesday Epistle from St Paul is included here as an admonition on the proper disposition for reception of the Sacrament: “You are the temple of the living God... Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and of the spirit, perfecting sanctification in the fear of God.” That of the Octave day speaks of the worship of the New Covenant as “a setting aside of the former commandment.” This passage is perhaps also chosen for Corpus Christi as a deliberate rebuke or challenge to the Calvinists (by far the most prominent group of Protestants in France), who often cited the words of verse 27, “Who needeth not daily (as the other priests) to offer sacrifices first for his own sins, and then for the people’s, for this He did once, in offering Himself”, against the Catholic doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Mass.

The neo-Gallican revisions made a number of very bold changes to the Missal; it was a common preoccupation of the revisers that original liturgical compositions should be replaced with Scriptural quotes, but St Thomas’ Mass for Corpus Christi was already mostly Scriptural anyway, and was therefore left alone in 1685. (Their great enemy of the movement, Dom Prosper Guéranger, speaks of these changes, with classic French délicatesse, as “Honteuses et criminelles mutilations, témérités coupables – shameful and criminal mutilations, rash acts deserving of condemnation.”)

St. Thomas Aquinas in Glory among the Doctors of the Church, by Francisco de Zurbarán, 1631

One change was then made to it in the Missal of 1738, by replacing the original Communio, “As often as you shall eat this Bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord, until He comes. Therefore whoever eats this Bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily, will be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. Alleluia.” Anticipating one of the more inexcusable changes made by the Novus Ordo lectionary, this is replaced by an exact quote of Wisdom 16, 20, “Thou didst feed thy people with the food of angels, and gavest them bread from heaven prepared without labour; having in it all that is delicious, and the sweetness of every taste.”

The Missal of 1738 has a few other interesting things to note in regard to Corpus Christi. The first is that during the Sequence Lauda Sion, the verse “Ecce panis Angelorum” is sung three times on the feast day itself, and on the octave, but only once on the days within the octave. The celebrant and the major ministers kneel when it is sung, while the members of the choir “face the altar until the end of the Sequence.”

Abp de Ventimille also added to the Parisian Missal new prefaces for Advent, Holy Thursday (also said at votive Masses of the Sacrament), Corpus Christi, All Saints (also said on the feasts of Patron Saints), Saints Denys and Companions, and for Masses of the Dead. When the neo-Gallican Uses were gradually suppressed over the course of the 19th century, some of their features were retained by being incorporated into the French supplements “for certain places” in the Roman liturgical books, these prefaces among them. The 2020 decree Quo magis gives universal permission to use those of All Saints and Patron Saints, the Dedication of a Church, and Corpus Christi; the text of the last is as follows:

“VD: per Christum Dóminum nostrum. Qui, remótis carnalium victimárum inánibus umbris, Corpus et Sánguinem suum nobis in sacrificium commendávit: ut in omni loco offerátur nómini tuo, quae tibi sola complácuit, oblatio munda. In hoc ígitur inscrutábilis sapientiae, et immensae caritátis mysterio, idipsum quod semel in Cruce perfécit, non cessat mirabíliter operári, ipse ófferens, ipse et oblatio. Et nos, unam secum hostiam effectos, ad sacrum invítat convivium, in quo ipse cibus noster súmitur, recólitur memoria Passiónis eius, mens implétur grátia, et futúrae gloriae nobis pignus datur. Et ídeo... –

The high altar of the basilica of San Lorenzo in Lucina in Rome. In the magnificent painting over the high altar, The Crucifixion by Guido Reni (1575-1642), the body of Christ is pale and white against a much darker background, a reminder of the Elevation of the Host during the Mass. The effect can be seen even when one is standing outside the church in the piazza. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Rabax63, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Truly it is worthy... through Christ our Lord. Who, the vain shadows of carnal sacrifices being removed, entrusted to us His Body and Blood as a sacrifice; that in every place there may be offered to Thy name that pure sacrifice that alone hath pleased Thee. Therefore, in this mystery of unsearchable wisdom and boundless charity, that very thing which He completed once in the Cross ceaseth not wondrously to have effect, He himself being the one who offers and the offering. And He inviteth us, who are made one victim with Him, to the sacred banquet, in which He himself is received as our food, the memory of His passion is recalled, the mind is filled with grace, and the pledge of future glory is given to us. And therefore with the angels and archangels ...”

When the Parisian Missal of 1738 was issued, the feast of the Sacred Heart had not yet been formally approved by Rome, or accepted outside a few religious orders; however, this Missal did fulfill one aspect of the requests made by the Lord to St Margaret Mary Alacoque in His appearances to her. Among the collection of votive Masses is a special Mass “for the reparation of injuries done to Christ in the Most Holy Sacrament”, placed between the votive Mass of the Sacrament and that of the Passion. A rubric after the Octave of Corpus Christi prescribes this Mass be said on the following day, which is now kept everywhere as the feast of the Sacred Heart. The proper texts of this Mass can be read in Latin and English here.