Corpus Christi Traditional Form Mass - Thursday

We are celebrating a 

Missa Cantata for Corpus Christi 

here at 

St Catherine's 

this 

Thursday at 7pm.

Glass of wine and light refreshments to follow in the 

Pope John Paul Room.

The same reason which caused the Festival of the Holy Trinity, induced the Catholic Church to institute the festival of Corpus Christi. She requires that we shall confess and renew today the faith which we have in the Blessed Eucharist, and that we bestow all possible honours upon the Most Holy Sacrament and give due thanks to our Saviour for its institution. 

In order that this just requirement of the Church may be more fully complied with, we shall here give some explanation of the above reasons. In regard to the first reason, the following are the facts, which the church especially desires to call to our memory by this joyous festival. Our dear Saviour, on the same evening when His bitter suffering for the redemption of man began, instituted the Blessed Eucharist, out of His immeasurable love for us. In it He is truly and substantially present with body and soul, with flesh and blood, as God and Man, under the form of bread and wine. Under the form of bread, not only His holy body, but also His holy blood is present; because a living body cannot exist without blood. Hence he receives it, who partakes of holy communion only in the form of bread, not less than he who receives it in two forms.

From the moment that the priest speaks the prescribed holy words, in the name of Christ, over the bread and wine, the Lord is present in the Holy Sacrament. Bread and wine change their substance miraculously into the true body and blood of the Saviour, in such a manner, that all that remains of the bread and wine is their form, colour and taste. The presence of Christ lasts so long as the bread and the wine are unconsumed. All these points are articles of faith in the Catholic Church, and are explained in sermons, in religious instructions and in many books, and are especially demonstrated by the word of God. All true Catholics believe this without any doubt, as the Almighty, who is eternal and infallible truth, has revealed it, and as that Church assures us, which on account of the assistance of the Holy Ghost, promised to her by Christ, cannot err. Those who are not Catholics teach in many points quite differently. 

From The Festival of Corpus Christi

by Fr. Francis Xavier Weninger,