Sunday, June 22, 2014

Happy 750th Anniversary

It was 750 years ago that Pope Urban IV issued the papal bull "Transiturus," which established the Feast of Corpus Christi as a universal feast of the Church. He then asked the leading theologians of the day, St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure, to compose the official prayers for this feast. After casting lots, St. Thomas Aquinas presented first. With tears of joy, St. Bonaventure was so impressed that he threw his composition into a fireplace and insisted that what St Thomas Aquinas' composition be used -- and it is.

Today Pope Francis said:

"Whenever we participate in the Holy Mass and we eat the body of Christ, the presence of Jesus and the Holy Spirit works within us, it shapes our hearts, it communicates inner attitudes that transform within us into modes of behavior according to the Gospel. ... I would like to highlight these two things: the measure of God's love is to love without measure, our life with the love of Jesus; by receiving the Eucharist we make ourselves a gift just as Jesus was."

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