CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION

By Rev. David Powers, Sch.P., Pastor

On June 14, the Church celebrated the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ. St. Helena Church in the Bronx held the traditional Corpus Christi Procession around the church parking lot following the live-streamed 10:30AM Spanish Mass. The Feast was initiated by St. Juliana of Liege, a young Belgian nun in the thirteenth century. While in prayer, she received the inspiration for a feast that celebrates and promotes the gift of the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, and from that moment, the Feast of Corpus Christi spread throughout the province, continent, and world. The Feast of the Body and Blood of the Lord and the procession with the Blessed Sacrament, celebrating the sacrament and signifying God’s presence in our world and in our lives and reminding us of our common pilgrimage to Heaven, is a prayerful and edifying act of the entire Church. Canon 944 of the Code of Canon Law states: “When it can be done in the judgment of the diocesan bishop, as a public witness of the veneration toward the Most Holy Eucharist, a procession is to be conducted through the public streets, especially on the solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ.”