Oh yeah nothing like mixing up some good religion and jingoism. I prefer not to have the US flag in church
I am not sure where I stand on Corpus Christi processions (no pun intended). I suppose some of what I think is coloured by my experience. Although an Anglo-Catholic my primary exposure has been to the Mass and Divine Office. I have known, but never been associated with parishes, that do Exposition, Benediction, etc. I think my personal convictions on this are closer to Eastern Orthodoxy (EO) than to Roman Catholic views. I do believe when we receive Holy Communion we really do receive Our Lord's Sacred Body and His Precious Blood. How the Holy Spirit goes about converting bread and wine into these sacred species I consider to be a mystery. My views similar to EO is that the sacrament is for consumption rather than for lifting up, showing or parading around.
We seem to observe the Feast on the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost, and since we seem to move everything to the Sunday we end up with a run of Sundays: Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity, Corpus Christi
There are several RCC, OC, ERC, EO, OO members on Christian Forums, who are happy to own their faith tradition and engage in respectful (generally) dialogue. Not questioning your post, just sharing my experience. When you say Catholic I take it you refer to the denomination in communion with Rome, as against those of us who use the term as the third note of the Church thus including a wider range of Christians than the confines of a particular denomination. As an Anglican, I understand myself to be a catholic Christian upholding the creed that expresses that baptismal truth.
Corpus Christie in English is The Body of Christ The Feast of Corpus Christi has been celebrated in various parts of the Western Church since the 13th century. As a feast, it was set aside to provide for a specific reflection on the Holy Sacrament, the Body of Christ. Originally the observation was on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday, however, in many places, it has come to be observed on the Sunday after Trinity Sunday. The linking of Corpus Christi to the octave (8 days following) Trinity Sunday may not seem immediately apparent, but read on. It was not adopted in churches following the Continental Reformation and was not formally set aside in any of the classic Prayer Books of the Church of England, including 1549 and 1662. What is clear however is that in some places the observance continued, and was permitted, as a minor solemnity. Does it have meaning for today? Well the first way we may speak of the Body of Christ, is not so much in the sacrament as in the person of Jesus. Although the 2nd person of the Trinity existed from before the beginning, it is in the incarnation, God born in time and space, that we know Jesus. Born to an unwed mother, in an occupied territory, and away from home, the Body of Jesus often speaks of vulnerability. The child in the manger attracts the attention of both shepherds, wisemen, and the ire of the powerful. The Body of Jesus on the Cross again attracts attention, to the horror of what we can do to one another, the brutality of political expediency, and the vulnerability of the innocent. Nonetheless, that is hardly the full picture of Jesus in the Gospels. Jesus is presented in solidarity with asylum seekers and refugees, as an itinerant preacher who spoke with authority, as a healer, a carer, and as a person who did not seek the crowd. However, at times the crowd sought him. Jesus is a storyteller, whose stories often have an impact and a power that became apparent later. Of course, the first intention of the Feast was to reflect on the Holy Sacrament of the Body of Christ. This builds on several Jesus teachings, which perhaps became more apparent later. In John 6 we have a discussion based on Jesus’ declaration ‘I am the Bread of Life.’ This is one of the seven ‘I am’ sayings of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. In Matthew, Mark and Luke we have the accounts of the Last Supper, with words we are all familiar with, as they have become part of our regular celebration of the Eucharist. In the Western Church, we have tended to use the word Sacrament to describe what is going on, The word suggests a sign pointing to something more, a deeper meaning. The Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Christians tend to use the word ‘Mystery’ which, whilst very similar suggests something more than a sign, but perhaps something that has no words. Ultimately Christians everywhere acknowledge Christ's presence here as we break the bread, for this is what he promised us on the night of his betrayal. The encounter of the tangible and the intangible, in the same moment. Of all the reasons we go to Church, perhaps the most profound is that we go to be in the presence of Jesus. In some ways, this shared encounter in the broken bread is the essence of what it is to be Church. In the book of Acts, we are told that they gathered on the first day of the week, for the breaking of the bread. Of course, Church does not end there, and it should not. The enabling meal at the table strengthens us to go out into the world, carrying the Body of Christ within us into the many situations that form our daily life. Ludwig Feuerbach, The German philosopher, argued that ‘we are what we eat - man is meat’. Whilst the original construct was addressing the problem of malnutrition, it was also clearly picked up by those who wanted to argue a case for atheism. The Church of course has an understanding of self as The Body of Christ. We reiterate this at every Eucharist as part of the Greeting of Peace. This of course is based on several New Testament passages including “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” 1 Corinthians 12:27. This seems sometimes to be a big call, and indeed sometimes at best it may be an aspirational challenge. Surely we are not always as good as this, and we constantly meet people who have been damaged one way or another through their dealing with what they understand to be the Church. Church in this sense of course is not the building, nor is it the institution or the corporation, but simply the believing folk. So whilst we fail, and fail again, we keep getting up and going again, determined to do better. To misuse Feuerbach we might want to say, “We are what we eat We are the Body of Christ.” In the Octave of Trinity So now that we understand that it makes sense to understand the Body of Christ in these three distinct ways, as the Man of Galilee, as the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, and as the Body of Believers, it seems only appropriate that the place in the liturgical Calendar for this is within the octave of Trinity.