Note 67 — CHAP. IV.
Reading edition
Footnote 67:
(return)
S. John Chrysostom established processions at Constantinople in opposition to those of the Arians; and the empress Eudoxia supplied the people with silver crosses and wax lights, to be carried on such occasions. Socrat. Hist. Eccl. lib. VI, c. 8, Sozomen lib. VIII, c. 8. Processions were incompatible with the persecutions of the first three centuries. During them, and even long after Constantine, in consequence of the discipline of secrecy, there was neither public exposition or procession of the B. Sacrament. The faithful however adored it privately, as for instance, S. Gregory Nazianzen relates of his sister Gorgonia, that when seized by a fever "she fell down with faith before the altar, and invoked with a loud cry Him who is honoured thereupon". (Discourse on her funeral). S. Cyril of Jerusalem also exhorts the believer, that when he receives the chalice of the blood of Christ he should bow down profoundly and adore. (Catech. 5), The office and mass of Corpus Christi were composed by S. Thomas Aquinas. As holy-thursday is in great part devoted to the sufferings of Christ, the festival of Corpus Christi with its procession was instituted about the middle of the thirteenth century by Urban IV at the petition of B. Juliana of Mount Cornelione, and in consequence of the miracle of Bolsena, well known as the subject of one of Raffaello's frescoes in the Vatican. See Bened. XIV, De Festis, and the authors cited by him. The miraculous corporal stained with blood is still preserved at Orvieto, the celebrated cathedral of which owes its foundation to the miracle. "No one eats that flesh, says S. Augustine, unless he has first adored" in ps. 98 "The flesh of Christ," says S. Ambrose "which we adore even now in the mysteries, and which the apostles adored in the Lord Jesus" (de Spir. S. lib. 34, c. 12) All the fathers and liturgies mention this adoration, which was therefore derived from apostolic tradition. Sala ad Bonæ lib. 2, c. 13.