Corpus Christi Festival 2023

On Saturday 10 June we celebrated our Corpus Christi Festival with our friends from the Church of the Holy Cross, Luton.

​Corpus Christi is the great solemnity in honour of the Holy Eucharist, and its Latin name literally means “Body of Christ”. The Eucharist is the Sacrament of the Lord’s Body in Blood and, in this Most Blessed Sacrament, the Lord Jesus is present in his fullness – Body, Blood, Soul, and Divine Nature. He is with us in the Eucharist to be our food, our sustenance, and our refuge. The Solemnity falls on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, but we have been transferring it to the Saturday of the same week for a few years now to facilitate the participation of both people and clergy from other parishes.

Corpus Christi is marked by a procession of the Blessed Sacrament, where the Body of Christ, the Risen Lord Jesus among us under the form of bread, is carried by a priest outside the church accompanied by singing, and preceded by servers with incense, and the scattering of fragrant flowers and petals. At our festival the procession also featured a canopy held over the Blessed Sacrament and carried by members of the choir and congregation.
The service ended with Benediction, invoking the blessing of the Lord Jesus on our parishes and all our people.

Blessed, praised, hallowed, and adored
   be Our Lord Jesus Christ in his throne of glory,
and in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar!