The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
TREASURES FROM OUR TRADITION
	We owe today’s beautiful feast to a valiant woman who suffered a great deal to establish a feast out of her love for the Eucharist. Juliana was a nun in Belgium in the thirteenth century. She served in a hospital for lepers. She became convinced through her prayer that the liturgical year was incomplete because it had no feast for the Eucharist. Her efforts were not welcome, and a supervising priest sought to punish her for promoting a feast that “nobody wanted.” He even had her accused of financial mismanagement and banished her from her convent.
	Shortly after she was exiled, the bishop approved the feast. It quickly spread through Europe. In those days, people very seldom received Holy Communion, and so the processions through the streets with the eucharistic bread not only led to an awareness of Christ’s hunger to be with us, but prepared the way for a deeper desire to receive Christ’s Body and Blood in more frequent Communion. The feast grew rapidly, but Juliana disappeared into poverty and a hidden life. She ended her days as an “anchoress,” a woman living in seclusion in a room attached to a parish church. Imagine her delight at seeing us gathered at the table of the Lord on this day, aware of Christ’s presence in our midst, sharing fully in Christ’s Body and Blood. Our celebration today invests her struggle and sorrows with dignity and meaning.
—James Field