We know that the Eucharist is the apex and the font of the life of the church. Been, as it is, the nuclear center of the message of salvation, of liberation of sin and of the dominion of death, by means of the Easter of Christ and the giving by God, as it were, by his people, by means of alliance sanctioned with the pledge of the blood and the body of the savior Jesus, all these are and continue in the church through the blessed Eucharist, which is nothing more than the extension (thus) of the Easter and alliance of the Christ, under the sacramental veils. The solemnity of the sacred body and blood of Christ is, thus, the feast of the institution of the Eucharist. Instituting this sacred mystery, Christ makes to his church, which we are all of us, the most rich an generous present, because he leaves for us his proper body, blood, soul and divinity.
This institution was given, in fact of history, like we believe, in the holy Thursday, but the remembrance of the suffering of Christ in the holy week, in full sacred tridium, it hinders us from making exaggerated expressions of happiness, gestures of jubilation, attitudes of contention. Hence, necessity made it that one day in the liturgical year could be selected for higher celebrations and this fell on exactly 11 days after Pentecost.
In Brazil, the feast was introduced by the Portugueses, in the days of Dom Joan VI and the emperors Dom Pedro I and Dom Pedro II, who were making a mixture of the feast with the feast of “real house”, the Catholic Church and the people, including the slaves.
In São Manuel- Brazil: The most traditional feast of Corpus Christi in Brazil is expressed in São Manuel. It all started with Tereza Mazzuco, who was born in São Manuel in 1919. She took a great part of the catholic action in Brazil in the years of 1945 to 1967. And in 1949, she started the decoration of the traditional feast of the Corpus Christi conveyed with flowers. Since then, it all came to organize and control all in all the years, the ornaments and the innovations, like the themes of the carpets and the passing strides, notwithstanding the materials, where she solicited the population to look for them; like flour of coffee, bottle tops and glasses. She used posterior, revolutioning the forms and colors of the drawings, the residues of sugar canes crushed and dyed.
In matter of little time, the feast of Corpus Christi in São Manuel turned to be one of the greatest references of tourists in Brazil, distinguishing itself still, with the traditional drawings.
Tereza died in 1996, living a memory of her works in Brazil, alive and always fresh.
The Day of the Feast - 07/07/2007
The procession of Corpus Christi in São Manuel started at 4pm, in the sanctuary of saint Terezinha, following the roads of Dugue de Caixas, Epitacio Pessoa, Gomes de Faria e 7 de Setembro until the monument altar, which is localized in the corner of the road Cel. Joachim Floriano.
All the people united in the procession, and the most to notice were the seminarians of the Consolata theologicum, São Paulo, because all vested in white tunics, walked in one determined line, just behind the main celebrant who was carrying the procession monstrance with the blessed host.
The Speech of the Day
The main celebrant was Fr. Luis Emer, imc, who is a Consolata missionary priest, working in the seminary, as a formator of the theologicum students. Generally, bearing in mind the place and the audience of the feast, the priest addressed the main essence of the feast in the following manner; “today, we celebrate the solemnity of the body and blood of Christ. Just as Jesus offers his life , we are invited to give testimony and to announce our Christian faith, living the Eucharist in his missionary sense. For us of the arc-diocese of Botucatu ( the arc-diocese in which São Manuel belongs as a parish), the day of today, 7 of June, is very important. It was on the 7th of June in 1908, when the Pope saint Pius X made our diocese. We start today, thus, as a parish the celebration of the centenary of our particular church. In 2008, we will celebrate 100 years of the diocese and 50 years of the arc-diocese. The Eucharist, makes the church be. We, as a parish, united with other 43 parishes of our arc-diocese, we want to thank the lord for all the graces he has given to us and our church. We celebrate the Corpus Christi united to our archbishop, Dom Aloysius and with him we assume the commitment of being ‘disciples and missionaries do Christ.’ (c.f. the theme of 5th Episcopal conference of the Latin America and Caribbean.) in our diocese.
On his homily, the main celebrant did not leave the people of God without some high theological thoughts to digest. He commented about the feast of Corpus Christi as one of the ‘beauty’ things we have on the church. But what is beauty? He asked and explained. ‘The beauty we talk of in the Eucharist is the manifestation of the truth , hence the two have no separation line and so distinct when we see truth as an idea which has universal and objective manifestation , and beauty as an idea of sensible manifestation, and this could be a human error in thinking. The beauty is constituted by order, harmony and great capacity of being embraced, in its total ness , by one’s looking. But our looking, in matters of divine things, goes far only with faith.’
Feeling a bit elevated with his spirit of oriental philosophy, the celebrant resoluted to put the point of speech on the hands of the scholars leaving a bit the common people. As it were, he went farther trying to explain this beauty as a perfection in ‘being’, which is addressed by St. Thomas Aquinas. ‘this beauty leaves no doubt to call it God and in an imperfect way, the creation in which we can include the human beings. Christ is the ‘beauty’ of God and by calling us his brothers, we participate in this beauty of divinity and therefore, we are beautiful,’ said the celebrant and he continued, ‘the feast of Corpus Christi awakes in us this concept of beauty and that is why we should feel honored to tell God ‘thank you’ for recognizing our worthiness of being beautiful in body, blood, soul and humanity to participate in his mystery of body, blood , soul and divinity’.
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