Corpus Christi
[Drawing by Fr. Robert Staes, O.P. You can view more of his drawings at http://www.domcentral.org/LIBRARY/BobStaes/default.htm]
The deacons are preaching this weekend, but here is a quick little Corpus Christi story. When the Pope was planning to extend the celebration of Corpus Christi to the whole Universal Church, he asked the two leading theologians of the time, St. Thomas Aquinas, OP and St. Bonaventure, OFM (in the drawing above), to each compose the proper prayers for the Mass for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi. Both St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure were professors at the University of Paris at the time. When both had completed their Masses for this Solemnity, they went to see the Pope. In the presence of the Pope the lot fell to St. Thomas to read his Mass first. When he was finished, St. Bonaventure allegedly stood up and threw what he had written into the fireplace, say that nothing could top what St. Thomas had written. Hence the prayers at this Mass were originally written by St. Thomas Aquinas (though through “translation” through the years they do not preserve the beauty of his original Latin prayers).
