Sunday, 22 June, is the Feast of Corpus Christi, our Titular Solemnity and the first anniversary of the establishment of our community. Mass will include the Rite of Reception into Full Communion and Confirmation of three new members, and conclude with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

But, wait – there’s more! On Sunday evening, there will be Solemn Mass of Corpus Christi at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist at 6PM, followed by a Solemn Eucharistic Procession through the streets of Charleston to St. Mary’s for Benediction. The Procession will depart the Cathedral at approximately 7.15PM, and you may join in then. Afterward, there will be a block party (not-at-all solemn!) on Hasell Street and the St. Mary’s campus. Join us!

And here is Benedict XVI on the Cosmic Eucharist (or Eucharistic Cosmos!) and the Corpus Christi procession:

“When the apse mosaic of San Clemente was created, there was as yet no feast of Corpus Christi.  The sense of the day is, however, wonderfully represented here.  For it shows, indeed, how the Eucharist spans the world and transforms it. The Eucharist belongs not only to the Church and to a closed community.  The world should become Eucharistic, should live in the vine of God.  But that is Corpus Christi: to celebrate the Eucharist cosmically; to carry it even to our streets and squares so that the world, from the fruit of the new vine, may receive healing and reconciliation through the tree of life of the Cross of Jesus Christ.  We celebrate the feast in this sense.  Its procession is like a loud call to the living God: Yes, fulfill your promises. Let your vine grow over the earth,and let it become the place of reconciled life for us all. Detoxify this world through the watersof life, through the wine of your love. Do not let your earth shatter from hate and from man’spresumption of omniscience. You, Lord, are yourself the new heaven, the heaven in whichGod is a man. Give us the new earth in which we men become branches of you, the tree oflife, steeped in the waters of your love and taken up into the ascent to the Father, who alone is the true progress we all await.”

Benedict XVI, “Images of Hope”