CORPUS CHRISTI SAINT

BL. JULIANA of MONT CORNILLON , born in 1192 at Retinnes, Flanders, Belgium,  was orphaned at age 5. She and her sister Agnes were raised by the nuns at the convent of Mount Cornillon. The canonry seems to have been established on the model of a double monastery, with both canons and canonesses, each living in their own wing of the monastery.

The two girls were initially placed on a small farm next to the canonry. Juliana, after entering the Order at the age of 13, worked for many years in its leprosarium. Agnes seems to have died young, as there is no further mention of her in the archives.

She became an Augustinian nun at Liege, Belgium in 1206 working with the sick, in the convent‘s hospital. She became Prioress in 1225.

From her early youth, Juliana had great veneration for the Eucharist (as did many of the women of Liège) and longed for a special feast day in its honor. When she was 16 she had her first vision. She received visions from Christ, who pointed out that there was no feast in honor of the Blessed Sacrament.

Not having any way to bring about such a feast, she kept her thoughts to herself, except for sharing them with an anchoress, Blessed Eve of Liège, who lived in a cell adjacent to the Basilica of St. Martin, and a few other trusted sisters in her monastery.

The messages she received led to being branded a visionary, and accused of mismanagement of hospital funds. An investigation by the bishop exonerated her so she was returned to her position as prioress. She introduced the feast of Corpus Christi in Liege in 1246.

On the bishop‘s death in 1248, Juliana was driven from Mount Cornillon. Nun at the Cistercian house at Salzinnes until it was burned by Henry II of Luxembourg. Anchoress at Fosses.

She died in 1258 of natural causes and was buried at Villiers, France.

She was beatified in  1869 by Pope Blessed Pius IX.

The office for the feast was later written by Saint Thomas Aquinas, and was sanctioned for the whole Church by Pope Urban IV in 1264. The feast became mandatory in the Roman Church in 1312.