Corpus Christi, Toledo style
The Spanish city of Toledo is home to one of the oldest, and grandest, Corpus Christi celebrations in the world.
The feast of Corpus Christi is traditionally celebrated throughout the Church with Eucharistic processions. Some of them are simple, and others more grand.
The Spanish city of Toledo is home to one of the oldest, and grandest, to be found anywhere.
The earliest record of the event dates back to the 15th century, although the procession’s history may go back further than that.
Today it draws in local Catholics, pilgrims, and spectators from across the city, country, and around the world.
Beginning and ending in the city’s Saint Mary’s Cathedral, the event attracts more 100,000 people for the procession and other events surrounding the feast, pouring into a town that only has 86,000 inhabitants.
In Spain, it is normal for city streets to stay quiet until late in the morning. But in Toledo on Thursday, preparations for the procession were well underway early. Banners and flags hung from the balconies of the apartments in Toledo’s old town, while many corners were adorned with floral arrangements.
The Archdiocese of Toledo is a medium-sized diocese, serving 600,000 Catholics, but it has 270 parishes and more than 440 priests, and is one of the largest exporters of fidei donum missionaries in the world, with 27 priests in Latin America alone.
Moreover, Toledo hosts what is widely considered to be one of the best seminaries in Spain, with over 70 major seminarians and over 40 minor seminarians, numbers that are hard to beat in Europe.
Many religious congregations and priestly societies have been born in Toledo in the 20th century or are based in the archdiocese, which makes it a distinctively Catholic town despite growing secularization across Spain.
Although the city has many feast days, Corpus Christi stands out, with almost 10 days of celebrations, involving Masses, Eucharistic adoration throughout the city, concerts, and, of course, bullfights.
But the central event is Thursday's Mass and procession.
The Mass is celebrated in the Mozarabic rite, which was the rite of the Mass used in Spain under Muslim occupation — Mozarabic was the name given to Spaniards living under the Cordoba caliphate.
When Spaniards reconquered the peninsula, the rite was close to extinction as the Mozarabs were forced to use the Latin rite whenever the Kingdoms of Castille and Aragon reconquered a territory from the caliphate.
However, Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, Archbishop of Toledo and confessor of Queen Isabella of Castille, built the Corpus Christi chapel in the Toledo cathedral dedicated to the celebration of the rite, and established a handful of parishes in the archdiocese for families of Mozarabic tradition.
The rite is celebrated ordinarily in only a few churches in Toledo and Madrid, including Toledo’s cathedral, but it’s still used for several major feasts in Toledo.
The rite, reformed after the Second Vatican Council, looks much like a differently organized Latin rite Mass. For example, the sign of peace is shared before the consecration, and the elevation of the host occurs right before communion is distributed.
However, there are other differences as well. The Mozarabic rite is ordinarily celebrated ad orientem and while it can be celebrated in the vernacular, it’s more common to celebrate it in Latin.
The Creed in the Mozarabic rite is placed after the consecration, and it is proclaimed thunderously, with the intent to echo thousands of years of Catholic history.
The rite also has prayers that are absent in the Latin rite, such as the Clamores — responsive chanted prayers with the assembly after the psalm. The bread and wine are covered with a veil between the benediction and the consecration — and there’s no kneeling during consecration. After the elevation, the Eucharistic species is broken into 12 pieces in the shape of a cross.
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In his homily this year, Archbishop Francisco Cerro Chaves of Toledo spoke of “Eucharistic wonder.”
“Eucharistic wonder is that God has wanted to live my life so I may live his,” he said, adding that the “Eucharist is the remedy to our loneliness.”
During the consecration, marching bands started playing outside the cathedral to announce the coming of Christ in the sacrament. The bands played so loudly that some in the cathedral had to strain to hear the Eucharistic prayer.
After the Mass, the Blessed Sacrament processed through the streets of Toledo’s old town in one of the largest monstrances in the world.
The world-famous monstrance of Toledo weighs more than 800 pounds and is more than 10 feet tall. The main body of the monstrance was made by the silversmith Enrique de Arfe and commissioned as a gift by Queen Isabella of Castille, made with some of the first gold, silver and precious stones brought from the Americas — “The best for the Lord,” Queen Isabella allegedly said.
The monstrance is usually in a special room in the cathedral, in which it rests behind security glass. It is only taken out for the procession. It is so large that the crucifix on the top must be removed before it can pass through the door. Then, it is placed in a carriage to be pushed through the city’s narrow streets by a group of volunteers.
As dozens of city guilds, brotherhoods, confraternities, and the priests of Toledo — this year joined by Bishop Erik Varden of Trondheim, Norway, as a guest — processed throughout the town singing Eucharistic hymns, spectators threw rose petals from balconies to the Blessed Sacrament and erupted in spontaneous cries of “¡Viva Jesús Sacramentado!” (Long live Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament!).
Each year, the carriage bearing the Blessed Sacrament is escorted by Spanish law enforcement and military. Some servicemembers could be seen weeping and joining in the hymns as they performed their duties.
The procession lasts a total of four hours, often in intense heat. At one point, the procession came to a halt in one of the narrowest streets after someone fainted, something which happens regularly.
Eventually, the procession made its way back to the cathedral, still accompanied by the sound of the marching bands and of the cries of the crowds, before the monstrance was returned to its place, while the Eucharist was exposed for adoration for the rest of the day.
The day’s celebration is the highlight of an entire week of festivities for Corpus Christi.
The whole city celebrates for days before and after the procession itself in what is known as the Semana Grande de Toledo (the big week of Toledo). Religious and secular celebrations throughout the week include music concerts, open markets, popular games, parades and a major bullfight the afternoon of the procession.
Many of the events are organized by the local government but sponsored by the archdiocese or local parishes.
The archdiocese also organizes a ceremony in which Toledo schools present a floral offering to the Blessed Sacrament, and the prayer of solemn vespers in the Mozarabic rite the day before the procession, and many hours of Eucharistic adoration in the cathedral.
Bishop Varden, who participated in the Toledo procession for the first time this year, said he was deeply moved by the experience.
“The city itself becomes a sacred space, drawing everyone in, a concrete manifestation of the Church’s call to embrace the world. To see how all Toledo let itself be embraced was deeply moving,” he told The Pillar.
“I’d challenge you to find a single person present at this procession who did not come away strengthened in their faith or challenged in their unbelief,” he added. “The Eucharist, said Saint Thomas, is at once a sacrament of Christ’s Passion and a ‘pledge of future glory’. To have this pledge made publicly manifest in our rudderless world at such an anxious time strikes me as profoundly… comforting. Is that not what the procession effected, the comforting through gracious benediction of an entire city?”
Edgar, this is fantastic! Especially the photography - wow! I felt like I was there. (And some day, I would love to be for real!) ¡Viva Jesús Sacramentado!
Well, I know where I want to go next year!