This year the Diocese celebrated the Feast of Corpus Christi by means of the celebration of Mass on the lawns of St Kieran’s College and a Corpus Christi procession after that celebration. Fr Dan Carroll VG was the principal celebrant and he was joined by the priests and people of the city parishes and those parishes near to the city.

The Feast of Corpus Christi is a solemnity celebrating the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The feast is observed by the Catholic Church, but also by the Western Orthodox, Lutheran, and Anglican Churches. It comes just two months after the Mass of the Last Supper on Holy Thursday during Easter Week. The feast of Corpus Christi was proposed by St Thomas Aquinas to Pope Urban IV in 1264, in order to create a feast focused solely on the Holy Eucharist, emphasising the gift the Lord has given us in the Eucharist being the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

It was wonderful to see so many people from the city parishes and beyond come together to celebrate this wonderful Feast – it was reminiscent also of the Ordination weekend at St Kieran’s College when the seminary was there on the June bank holiday weekend the people from Kilkenny would come to the College to receive the First Blessing of the newly ordained Priests.