On the Feast of Corpus Christi.
What kind of feast is this?
Words cannot describe it enough. Those who are in the papacy know well what a procession is held with the supposed Sacramento, the Thursday after the feast of the Holy Trinity, namely that the supposed body of Christ is enclosed in a stately golden monstrance and carried around the city, in front of which the people fall down, many thousands of people tend to go along, especially all
craftsmen with their own flags, with their own music. From the alleys the earth is decorated with greenery, the walls with trees. Altars are erected at several houses where mass is held. The noblest gentlemen walk with lighted torches, all the clergy in order with their ghastly bawling and shouting. Soon they begin to ring all the bells, soon to shoot. and what is more. Such a festival is not old, but quite new; since, as the popes themselves confess, Pope Urbanus IV. Urbanus IV instituted it in 1264 for the following reason: even before he became pope, Urbanus had a dear, good, faithful friend, named Evam, a nun. She claimed that she had received a vision and that it had been revealed to her that an annual feast of Corpus Christi should be held in the church, and she brought this before her most beloved Pope Urbano, who, out of special affection for his dear, faithful nun Evam, immediately instituted and ordered such a feast, not thinking of the words of St. Paul [1 Corinthians 14:34]: I do not permit a woman to speak in the church. And so this feast is not founded in God's Word, but in a fictitious, or even evil, face of the nun Eve, from which anyone can easily conclude what is to be thought of in this feast.
I would like to have a number of reasons to prove that this festival is not Christian.
If you look at the action and the plot properly, it is easy to see that this festival is neither Christian nor acceptable.
1. As previously reported, it is not from God, but from the nun Eva.
2. Thus the Lord's Supper is completely abused with the enclosure in the monstrance and with the transfer, which Christ did not command in the institution.
3. Much less can one worship the same monstrance in a Christian manner and pay divine homage to it.
4. Even in the time of the apostles this was not customary, and not a word of it can be found in St. Paul.
5. Nor is it to be argued that such processions were customary in the first pure church, but were only introduced in the year of Christ 1264.
6. A shameful simony (simonia) and new indulgences are introduced without and against God's commandment, for Urbanus, the founder, granted indulgences for forty-four and a half days to those who not only attended the feast but also watched it. So they had to put bacon in the mousetrap for the blind people so that they would be caught.
Is the holy sacrament not worthy of a certain feast in its honor?
It is well worthy, indeed it is worthy of all honor, for which reason the Christian Church celebrates an annual feast on Green Thursday [Maundy Thursday] in honor of this reverend sacrament, not with adoration of the sacrament, but that one invokes Christ Jesus together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and also thanks Christ that he instituted such a holy sacrament for our good. His death is proclaimed and his commandment obeyed when he says: Eat, drink, which is omitted in the papal feast of Corpus Christi. The question is not whether this holy sacrament should be honored, who denies that? But whether it should be venerated in the papal, Persian, idolatrous way, we say no, until our adversaries show that it has sufficient foundations.
Their most important reason is this: Because the transfer of the ark of the covenant is pleasing to God, even though he did not command it, the transfer of this sacrament cannot displease God.
There is a big difference between the Ark of the Covenant and this feast. Where was the ark of the covenant worshipped as this sacrament is worshipped? Where was the ark of the covenant held for a god, like the monstrance in this papal feast? Where have so many indulgences been granted for the transportation of the Ark of the Covenant? Where have sacrifices been made in the streets during the procession? And how does the ark of the covenant rhyme with the feast of Corpus Christi? But just as we read in the fourth chapter of the first book of Samuel: That God was displeased with the carrying away of the ark, that all Israel was put to death and put to flight, the priests also killed, and finally the ark itself was taken by enemies, because they brought the ark into the camp without God's command and placed their salvation on it as they saw fit. In the same way, the
papal monstrance may one day have an outcome that is much less pleasing to God than the removal of the ark. That is why God proclaimed this abomination through the holy prophet Daniel, chapter 12, with the words [:38]: He will honor a god, of whom his fathers knew nothing, with gold, silver, precious stones and jewels, and will do great honor to those who help him strengthen Mausim (the mass) with the foreign god whom he asked to be mentioned, and will make them lords over great possessions and give them the land as a reward. Let each one go into his conscience, take experience as a guide, and see whether all this does not come to pass and be fulfilled in fact and truth at this feast. Therefore our counterparts should be ashamed in their hearts to gloss over this feast or to blame our (truly) Catholic Church for avoiding it. But they say: Furor arma ministrat, help what may help.
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