Saint Juliana of Liège - April 5

Saint Juliana of Liège, O.Praem. (also called Juliana of Mount-Cornillon), (c. 1192 or 1193 – 5 April 1258) was a medieval Norbertine canoness regular and mystic in what is now Belgium. Traditional scholarly sources have long recognized her as the promoter of the Feast of Corpus Christi, first celebrated in Liège in 1246, and later adopted for the universal church in 1264.
In 1261, the Archdeacon Pantaleon was elected Pope, and took the name Pope Urban IV. Juliana's friend, Eva, contacted Pope Urban through her Bishop, and asked him to institute the feast which Juliana had proposed. Moved also by a Eucharistic miracle which had happened at Bolsena, near the town of Orvieto, where Urban resided to escape the violent opposition of the Ghibellines in Rome. Pope Urban commissioned his chief theologian, Saint Thomas Aquinas, to compose an office for the Feast of Corpus Christi. Saint Thomas composed two versions, with considerable textual overlap: Sapiencia edificavit (no Latin misspelling here) and then Sacerdos in eternum. The inter-textual study of these Offices has been the topic of considerable research, with most scholars concluding that they represent "draft" and final versions of the work of Saint Thomas. Pope Urban recorded the initial celebration in letters to the various clergy, but also sent a copy to Juliana's friend, Dame the recluse Eve of Saint Martin at St. Martin Basilica. She is thought by contemporary scholars to have composed the initial version of Juliana's vita in French and thus stands, alongside Juliana, as among the first women authors of medieval Europe.
.In 1264 Pope Urban IV issued the papal bull Transiturus in which the Feast of Corpus Christi, i.e., the feast of the Body of Christ was declared a feast throughout the entire Latin Rite. This was the very first papally sanctioned universal feast in the history of the Latin Rite. The feast is traditionally celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, but in the liturgical reforms of 1969, under Pope Paul VI, the bishops of every nation have the option to transfer it to the following Sunday.
Juliana was canonized in 1869 by Pope Pius IX and further celebrated by Pope John Paul II, who wrote a letter mentioning her on the 750th anniversary of the Feast of Corpus Christi.