The corporals of Daroca
The corporals of Daroca
Daroca, the small Aragonese city, is the first town in Spain and in the world to establish a public festival in honor of the Blessed Sacrament. Before, from Mount Cornilln, in Liège (Blgium), the Corpus Christi festival is requested; Before Christ sensitizes his miraculous power in Orvieto, Daroca already celebrates his Eucharistic feast with extraordinary solemnity, transferring the Corporal Saints outside its walls in procession and showing them to pilgrims from the Turret, outside the walls, on which Saint Vincent Ferrer preached. .
The miracle happened in 1239, when the Christian troops from the communities of Daroca, Teruel and Calatayud, under the command of General Berenguer de Entenza, were preparing to conquer the castle of Cho, near Luchente, from Mount Codol, in the hands of the Arabs, 17 kilometers from Khiva.
Before the battle, the chaplain, Don Mateo Martínez, rector of the parish of San Cristóbal de Daroca, celebrated Mass, consecrating six more Forms for the communion of the captains of the Tercios, and immediately after the consecration a sudden attack was unleashed. of the Moors, who forced everyone to leave the sacrifice to face the enemy, and the chaplain, after taking communion, to hide the six Forms, wrapped in corporals, under some stones, to prevent them from being profaned. The attack was overcome by the Aragonese. And when the priest wanted to rescue the hidden Forms in the stony ground, he found them stained in blood and stuck to the corporeal ones.
A patent miracle served as a stimulus to the Christian troops who, carrying the Corporal Saints as their flag, obtained a decisive victory over their enemies.
Only, the captains fervent and greedy for the precious relic to be kept in the places of its origin, they had to cast lots for its destiny three times, all three corresponding to Daroca the favor of custody; but, still dissatisfied, it was decided, by General Berenguer de Entenza, that they be loaded on a mule, abandoning the divine decision to his instinct and accepting the place where the beast stopped. The mule crossed long Teruel, followed the processional entourage to reach, after fifty leagues of walking, the nearby Daroca, through whose doors it entered until it stopped at the then San Marcos hospital. At this moment, that March 7, 1239, she bowed her knees and fell dead, leaving for Daroca the priceless treasure and the unique favor of keeping the Most Precious Blood of Christ.
In 1261, special deputies for Daroca and the Cabildo, went to Rome in order to inform Pope Urban IV about the miracle, being introducers of the trustees the doctors San Buenaventura and Santo Tomás de Aquinas, who inclined the spirit of the Pontiff to declare the solemn feast of Corpus. In 1344 Pope Eugene IV granted the celebration of the jubilee year every decade, to commemorate him.
During the reign of Sixtus IV, who had suspended the indulgences of Christianity due to the Crusades, he signed the bull Agni Immaculati, in 1473, which establishes the definitive norm for the jubilee years of Daroa.
(Eucharistic Prodigies, PM Traval, SJ).
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