Corporal

CORPORAL. - It is a square of linen on which the Eucharistic Species and the sacred vessels are placed. Its name derives from the office of gathering up the Body of Christ. In the first centuries, cloths were not spread on the altar; only at Mass, before the offering, did the deacons spread a linen cloth on which to place the bread and wine destined for the Eucharistic sacrifice, and with a corner of it the chalice was covered. Once the custom of covering the altar with two or three cloths had been introduced and offerings had on the other hand diminished, the corporal was shortened, so that already from the Middle Ages it appears reduced to its present form. The chalice was then covered with another small corporal called the pall (v.).

What determined the material was the reference to the Shroud in which the lifeless body of Jesus had been wrapped: therefore the sacrifice of the Mass must be offered upon a linen cloth. In the Ambrosian liturgy there is kept alive this comparison with the prayer preceding the Offertory, called: "over the Shroud." Nevertheless, ancient c. of silk are preserved. In ancient times, after the consumption, the c. was folded three times, turning the two ends inward so that "neither the one end nor the other appeared outside." Medieval liturgists saw symbolized therein the divinity of Christ, which has neither beginning nor end, but the reason lay rather in the concern that the tiny eucharistic fragments remaining there might not fall in a profane place; for this reason the keeping and washing of the c. always imposed religious attention; and in the 9th century there already exists the prescription not to send the c. to the laundry before it has been washed at least once by a priest, a deacon or subdeacon. The prescriptions of Cluny on this matter are minute and most curious. Very ornate c. are known, but today's legislation permits only damask linens, some embroidery at the corners, a small cross at the center without relief; the edges may be adorned with lace. It is brought to the altar within a burse that follows the rules of the liturgical colors.

Entico Cattaneo