JULIANA OF CORNILLON, Blessed. - Promoter of the feast of Corpus Christi, b. at Retinne (near Liège) between 1191 and 1192, d. at Fosses (diocese of Liège) on 5 April 1258. Orphaned, she was entrusted (1197), together with her sister Agnes, to the care of Sister Sapienza, an Augustinian nun in the monastery that administered the leper hospital of Mont-Cornillon, near Liège. Having become a nun, she succeeded her teacher in the office of prioress. Around the year 1215 in a vision (which was repeated later) she saw the moon, symbol of the Church, as a luminous disk marked by a dark spot. God revealed to her that this spot indicated the absence, in the liturgical cycle, of a special feast in honor of the Most Holy Eucharist and at the same time entrusted her with the mission of promoting it. In her humility G. for 20 years did not dare speak of it to anyone, until, under an irresistible inner impulse, she revealed the secret to her friend Eve, a recluse of St. Martin of Liège (v.), then to Isabella of Huy, who immediately became her fervent collaborators.
Through John of Lausanne, canon of St. Martin, distinguished persons were asked for their opinion: James Pantaleon of Troyes, archdeacon of Campine at Liège, Hugh of St. Cher, provincial of the Dominicans; James Guyard, bishop of Cambrai, and the Dominican religious, lectors of theology in the city. All were unanimous in judging such a feast opportune, and G. entrusted to John, an Augustinian religious of Mont-Cornillon, the task of drafting the first Office. The young monk succeeded, sustained by G.'s prayers and the advice of competent persons, in composing an office full of unction, inspired by the best texts of the eucharistic tradition (cf. C. Lambot-I. Fransen, L'office de la Fête-Dieu primitive. Textes et mélodie retrouvés, Maredsous 1946).
The new bishop of Liège, Robert of Torote (1240-46), began to protect G. against lay encroachment in the administration of the leper hospital and, having come to know her eminent virtue, often visited her. G. succeeded in inducing the distinguished visitor to write the pastoral letter Inter alia mira (1246), by which he ordered that in his diocese, every year, the feast of Corpus Domini be celebrated, on the Thursday after the Most Holy Trinity, and she had the joy of celebrating it at Fosses, shortly before dying (16 Oct. 1246).
Hugh of St. Cher, cardinal legate in Germany, passing through Liège in 1251 and 1252, extended Robert of Torote's institution to the territory of his legation, imitated by his successor, Card. Peter Capocci (1254). While G. saw the progressive realization of her purpose, she was forced, following vexatious abuses, to abandon (1247) Mont-Cornillon, to seek hospitality with the Beguines of Namur, then with the abbess of Salzines, and finally in the reclusory of St-Feuillen of Fosses, where she died. Her body was buried in the Cistercian abbey of Villers-la-Ville.
Six years after her death, the former archdeacon of Liège, James Pantaleon (Urban IV), with the bull Transiturus (1264) extended to the whole Church the solemnity of Corpus Domini. The cult of G. is only local; the bishops of Belgium have asked the Holy See for a solemn recognition, not yet granted.