GIULIANA of Cornillon, Blessed. – Promoter of the feast of Corpus Christi. Born at Retinne (near Liège) between 1191 and 1192, died at Fosses (diocese of Liège) on 5 April 1258. Orphaned, she was entrusted (1197) 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. Upon becoming a nun, she succeeded her educator in the office of prioress. Around 1215, in a vision (which recurred 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 II. In her humility, G. dared not speak of it to anyone for 20 years, until, by an irresistible inner impulse, she confided the secret to her friend Eve, recluse of St. Martin’s in Liège (v.), and then to Isabella of Huy, who immediately became her fervent collaborators.
Through John of Lausanne, canon of St. Martin’s, the opinions of distinguished figures were sought: James Pantaleon of Troyes, archdeacon of Campine in Liège; Hugh of St. Cher, provincial of the Dominicans; James Guyard, bishop of Cambrai; and the Dominican friars, theology lecturers in the city. All were unanimous in judging such a feast opportune, and G. entrusted to John, an Augustinian monk of Mont-Cornillon, the task of drafting the first Office. The young monk, sustained by G.’s prayers and the advice of competent persons, succeeded 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 primitif. Textes et mélodies retrouvés, Marécous 1946).
The new bishop of Liège, Robert of Thourotte (1240–46), began to protect G. against the lay administration’s encroachment on the leper hospital and, recognizing her outstanding virtue, often visited her. G. managed to persuade the distinguished prelate to write the pastoral letter Inter alia mira (1246), by which he ordered that in his diocese, every year, the feast of Corpus Christi be celebrated on the Thursday after the Most Holy Trinity. She had the joy of celebrating it at Fosses shortly before her death (16 October 1246).
Hugh of St. Cher, cardinal legate in Germany, passing through Liège in 1251 and 1252, extended the institution of Robert of Thourotte to the territory of his legation, and was followed in this by his successor, Cardinal Peter Capocci (1254). While G. saw the gradual realization of her plan, she was forced, due to distressing abuses, to leave Mont-Cornillon in 1247, seeking hospitality first with the Beguines of Namur, then with the abbess of Salzinnes, and finally in the reclusorium of St-Feuillen at 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 the solemnity of Corpus Christi to the whole Church. The cult of G. is merely local; the bishops of Belgium have requested solemn recognition from the Holy See, which has not yet been granted.
24. – Enciclopedia Cattolica. – VI.
S. Iuliana Virgo, Foligno 1824; I. Bertholet, Histoire de l'institution de la Fête-Dieu avec la vie des bienheureuses Julienne et Eve, 3rd ed., Liège 1846; V. Deschamps, Le plus beau souvenir de l'histoire de Liège, 1846; A. de Noüe, Vie de Ste Julienne de Ruline, 1846; V. Berlière, Vie de Ste Julienne de Mont-Cornillon, Namur 1884; id., Le culte de Ste Julienne de Cornillon aux VIIe siècle, in Leodium, 5 (1906), pp. 90–91; N. C., De la Iuliana Cornelionensi O. E. S. A., in Anal. August., 6 (1915–16), pp. 38–82; A. Ernst, Zwei Freundinnen Gottes, Freiburg in Br. 1925; E. Denis, La vraie histoire de Ste Julienne de Liège, Tournai 1935 (Italian trans. by G. Barbiero, Padua 1939); G. Simenon, Julienne de Cornillon, Brussels 1946; C. Lambot, Un précieux manuscrit de la vie de Ste Julienne de Mont-Cornillon, in Miscellanea historica A. De Meyer, I, Louvain 1946, pp. 623–12; J. Baix–C. Lambot, La dévotion à l'Eucharistie et VIIe centenaire de la Fête-Dieu, Namur 1946, passim; G. Simenon, Les origines liégeoises de la Fête-Dieu, in Studia eucharistica DCC anni a condito festo Corporis Christi, Antwerp 1946, pp. 1–9; I. Coenen, Juliana von Cornillon, Bruges–Brussels 1946; F. Callacy, Documentazione eucaristica liegese dal vescovo di Liegi Roberto di Torote al papa Urbano IV (1240–46), in Miscellanea Pio Paschini, I, Rome 1948, pp. 215–35.