GIULIANA di 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. An orphan, she was entrusted (1197), together with her sister Agnese, to the care of Sister Sapienza, an Augustinian religious in the monastery who administered the leprosarium of Mont-Cornillon, near Liège. Having become a religious, she succeeded her educator in the office of prioress. Around 1215, in a vision (which was later repeated), 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. for 20 years did not dare speak of it to anyone, until, impelled by an irresistible inner prompting, she revealed the secret to her friend Eva, a recluse of S. Martino of Liège (v.), and then to Isabella of Huy, who immediately became her fervent collaborators.
Through Giovanni of Lausanne, canon of S. Martino, distinguished persons were asked for their opinion: Giacomo Pantaleone of Troyes, archdeacon of Compina at Liège, Ugo of S. Caro, provincial of the Domini-
cans; Giacomo Guyard, bishop of Cambrai, and the Dominican religious, lecturers in theology in the city. All were unanimous in judging such a feast opportune, and G. entrusted to Giovanni, an Augustinian religious of Mont-Cornillon, the task of composing the first Office. With the support of G.’s prayers and the advice of competent persons, the young monk succeeded in composing an official office full of unction, inspired by the finest 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, Roberto of Torote (1240–46), undertook to protect G. against lay interference in the administration of the leprosarium and, having come to know her eminent virtue, often visited her. G. managed to induce 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 should be celebrated on the Thursday after the Most Holy Trinity; and she had the joy of celebrating it at Fosses shortly before her death (16 October 1246).
Ugo of S. Caro, cardinal legate in Germany, passing through Liège in 1251 and 1252, extended Roberto of Torote’s institution to the territory of his legation; he was imitated by his successor, Cardinal Pietro Capocci (1254). While G. witnessed the progressive implementation of her purpose, she was forced, as a result of distressing abuses, to leave (1247) Mont-Cornillon, seeking hospitality first among the Beguines of Namur, then with the abbess of Salzines, and finally in the reclusory of St-Feuillen at Fosses, where she died. Her remains were buried in the Cistercian abbey of Villers-la-Ville.
Six years after her death, the former archdeacon of Liège, Giacomo Pantaleone (Urban IV), by the bull Transiturus (1264), extended the solemnity of Corpus Domini to the whole Church. The cult of G. is merely local; the bishops of Belgium have asked the Holy See for solemn recognition, which has not yet been granted.