Shrines of Italy: Corpus Domini Sanctuary

The Corpus Domini Sanctuary is a fairly obscure little church located on the Southern end of Bologna. While it was first constructed in 1477, the exterior façade is the only remaining feature from that period, as the building’s interior was almost entirely renovated in 1687. Subsequently, those renovations had to be restored following an accidental bombing of the church in World War II.

It bears the distinctive honor of being attached to the first Poor Clare’s monastery to be constructed in the city of Bologna, and it is well known among the local community as the final resting place for the incorrupt body of Saint Catherine of Bologna.

You might recall that Saint Catherine was an Italian nun and founder of this particular monastery in the late 1400’s. While her education and upbringing were fairly typical for a wealthy child of that era, she would ultimately experience a call to the monastic life, which led her to profess the rule of Saint Clare at the age of 19.

She became widely venerated, even during her lifetime, for her remarkable virtue, and she has received a great deal of praise for her ability to integrate her love of culture with love of God. This integration led her to become an exceptional musician, painter, and poet, as well as a prolific writer of spiritual treatises, such as The Twelve Gardens, and The Seven Spiritual Weapons.

Toward the end of her life, she became abbess of the monastery, and remained so until her death in 1463. According to legend, she was buried in the bare earth on the monastery grounds, and was dug up a mere 18 days later in a state of near perfect perseveration.

Her body was subsequently seated in the abbess’s chair, and a special shrine was constructed around the chair in her honor, where she remains to this day. It is said that for more than 70 years after the fact, the nuns would regularly trim her hair and nails, which had continued to grow long after her death. The darkened appearance of the body is the result of centuries worth of candles burning near the shrine, and yet the body remains remarkably well preserved in spite of this. Even today, the body is said to exude some type of oil, like a perfume which will eventually soak through the habit, requiring the nuns to swap it out with a new one.

This is certainly one of stranger cases of incorruptibility that I’ve encountered over the years. But I suppose Catholicism is nothing if not strange. And as the old saying goes; the truth is often stranger than fiction.