In the year 1263, Father Pete de Praga doubted the presence of Christ in the Eucharist and made a pilgrimage to Rome to pray for the grace of St. Peter's tomb. After returning to Bolsena, while celebrating Holy Mass in the Church of Santa Cristina, at the time of the Consecration, the Host bled. The drops of Blood fell on the Corporal and also on the marble floor of the church. Pope Urban IV was very close in the city of Orvieto and ordered to the people to take the Corporal to him. The Corporal was taken to the pope in procession through the streets, which were decorated by the people with flowers, candles and ornaments. As the Pope approached the sacred corporal with the drops of Blood on the street, he knelt and said: "Body of the Lord." It was because of this miracle that the Pope ordered the Solemnity of Corpus Christi to be celebrated throughout the Church on the Thursday after the Holy Trinity Sunday of each year. Pope Urban IV commissioned Saint Thomas Aquinas to prepare a liturgical office for the feast and to compose hymns, which are sung to this day. Saint John Paul II, during his visit to the Cathedral of Orvieto in 1990, said,
“Jesus became our spiritual food to proclaim the sovereign dignity of man, to claim his rights and his just demands, to convey to them the secret of victory on evil and eternal communion with God.”
