May 26 -- Feast of Blessed Eva of Liege

Today's word is proxy, which comes from the Latin procuratio, meaning management  or care.  Curare meant to care in Latin, and the prefix pro means for.  So a proxy is one who cares for the will of another, who stands in the place of another.  With virtual presence, distance voting, and programmed instructions that can be executed by computers, proxies may have fewer functions than they used to.  But when human ceremonies are involved, proxies still have value.  When the Congressional Medal of Honor is being awarded posthumously, someone has to stand in to receive it.  When prizes are awarded to someone who cannot or will not attend the ceremony, it is smoother to have a proxies on hand to receive them. 

On April 5, hagiomajor focused on Saint Juliana of Liege, whose tireless campaigning for a feast to celebrate Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ, was eventually successful.  [The Feast of Corpus Christi is moveable, falling somewhere May 21 and June 24 every year. In 2013 it will fall on May 30, which Americans might recall is the real Memorial Day.] 

Juliana was assisted in her campaign by her protege, Eva of Liege.  In fact when Juliana was driven from the convent where she served as prioress, she found shelter with Blessed Eva.

Corpus Christi was celebrated in Liege during Juliana's lifetime, but had not caught on generally until her death.  When Jacques Pantaleon, the Archdeacon of Liege, became Pope Urban IV, he issued a papal bull proclaiming Corpus Christi to be a universal feast.  Since Juliana had already died, Eva received a copy of the papal bull proclaiming the feast.  This small gesture, acknowledging the role these two women played in the

I'm not convinced that a special feast is necessary.  It seems to me that every Eucharistic celebration (i.e. every Mass) is a feast of the Body and Blood of Christ.  However, they are theologians and I am just a blogger, so they're probably right.  Since there is a feast, and since its primary sponsor is canonized, it makes a lot of sense to beatify Eva, who served as Juliana's proxy when the feast was universalized.  If called upon to serve as a proxy somewhere, try to imagine the grace and joy with which she received Pope Urban's bull, and then channel that spirit.