Corpus Christi Chapel

The foun­da­tion of Cor­pus Christi Col­lege and St. Bene’t’s Church

Cor­pus Christi Col­lege was found­ed in 1352 by the Guild of Cor­pus Christi and the Guild of the Blessed Vir­gin Mary with a motive for under­stand­ing God’s pur­pose and study­ing philo­soph­i­cal ques­tions, which even­tu­al­ly sprout­ed inspi­ra­tion to explore a suite of aca­d­e­m­ic dis­ci­plines to which we inte­grate today. At the time of found­ing, there was no chapel and mem­bers of the col­lege wor­shipped in St Bene’t’s Church next door which is still an active church phys­i­cal­ly attached to Old Court and is esti­mat­ed to have been a place of wor­ship and prayer for almost 1000 years. Old Court was built with­in 25 years fol­low­ing 1352 and St Bene’t’s Church is esti­mat­ed to have been built around the year 1020. St Bene’t’s Church as well as the parish church in Grantch­ester and in Land­beach, are liv­ings of Cor­pus Christi Col­lege. Even­tu­al­ly a col­lege chapel was formed cour­tesy of Thomas Cosyn, which was attached to St Bene’t’s and con­nect­ed to the col­lege Old Court by a bridge known as the Gallery. This chapel need­ed to be extend­ed into the Gallery in 1569 to increase chapel space and was lat­er con­vert­ed into a fellow’s room.

The expan­sion of the Col­lege and the new Chapel

A new chapel phys­i­cal­ly sep­a­rat­ed from St Bene’t’s was com­plet­ed in 1662 but was sub­se­quent­ly replaced with a chapel build­ing with­in the new­ly built New Court com­plet­ed in 1827. The new chapel in New Court required an exten­sion in 1870 to cope with the ris­ing num­ber of col­lege mem­bers. By God’s grace, this is our chapel build­ing which remains today in func­tion and beau­ty, stand­ing promi­nent­ly at the east side of New Court hold­ing reg­u­lar ser­vices each week dur­ing term time.

Ask­ing and explor­ing the deep­est ques­tions of life

This deep root­ed his­to­ry echoes in the heart of the col­lege body, named after the Body of Christ. Though many of us may not think over­ly deeply on divine mat­ters amongst the busy­ness of life, we are encour­aged in col­lege to con­sid­er such pro­found life ques­tions for our­selves and to take time in quiet­ness and reflec­tion to con­tem­plate what we tru­ly believe. What bet­ter place could there be for such con­tem­pla­tion oth­er than the tran­quil col­lege gar­dens sur­round­ing Leck­hamp­ton House? As col­lege mem­bers, regard­less of our back­ground or belief, we are warm­ly wel­comed to attend ser­vices held reg­u­lar­ly in our col­lege chapel. The chapel is also freely open for us all out with ser­vice times as a place of pri­vate prayer or sim­ply a time of quiet­ness and reflec­tion. For those wish­ing to engage in more depth of scrip­tur­al under­stand­ing, var­i­ous Bible stud­ies are run each week in dif­fer­ent loca­tions in Cam­bridge by the Chris­t­ian Grad­u­ate Soci­ety (CGS). The CGS web­site also pro­vides some use­ful rec­om­men­da­tions of local com­mu­ni­ty church­es.

The Grace

Dai­ly din­ing in col­lege has been part of col­lege life since its found­ing. We say grace at For­mal Hall to give thanks for our food. At our sit-down din­ners in Leck­hamp­ton House we pause for a moment of quiet­ness to give thanks. The fol­low­ing grace is said at For­mal Hall:

Before din­ner

Benedic, Domine, nobis et donis tuis, quae de tua lar­gi­tate sumus sump­turi; et con­cede ut, iis salubrit­er nutri­ti, tibi deb­i­tum obse­quium praestare valea­mus; per Chris­tum Dominum nos­trum.

Bless, O Lord, us and thy gifts, which we are about to take of thy gen­eros­i­ty; and grant that we, health­ily nour­ished by them, may be strong to ren­der [the thanks] due to thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

After din­ner

Laus Deo per Jesum Chris­tum Dominum nos­trum.

Praise to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Response – “Deo gra­tias” (Thanks to God)