This term (from the Latin "corpus" meaning body) refers to the white linen "place mat" on which the deacon (or priest in our case) places the bread and wine which are to be consecrated during the eucharistic prayer.

Like the "fair linen" described in last week's offering, the corporal is to be of the purest white linen.

However, this is not simply a matter of the napkin matching the tablecloth (as any good "host," no pun intended, would have it) rather, from its earliest use the corporal was to be of white linen to symbolize the shroud in which Christ was wrapped for burial.

This was the church's way of lending symbolic credence (again, no pun intended) to the understanding of the Eucharist as the sacrifice of Christ's Body and Blood upon which she, the church, Christ's mystical body, would, literally, feast.

This reverence for the consecrated elements and the linen on which they lay, gave rise to ritual rigour, with respect to the care of corporals.

For example, since the consecrated bread, the body of Christ, was to be "fully and reverently consumed" not a solitary symbolic crumb was to escape the corporal's linen embrace.

Therefore, even rubrics regarding how a corporal was to be folded were quite specific: nine 3" folds (the first three lengthwise, and the next three crosswise.)

In this way, when unfolded by the priest, the white cross embroidered in the centre bottom "panel", would be the last to un-fold.

This convention ensured that the cross would be set directly in front of the celebrating priest so that when he or she re-folded the corporal, the leftover consecrated bread crumbs would always be folded into the corporal's centre, awaiting the time when they could be reverently consumed; the rubrics regarding how a corporal was to be washed were equally exacting.

For instance, in the tenth century, a church council at Rheims decreed that "since it had been impregnated with the Body and Blood of our Lord, the corporal upon which the Holy Sacrifice was offered must be washed, first of all by a priest, deacon, or subdeacon in the church itself, in a place or a vessel specially reserved for this purpose, and only afterwards might it be sent to the laundry and treated like other linen."

Needless to say, given this priest's hapless and inept laundering skills, this rubric has been hung out to dry here at Trinity.

All kidding aside though, the force of the rubrics regarding the care and cultivation of corporals underscores an important point; the reverence and care with which we treat our linens says something about our care and reverence for what is placed upon them.

What our care for corporals tells us is that, as with any sumptuous feast, the body and blood of Christ is not only a meal whose richness we savour, it so nourishes our common life that not even a crumb should go un-tasted, or worse, be wasted.