During the twelfth century (it is not clear originally where or when), a new liturgical custom became very common in the Mass. Clergy consecrating the eucharistic elements lifted high the bread and chalice of wine as they pronounced the Latin words which echoed what Jesus had said at the Last Supper, Hoc est enim corpus meum, ‘For this is my body’. This ‘elevation of the host’ became a focus for the longing of the Catholic faithful to gaze upon the body of Christ: the dramatic high point of the Western Latin Mass.
