Wednesday, June 21, 2006

"How was the Procession?"

I haven't set aside time to enthuse about the Corpus Christi Procession last Sunday at the Cathedral (This week Communicasia Exhibition is going on—our hands are full). It was the first procession I attended here, and both mass and procession were beautiful! I missed the Vespers.

We had a short sequence and traditional Corpus Christi songs all beautifully sung by Peter Low's choir. Unfortunately, not many of those who attend seem to be familiar with Panis Angelicum, Tantum Ergo, Pange Lingua, O Salutaris Hostia, Te Deum, Adore Te Devote in either English or Latin; so following the mass involved a lot of page-turning of the mass booklet to search for the hymns' lyrics—only some of which were printed. Msgr Francis Lau's homily was a condensed catechesis on the feast history, as well as an exhortation for the faithful to revere the Eucharist more.

The Procession started off slowly, with lots of other parishes' representatives and the choir in tow. Little girls dressed in Korean traditional costume threw flowers on the path of the procession. We made just one solemn round around the Cathedral while saying the Luminous Mysteries. It was solemn in spite of the balmy evening, with added smoke from the incense, and the road outside the Cathedral is uneven because of huge trees' roots uprising. I am not aware whether there were precedents of Corpus Christi processions in Singapore; but it seems that some kind of 'public gathering' license is required to carry out the procession outside the Cathedral grounds. Quite a fair bit of onlookers saw the procession and stopped to see.

"In your midst stands one whom you do not know!"—St John the Baptist

Wouldn't it be great to have a procession every year: bringing Jesus to the streets for everyone to look at, like here?

Elsewhere, Amy Welborn has a lot of her readers posting about Corpus Christi procession all over the world. I took some pictures—not very clear because it was dark—but I have already changed mobile phone again before I could extract them. My friend Bravo might have some too.

UPDATE! Bravo's Photos are here. He's a much better photographer than me!

1 comment:

Bravo said...

Antonia,

Please go ahead and use the photos that I had share with you in my Yahoo photo album.

Cheers,
Bravo