Corpus Christi Sunday

As I participated in my weekend routine of virtual masses, I found myself wandering back to my younger years when this very Sunday was a time of great excitement in the East End. Households prepared their "altars" for the great procession. Windows were decorated with flowers and holy pictures, small tables were set out on front steps to hold the most precious Blessed Virgin Mary and / or Sacred Heart statures that we all had in our homes and rosaries were hung in trees. Our three Catholic Churches prepared their altars on the front steps and then just around supper time, people started to gather. First Communicants arrived wearing their special outfits, altar servers, Catholic organizations, ushers / procession leaders and priests with the Blessed Sacrament. The excitement of organizing was thrilling! Hundreds of us would process around the entire East End (rain or shine), praying and singing in the many languages of the residents; Slovak, Italian, Polish, Ukrainian and English. The first stop was in the school yard where we held Benediction in English. Kneeling on the cinders was the greatest penance we endured for the whole year it seemed. Next we'd move onto St. Peter's then Church of Transfiguration and finally St. Dominic. How times have changed! Today if we wanted to do something remotely similar we'd need a to spend months getting through the paper work....A few years back our parish did a short Corpus Christi procession just around the yard and parking lot....lovely but somehow just not quite the same. I feel so blessed that we have modern technology that has kept my spiritual being fed over these last months but oh how I miss the good old days every once in a while!