Church and State

Yesterday was a national holiday, the Catholic feast of Corpus Christi, (the Feast of the Body of Christ.)
This is a major feast for the Churches and their parishioners. And the HHF Chapel also celebrated. Tents are put up at peoples homes in the area. They are decorated with flowers of all sorts, the ground is swept, and material is placed on the ground. This had such a personal meaning for people that many had given their bed sheet (possibly their only one) to be used to cover the ground on which the people stood.
This was all prepared the night before and then A number of people stayed in the tent all night long, singing and praying. Our Chapel had 3 tents within about a 5 block radius of HHF.
Sr. Maryann supplied everything from hot bean sauce for the people to eat with their rice, to the tents themselves, candles, flowers, string, and shower curtains (which were decorated). This we did the night before.
Yesterday morning we left for the first tent at 6 AM, accompanied by "Mon Pere" (the priest) and altar servers, and carrying the monstrance, vestments, cross and incense. At each tent we began with the enactment of a Bible story (The Last Supper, The story of Zachery who climbed a tree to see Jesus, and the Story of the 7 wise virgins). Then we had benediction . Following that we processed to the next tent, singing as we went. Father led with the Blessed Sacrament and one of the servers walked backwards the entire way, incensing it.
And near each tent, the road was blocked off. The people had used different color sand and flowers to make pictures right on the road.
After the last tent, we came to our chapel where we ended with Mass. This all lasted until about 9:15 AM.
During much of the rest of the day, people visited with each other under the various tents. It was truly a day of celebration.
It was a full day, and, believe me, I slept good last night!
That is it for tonight.
Take care. God bless. Mary Ann
(I am sorry the pictures are not better, but I hope you can get an idea of the "tents" and the ground sand paintings).