Florida Catholic | In Haiti, Everyone Celebrates Corpus Christi Feast

In Haiti, everyone celebrates Corpus Christi feast

Former Vatican ambassador reconnects with pope during U.S. visit.

MARIE DELIUS | SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA CATHOLIC

Published: 05.08.08

Mass will begin 6 p.m. at the Cathedral of St. James, 215 N. Orange Ave., downtown Orlando. Gathering for the eucharistic procession to Lake Eola Park will begin at 7 p.m. outside the cathedral.

ORLANDO | The feast of Corpus Christi is one of the most popular feasts celebrated in the Catholic faith in Haiti. Everywhere a Catholic church is found, people know the Thursday after Trinity Sunday is the celebration of the body and blood of Jesus in “open air,” in public.

“Believers and nonbelievers, Catholic and Protestants put together all kinds of Christian-like decoration on the streets. People sort their best bed sheets and tablecloths and hang them round the altar,” said Viola F. Bazile of the Haitian charismatic committee in Orlando.

Father Boursiquot Gaetan, minister to the Haitian community in Orlando, noted that in Haiti the feast day provides a beautiful moment for the public to adore Jesus in his majesty.

“Wearing white, children and adults in long lines are walking the streets. In most parishes, it’s the day of first Communion and confirmation,” he said.

“Everybody wants to carry the (canopy) over the Blessed Sacrament. Musical groups and orchestras are playing music of adoration and praise. It’s really a moment of reverence and joy,” Father Gaetan said, adding, “I remember one year it was raining all day on the Corpus Christi feast; everybody stayed from the beginning to the end. Nobody went home even after they got wet.”

In the United States the feast is marked on a Sunday, not a Thursday, and the Haitian community does its best every year to celebrate. As they do back home, the Haitians gather their most precious pieces of decorative items for the occasion. For the last four years during the celebration of the feast in Orlando, members from the Haitian community and others have created an altar in Lake Eola Park.

Marlene Bauplan from St. Andrew Parish’s Haitian community said, “We try to use, as much as we can, things that have strong significance for the Haitian culture. For example, in our decorations we use red flowers because in Haiti around this time we have those big flamboyant trees, which give beautiful red flowers that we use for decoration of the stations for the Blessed Sacrament. In addition, we place an icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. It’s an honor to arrange the place for my Savior to repose.”

The altar of repose for the Lake Eola celebration is made of wood and designed and built by Bruny Compas, with the help of Haitian men and women from the parishes of the Cathedral of St James and St Andrew.

Delius hosts La Voix Catholique A Orlando (The Catholic Voice in Orlando) for Internet Radio Universel 90.7 SCA in Orlando (http://radiouniversel.com/)

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In Haiti, everyone celebrates Corpus Christi feast

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