SUNDAY 14th JUNE

Corpus Christi is a celebration of the Eucharist sacrament in which bread and wine are consecrated and consumed as the body of Christ.

Here in the Sierra de Grazalema area the Corpus Christi festivals are very popular with high attendance from locals and visitors coming from further afield. The processional carts (representing chariots) and the surrounding buildings are elaborately adorned with foliage and flowers which is a sight well worth seeing. The date for 2009 at Zahara de la Sierra is Sunday the 14th of June and hotel Al-Lago is offering a 10 percent discount on published room prices for Grazalema Guide readers. Just mention the Grazalema Guide when you enquire at the Al-lago website.

There is a mass followed by a procession carrying the consecrated bread / wafer through the streets, making a public show of faith to all. The procession is a very solemn affair as the consecrated wafer contains Christ himself. It is treated with a great reverence and usually carried underneath a canopy for protection from the elements and is carried from church to church or through the streets back to the same church.

Corpus Christi was said to be born from an experience of a Belgian nun (St Juliana) who had a series of dreams of the church under a full moon with a dark patch. The moon she said was the church calendar, the black patch, a gap in the church calendar and from then it appeared to her in a vision from Christ that the Eucharist should be celebrated.

It is celebrated in Spain during May or June depending on when Easter occurs. To calculate the next Corpus Christi date, look for the first Thursday after Trinity Sunday (the eighth Sunday after Easter)

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