Corpus Christi

I wanted to tell you about a wonderful Corpus Christi celebration A.F. and I had the good fortune to be part of two Sundays ago, in Penang, Malaysia. We turned up for mass at 5.30 p.m. at the not-very-large Church of St. Francis Xavier, in the centre of Georgetown. The church was so full it was overflowing, with people standing all the way out the doorway, down the steps and onto the front driveway. There were well over 1000 people there, and we soon found out why: This was the first time ever that permission had been given in Penang (a state in a predominantly Muslim country) for a public Corpus Christi procession, and practically the whole Catholic population of Georgetown had turned out for it.

The mass was multi-lingual and multi-cultural: The first reading was in Tamil, the second in Chinese, the gospel in English. And even though there are hardly any Malay Christians, everyone was happy to recite together the Lord's Prayer in Malay - the lingua franca which enables all people in the country to communicate with and understand each other. Everybody was dressed in the fineries of their respective communities, but unified in worship. And two priests, one of Indian and the other of Chinese origin, came out of the church building to offer Communion to those of us standing on the driveway outside.

At the consecration and the elevation, the bells of the church rang out aloud across the city, as if to proclaim the miracle to the world, "This is the Lamb of God!" That was just the beginning. At the end of mass the procession began: Some half a dozen priests and deacons bearing crucifixes were followed by some two dozen servers, some with censers; then half a dozen young Tamil girls, their heads garlanded with flowers, strewed flower-petals ahead of the Blessed Sacrament. Two priests took it in turns to hold the monstrance aloft, standing in the back of a small truck decorated with flowers and lights, which drove slowly through the streets. And we all followed, bearing candles and singing hymns. Four times the procession stopped, and we knelt in the muddy streets for a blessing.

We processed past Buddhist, Hindu and traditional Chinese temples, singing "Shine Jesus shine, fill this land with the Father's glory", the monstrance shining bright with the reflected light of a thousand candles. Our singing shared the "air-waves" with the muezzin from the local mosque, who reminded us that "God is great" and "there is no God but God". The route was lined with policemen of all races and religions, who directed traffic around us. It was deeply moving to see Muslim policemen stopping the traffic to let Jesus Christ pass! They may not have known what they were witnessing - but perhaps it gave some people some cause to wonder. There is hope for us all...

N.