Today is yet another public holiday – Corpus Christi.

Last week, we had Monday off for Whit Monday, also known as White Monday or Pentecost Monday, a Christian holiday which celebrates the day the Holy Ghost/Spirit came upon the apostles, disciples of Jesus. According to the scriptures, 50 days after Christ’s resurrection (Easter Sunday), the Holy Ghost appeared before the most loyal disciples and entrusted them with the task of evangelism. From then on, the apostles travelled about the world spreading Christianity.

Corpus Christi is another Christian holiday observed sixty days after Easter Sunday. Corpus Christi celebrates the Holy Eucharist. For all the other heathens out there like me, I’ll save you a Wikipedia visit: the Holy Eucharist is the Christian sacrament where bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit and the all-encompassing powers of the priest. The name Corpus Christi is Latin for “the body of Christ”. The holiday celebrates the miracle of bread and wine transforming into the body and blood of Christ.

The festival was inspired by Saint Juliana (1193-1258), a Belgian nun, who had a recurring dream of the Church under a full moon with a black spot. The moon, she said, was the Church’s calendar of festivals, and the black spot was the lack of a festival to celebrate the holiest element of the Church – the Eucharist.

The rest is history. In 1246, Juliana’s bishop declared a festival marking the sacrament of the Eucharist would be celebrated in his territory. The holiday was then instituted throughout the Church in 1264 by Pope Urban IV. Corpus Christi was then made an obligatory feast for Roman Catholics by Pope Clement V in 1311 and was celebrated in England from 1318 onward.

In 1551, the festival was considered a “triumph over heresy” by the Church, meaning when Christians celebrated the festival, they affirmed their belief in the doctrine of transubstantiation – the belief that sacramental bread and wine taken at holy communion is truly the body and blood of Jesus.

Essentially, I am in the midst of a crash course in Religious Studies, Women’s Studies and Public Administration at the moment. It is a daily firehose of information on all fronts as I try and assimilate it all, integrate and up my cultural intelligence, so I can be most useful. I am taking each day as it comes, moment by moment, bit by bit, or bird by bird, as American writer Anne Lamott would say. I am certainly grateful for all the holidays Saint Lucia celebrates!

I began my introductions and interviews with the 22 ministry Focal Points on the project this week, and the new apartment is fabulous. I’ve been here a week today and could not be happier. Reduit beach is literally a six-minute walk away, I found a Saturday yoga class offered right next door, and I’ve been going to SocaFit (Youtube link to what that’s all about; not the classes I go to here, but you get the idea – super fun and sweaty, lol) with Felicia and three expat women she introduced me to. Life has some balance to it, finally, and a whole ton of sunshine and peaceful, quiet time too.

Here are a couple of videos of my new apartment, which will download to your media player:

Downstairs

https://christimay.site/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/IMG_7419.mov

Upstairs

https://christimay.site/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/IMG_7420.mov

Below are some photos of the neighbourhood. The wall with the fish is the entrance to the Department of Fisheries building.