Corpus Christi in Cuenca

Thursday, June 4th marked the beginning of the festival of Corpus Christi.  The festival will run for seven days, and as far as I can determine, most of the activities will take place in Parque Calderon.  It is a religious holiday that revolves around the worship of the Blessed Sacrament.  If you visit Parque Calderon during the festival you will see numerous tents sent up offering a wide selection of homemade sweets.

I was told by a friend here that the reason sweets are offered during this festival is partly to do with the fact that when the Spaniards first came here, they would offer sweets to the indigenous people to entice them to come to church.

Another important part of the celebration is fireworks.  Every night during the festival there is a fireworks display sponsored by various societal groups.  When we walked through the parque  on Thursday, we saw the towers being built which would house the fireworks for Thursday nights display.

 

On Thursday evening, we walked down to San Sebastian to see the procession that would take place.  As we walked along Mariscal Sucre we saw several vendors that had placed displays in front of their tienda's.

When we arrived at San Sebastian there were many people gathered waiting for the procession to begin.  Most held homemade candle holders of various designs in their hands.

The procession would travel from San Sebastian to the New Cathedral located in Parque Calderon.  

As we watched, we somehow got swept up in the crowd and became part of the procession.  People sang a beautiful song as they walked along the street.

The people watching the procession in the picture above threw rose pedals from their balcony as it traveled past their building.

Finally, everyone arrived at the New Cathedral.  Most entered inside to take part in the church service.  As we stood in the park, we noticed that they had finished building the towers which housed the fireworks.  We wanted to stay for the display, but by that time it had started to rain and we were tired.  We heard that the show would not start until sometime after 9:00 P.M., so we decided to go home and catch the fireworks another night.  As we headed for home, we saw a band setting up at the gazebo.  It looks like it's going to be a fun week of festivities in Cuenca.