Bishop Larry Silva will lead the diocese’s annual 1.25-mile eucharistic procession for the Feast of Corpus Christi, May 29.
The observance of the feast, also known as the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, will begin with Mass celebrated by the bishop at the Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa at 10:30 a.m.
The procession starts at 11:45 a.m. and covers nearly one and a quarter miles, starting at St. Theresa then going down School Street, over the freeway and onto Vineyard Boulevard, leading to the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in downtown Honolulu.
Bishop Silva will lead the procession, carrying a monstrance holding the Holy Eucharist. Priests and deacons also help to carry the monstrance along the way.
Congregants will be invited to pray and sing hymns throughout the walk, which can take up to an hour for all marchers to complete.
The procession culminates at the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace, where adoration and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, presided over by the bishop, is expected to start around 1 p.m.
Marchers are encouraged to bring their own water bottles and sun protection for the noon-day walk.
The eucharistic procession has drawn hundreds of local faithful each year since Bishop Silva started the co-cathedral-to-cathedral tradition in the Islands in 2007. The eucharistic procession is a universal Catholic practice for the Corpus Christi feast.
According to “Holy Communion and Worship of the Eucharist Outside Mass,” a Vatican document issued more than 40 years ago on the feast of Corpus Christi, a procession of “special importance and meaning of the pastoral life to the parish or city” is “desirable … when it can truly be a sign of common faith and adoration.”
For more information on the procession, contact the diocesan Office of Worship at 585-3342.
