In his Divine Comedy, Dante describes an awesome procession that occurs after he and Virgil reach the earthly paradise at the top of the mountain of Purgatory. Here are some excerpts from Canto 28 **
When round toward me the Lady wholly turned,
And said: “My brother, look and listen now!”
And lo, so bright a luster suddenly
Traversed the mighty wood in all directions,
That I of lightning was compelled to think;
…
And through the illumined air was running now a gentle melody;
…
There now were coming ‘neath as fair a sky
as I describe here, four and twenty Elders,
two at a time, and crowned with flour-dy-lys.
So after these, four living Creatures came,
each with a wreath of verdant foliage crowned.
…
A chariot carrying a Griffon appears
His members were of gold as far as bird
He was, and white the others [the lion part] mixed with red.
More people arrive…
These seven were robed in garments which resembled
those of the primal company, though on their heads
they wore not lily garlands, but were crowned
with roses and with other crimson flowers;
a distant sight of them had made one swear
that all on fire they were above their brows.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/langdon-the-divine-comedy-vol-2-purgatorio-english-only-trans
This is a stunning procession and there’s a lot more in Dante’s description. When Dorothy Sayers translated the Purgatorio she compared the cavalcade in Canto 28 to a Corpus Christi procession. I couldn’t wrap my mind around this idea when I first read her notes. For example…
Last Sunday I went to a newly ordained priest’s First Mass. It was the feast of Corpus Christi and Father Joseph really made the most of it, taking the congregation around the perimeter of the property in a procession, singing all the verses of five different songs. There were several young girls dressed in their First Communion outfits and sprinkling flowers on the ground, here and there. It was quite charming and earnest, especially when the front and back of the procession got out of sync on the songs. They couldn’t hear each other, and I loved that the people at the back still sang with great determination, even when they obviously couldn’t hear the front. But … not Dante.
Here’s a picture from 2020 of a different Corpus Christi Procession in downtown Alexandria, stemming from Old Saint Mary’s Church. This procession has a lot more pageantry than the one I saw last Sunday. https://www.catholicherald.com/article/columns/deacon-jonathan-smith-reflects-on-his-first-experiences-as-a-deacon/
Again, lovely, but not reminiscent of the procession Dante wrote about.
However!
I read a story this week about the world’s biggest monstrance in Valencia, Spain. Valencia has had a procession on the Feast of Corpus Christi since the middle 1300’s. That’s pretty remarkable since the Feast was only made universal in 1264 (and Saint Thomas Aquinas was tasked with writing hymns for it). The monstrance that Valencia had used for hundreds of years, was destroyed during the Spanish Civil War.
After the war a priest wanted to build a new monstrance but worried about the optics, in a time of great poverty. A laborer in the area gave him five silver coins, more or less all that the guy had. The priest took this as a sign that he should go ahead and try to build a monstrance and the city, rich and poor alike, responded enthusiastically.
When the monstrance was completed, it was an imposing, beautiful structure, more than 13 feet tall and some 7 feet wide, formed by more than 1,300 pounds of silver and another almost-18 pounds of gold, adorned by hundreds of precious stones and pearls.
Despite its opulence, Melo [the Archbishop of Valencia] “baptized” it as the “Monstrance of the Poor” since it had been constructed thanks to the gifts of ordinary people given from their own livelihood.
The original five pieces of silver are actually embedded in the shrine as part of the decorations.
The story includes a description of the mile long procession in Valencia, including dancers representing the seven virtues, and people acting out stories from the Bible.
The elders who stand before the throne of God in the Book of Revelation are a particularly notable group, as they carry 35-pound candles that stand about 6 feet tall. These bearded, white-clad men are among the last figures of the procession, indicating that Jesus is about to arrive.
And when Jesus does come, people on the balconies above the procession throw red flowers everywhere.
Read the story. Look at the pictures. Dante’s poetry comes alive.
** The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. The Italian Text with a Translation in English Blank Verse and a Commentary by Courtney Langdon, 3 volumes (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1918, 1920, 1921). The text is in the public domain.
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