Rally ends special week

By YVONNE KAMBIBEL
CATHOLIC faithfuls in Maprik, East Sepik, have ended the celebration of the Holy Eucharist week with a three-day rally, a church leader says.
Church leader David Dunari said the final day was celebrated by carrying the Holy Eucharist in a procession around the town area before taking it back to the church.
“Some hundreds of people took part in the liturgical procession which included singing and praying,” he said.
“We had a police escort just to make sure that this important procession had no unnecessary disturbances.”
Dunari said all seven areas within the Maprik cluster had their chances of spending time with the Holy Eucharist throughout the two weeks before it was returned to the main church situated in the township of Maprik.
The Eucharist is a significant and central rite of Christian worship.
It is a sacrament of initiation that Christians celebrate to commemorate what had happen at the last supper.
Bread and wine symbolise the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.
“The three days rally ended with the Corpus Christi Feast Day lastSunday last week,” Dunari said.
He said Catholics in Maprik were accustomed to celebrating both events as an annual event in church.
He said each year, they looked forward to the celebrations.
Corpus Christi is borrowed from Medieval Latin “Corpus Christi”, short for “Festum Corporis Christi” which translates to “Feast of the Body of Christ”.
Both of these events are marked with high significance in the Liturgical Calendar of the Catholic church not just in Papua New Guinea, but also around the world.