A Never-to-be-Forgotten Feast Day
At supper one evening we learned our excursion for the next day was to begin very early. We were going to see something unique and special they said. And it was. I will never forget it.
It was dark, raining steady and our ponchos glistened in the semi darkness. Once we were all dripping on the bus, our guide told us we were going to visit two tiny medieval towns in the Alps. The only way in to the towns was by rail. We were going to observe a custom in the towns dating back to medieval times. Minds were racing: jousting, Maypole, beheading?
We tried not to panic as our huge European tour bus maneuvered through villages on roads used to move cows, single-file. When we finally arrived at a local train depot, we didn’t get off the bus. The bus got on the train. In the pouring rain and heavy fog, with a bus full of disbelieving women, the bus driver backed his monstrous bus onto a flat railroad car that had four tall poles on each corner. Railroad workers clamped our bus to the poles. We all breathed, then applauded his skill. The small-gauge train moved slowly and eventually we went over the mountain and descended into a valley. The aqua-colored rivers gushing from glaciers rushed past. We entered a tunnel. When we emerged from the tunnel the guide explained we had just reached our first destination where a parade was about to begin.
This is truly a medieval place. The wooden houses are tiny and tilted, sturdy, but aged to a black patina. They’ve been here so long they’ve become one with the roots and rocks. Doors and shutters, all in place, appear lop-sided. Ancient decorations are carved deeply into the door casings. In front of each dwelling is an altar decorated with fresh flowers. Along the road are permanent crucifixes and benches where one can rest and meditate. The road is a narrow dirt pass zig-zagging up the hill in front of the houses. People who must leave the village to go to work bike to the train depot and ride the train to the outside where their car is parked waiting for them, or they take a bus.
We heard the brass band before we saw the procession. The village brass band wears blue uniforms. Leading the procession are altar boys carrying the canopy over a priest carrying the monstrance and another carrying holy water. Following the priest, are the Grenadiers of God, like a Swiss version of Knights of Columbus. First Communicant girls in white dresses, and boys in lederhosen with white accessories, slopped through the rain with grace carrying umbrellas. Some cows followed wearing flowers, then all the community wearing the traditional clothing of the district followed carrying umbrellas. Along the way, the procession slowed in front of each altar where it was blessed with holy water and prayers. The procession ended at the Church.
Back to the train-bus, back in our warm seats, we went further into the valley to the next little village where the scene was repeated and just beginning. I learned every village in Switzerland has a brass band. This one wore red uniforms. This Church sat on a knob in the valley. We climbed the slick meadow from which we viewed the entire Lotschental Valley. We could see the narrow gauge train track disappear into the mountainside, and the bright green Rhone River. This time we followed the procession into the Church. The brass band played a familiar hymn. The priest elevated the monstrance. Suddenly all the strangeness seemed so ordinary; so right; so familiar. The Feast of Corpus Christi. I was home.