Corpus Christi archway in Mazo
Mazo in La Palma is one of the best places to see Corpus Christi. Of course, Catholics all over the world celebrate the fiesta, but in Mazo they make the most wonderful archways and carpets decorated with petals, leaves and seeds.
Piano archway
The main feast day is ten weeks after Maundy Thursday, so this year it was on the 11th of June. If you’re impressed enough to book a holiday to see next year’s Corpus Christi, it’ll be on June 7th.
| 2012 | 7 June |
| 2013 | 30 May |
| 2014 | 19 June |
| 2015 | 4 June |
| 2016 | 26 May |
| 2017 | 15 June |
| 2018 | 31 May |
| 2019 | 20 June |
| 2020 | 11 June |
Corpus Christi Altar decorated with petals, leaves and seeds
Each village of the municipality makes an archway with a carpet and a little altar. People collect the materials and work on intensively the pieces a couple of weeks in advance. Then the archways go up overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, and stay up until Sunday. The carpets beneath the archways are made using things rather like wrought iron gates, as stencils. They lay the “gate” down on the sand, fill the sections with petals or whatever, squirt with water-with-a-bit-of-glue-in-it, and lift the gate up again.
Making the carpet
It’s difficult to overstate the work that goes into this. For example, how long do you think it would take you to do make of these?
Detail of Corpus Christi archway, Mazo, La Palma
And there are 25 of these rosettes across the base of the archway.
Base of Corpus Christi archway, Mazo, La Palma
And the whole thing is maybe 10 metres (33 ft) high.
Archway decorated with leaves, petals and seeds for Corpus Christi
During a normal Catholic mass, the host is put into a special vessel called a monstrance. On Sunday they’ll hold a special mass in the church followed by a procession around the archways.
the Corpus Christi Procession
The priest walks on the carpets holding the blessed wafers in their special container (called a monstrance) while everyone else walks at the sides. As he comes to each archway, he puts the monstrance on the little altar, kneels and wafts incense around.
Corpus Christi altar being blessed
The church of San Blas, at the bottom of the hill, gets decorated too. It’s a rather unusual church in that it has three naves.
Church of San Blas
And the flowers inside are wonderful. If you get there, check out the ceiling over the altar, too.
Interior of the church of San Blas, decorated for Corpus Christi
If you miss this, you can see some examples from previous years in the Red House Museum.
Corpus Christi archway, Mazo, La Palma
