Hun­dreds of Ro­man Catholics gath­ered in Port-of-Spain ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing for Cor­pus Christi cel­e­bra­tions.

Wor­ship­pers, not de­terred by in­ter­mit­tent rain­fall, gath­ered in­side and out­side the Cathe­dral of Im­mac­u­late Con­cep­tion at In­de­pen­dence Square in Port-of-Spain from well be­fore 8 am.

Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don, who led the ser­vice, sought to re­mind the con­gre­ga­tion about the sig­nif­i­cance of the Eu­charist (the tak­ing of com­mu­nion in re­mem­brance and rev­er­ence of Je­sus Christ), which is cel­e­brat­ed an­nu­al­ly by Ro­man Catholics and na­tion­al­ly with a pub­lic hol­i­day.

“We be­lieve that every time the priest cel­e­brates the Eu­charist, Je­sus him­self, through the ac­tions of the priest, is trans­form­ing the bread and wine in­to the sub­stance of him­self,” he said.

“The Eu­charist is here to be adored and wor­shipped as God but al­so that we eat and drink so we have the nour­ish­ment that we need to reach to eter­nal life,” he added.

The ser­vice was high­ly in­ter­ac­tive with Gor­don seek­ing to an­swer ques­tions from the di­verse con­gre­ga­tion, which in­clud­ed scores of stu­dents from Ro­man Catholic pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools in Port-of-Spain.

Asked whether com­mu­nion should be ac­cept­ed by hand or by mouth, Gor­don sug­gest­ed ei­ther is ac­cept­able but not­ed that it must be done with deep rev­er­ence.

“For the first 200 years it was in the hand. The dis­ci­ples re­ceived it in their hands at the Last Sup­per,” he said.

“When we come to the Eu­charist we are giv­ing God the high­est thanks we can ever give,” he added.

Asked the pur­pose of the act, Gor­don said, “We get to eat the bread of an­gels. We get to feast on heav­en­ly de­lights.”

Gor­don al­so sought to give his per­son­al per­spec­tive on of­fi­ci­at­ing and re­ceiv­ing the Eu­charist.

“When I pray the mass it is not a job I do as a priest but a de­vo­tion I do be­cause this is my God,” Gor­don said.

“Af­ter com­mu­nion, there is a move­ment in my soul be­cause of some­thing God has done be­cause he has come. All the fuzz in my head just set­tles down and I start to hear him (Je­sus) again,” he said.

Gor­don al­so called on the wor­ship­pers to con­sid­er their sins be­fore par­tak­ing in com­mu­nion.

“Just pause for a mo­ment and rec­ol­lect on the ways we have gone wrong and bring it be­fore God ask­ing for mer­cy,” he said.

Af­ter the in­ter­ac­tive ses­sion, wor­ship­pers marched through the streets of the cap­i­tal city to gospel mu­sic and hymns per­formed by a live band from two large mu­sic trucks usu­al­ly used for Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions.

Gor­don and sev­er­al priests par­tic­i­pat­ed in the march from on top of a mod­i­fied flatbed truck.

The en­tire pa­rade was su­per­vised by a group of heav­i­ly armed po­lice of­fi­cers.

The con­gre­ga­tion then re­assem­bled at the church for the com­ple­tion of the fes­tiv­i­ties.