The Duke of Norfolk...

...began the tradition of the carpet of flowers at Arundel Cathedral in  the 19th century, and it is one of the sights of Sussex, Every year,on the feast of Corpus Christi the Bishop treads his way across the carpet, carrying the precious burden: the Blessed Sacrament, beneath a great canopy, and leading a vast crowd in a procession down to the Castle...

Yesterday, the feast of Corpus Christi, was a perfect, golden, enchantingly lovely Sussex summer day - not too warm, with a breeze from the sea...and the Mass and procession were magnificent. First Communicants led the way, the boys wearing blue sashes and acting as guardians of the Blessed Sacrament, the girls in white dresses, strewing flowers for its path...there were long rows of clergy, and a great phalanx of young Dominican friars bearing processional candles, and then rank on rank of Knights and Dames of the Order of St Gregory and other Papal Orders. ...and crowds and crowds of people, bearing various banners, and all praying and singing, or listening to the various Scriptural and devotional readings that resounded along the street (loudspeakers set up all along the way).There was a goodly sense of meeting up with friends, and of being part of something dear and familiar that is also glorious and faith-filled.

The present Duke and his family took part in the the Mass and procession, as we made our slow and measured way down the streets from the cathedral, and  across the drawbridge and into the castle grounds, then around to the great keep and to the altar set up for Benediction...

I have often visited the cathedral but never before taken part in this great event., It is all magnificently organised. Before Mass, one could admire the flower-carpet, which this year specially commemorated the 19th-century Duke who established the whole event...and there were also some little stalls selling religious and craft items and so on.  We were directed to a room in which to put on our knight/dame robes, and then shown where we would be for Mass, and what to do as the procession formed up afterwards...so there was no sense of fuss, and we could concentrate on what really mattered...