CLUTIER — St. Vaclav Catholic Oratory was once again filled with the sounds of Mass as the annual Feast of Corpus Christi was celebrated this past Sunday, June 11, in the rural Czech church and cemetery located just west of Clutier.

The parish – also known as St. Wenceslaus (Vaclav is the Czech name) – held its final Mass on May 26, 1992, after which the building became an oratory with the Prince of Peace Cluster. In the years since the closure, however, Corpus Christi has continued to be celebrated, drawing folks both near and far back to the church nestled in the hills that their Czech ancestors first organized in 1899.

According to a press release from the Catholic News Agency, the Feast of Corpus Christi — Latin for Body of Christ — is a more than 700-year-old feast day commemorating “the real presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.”

As part of the traditional celebration the Eucharist is carried publicly in solemn procession as a witness of faith.

Today only a few parishes in Iowa continue the tradition.

Sunday’s Corpus Christi at St. Vaclav featured full pews including four youngsters seated in the front – Kason Abe, Daisy Dvorak, Maddie Howard, and Violet Upah – who had received their First Communion last April.

Rev. Anthony Boahen Nketiah was the celebrant on Sunday. Mass was held at 10 a.m. and began with the singing of a hymn in Czech led by John Svoboda who also spoke the refrain in English. The song was a favorite of the late Shirley Kubik (1937-2022), Svoboda said, for whom Mass was held in memory that morning.

Following the hymn, Svoboda welcomed – again in Czech – parishioners to St. Vaclav.

“It is our Czech heritage,” Svoboda said. “We like to invoke our music and some of our words.”

He went on to explain the meaning behind both Corpus Christi and the four chapels that would be visited as part of the procession around the cemetery later that morning.

Each of the three chapels located in St. Vaclav Cemetery is painted a different color – the west chapel is yellow in honor of the sunrise; the north chapel is pink for midday; the east chapel is purple for dusk, the completion of the day. The fourth chapel is the oratory itself.

This year’s Corpus Christi took place amidst overcast skies, unseasonably cool temperatures, and a brisk north-northwest wind which wildly whipped the colorful ribbon banners several children held tightly during the procession.

Father Tony — bearing the Holy Eucharist under a canopy held by four bearers — was led from chapel to chapel by a group consisting of cross and flag bearers, a small band playing a solemn march, the four First Communicants dropping flower petals along the path, and several other children also carrying baskets of flower petals.

Many of the parishioners also elected to join in the walk behind Father Tony.

The procession ended back inside the oratory where Mass concluded with the Benediction.

Following Mass and the procession, a potluck dinner was held at St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Traer.

New this year, Kennan Seda led a cemetery walk before Mass highlighting the many Podhajsky family members buried in St. Vaclav Cemetery that descended from John and Katherine Podhajsky who came to Iowa with their three sons in 1873 or 1874.