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Padre Javier rose well before first light, as did the kitchen help and two of his most faithful altar boys. The priest went directly to the chapel, dressed in his simple jerga robes, and knelt to pray. It was to be a special day for him. The bishop was too ill with croup and high fever to participate, and if the truth were known, too old and weak. So Padre Javier would for the first time have the honor of bearing the monstrance containing the Blessed Sacrament representing the body of Christ out of the church through the streets of the pueblo—the Corpus Christi procession. The finest vestments of the church would be displayed. The honor and the responsibility both elated and worried him.
He and his altar boys took a light breakfast of corn tortillas and fruit then returned to the rectory to begin the ritual of dressing. He removed his simple jerga and stood wearing only a linen habit and sandals. Spread on his bed were an array of beautifully embroidered linens and silks, some with gold thread. With ritual silence and pomp, the boys helped him don the linen amice, folded around his shoulders and over his chest and tied in place around the waist with string. The alb, a sacklike tunic of white linen, came next. With long narrow sleeves and a hole for his head, it was secured around his waist by a band. It hung low and just cleared the ground. Four rectangular patches richly embroidered, graced the front and back of the alb just over the hem and each sleeve. The bottom hem was edged with two inches of Portuguese lace.
The maniple was next. A narrow strip of silk a yard long and five inches in width, tapering to three at the ends, was draped over his left forearm; it had two ties to secure it to the arm to prevent accidental dropping. The maniple was finely embroidered with three crosses. Then the stole, a nine-foot linen strip, tapered from its six-inch ends to its four-inch middle, was draped across his neck, crossed over his breast, and fastened in place by the ends of the girdle. Like the maniple, it was embroidered with a cross but this one rode at the back of his neck.
Last, both boys raised the chasuble, holding it high so the padre could step forward and allow it to be lowered over his head, a cloak of silk with a regal purple lining and a five-inch matching stripe, or pilar, down the chasuble’s center front and back. The pilar was heavily laced with gold thread.
Though he was dressed properly for the mass he would conduct before the procession, an even more intricate garment lay across the foot of his bed. Before the procession began, he would remove the maniple and chasuble and don the cope. A semicircular cape ten feet across, five feet deep, and lined with red silk, it was adorned with even more gold on a band, an orphrey, eleven inches wide. When worn, it rose above the shoulder line, almost creating a hood.
The padre was ready for mass, and upon its completion he would bear the representation of the body of Christ through the streets.