In Florissant

At sundown, heralds in parti-colored livery tilted silver trumpets, blew sweetly toward the dusky sky. From the Sacred Heart Church, 3,000 Roman Catholics-priests, nuns, altar-boys ringing bells, laity bearing bright banners and lighted candles --began moving in a long procession through the flower-decked streets. In the midst of the procession was the Blessed Sacrament (to Catholics, the real presence of God), borne in a monstrance under a silken canopy by vested priests. As darkness fell, the marchers reached the end of their two-mile route, the gardens of the old von Schrenk estate. There, before an altar, a priest raised his arms in the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, and air bombs and rockets showered the night with cascading fire. This Old-World pageantry took place last week in the little town of Florissant, Mo., near St. Louis.

In Europe, Catholics commonly parade in the streets with the Blessed Sacrament on Corpus Christi, a feast celebrating the Lord's institution of the Eucharist. One of the few places in the U. S. where elaborate Corpus Christi processions take place is Florissant. Except for a few years after the World War, Florissant's devout inhabitants have decorated the town and marched with the Sacrament on every Corpus Christi since 1814.

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