{"id":1045,"date":"2006-06-16T11:36:21","date_gmt":"2006-06-16T11:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/06\/festivals-with-a-shadow.html"},"modified":"2006-06-16T11:36:21","modified_gmt":"2006-06-16T11:36:21","slug":"festivals-with-a-shadow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/06\/festivals-with-a-shadow.html","title":{"rendered":"Festivals, with a shadow"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week in Fall River, MA., four people were killed by a fire that engulfed a hall where members of the Portugese community were preparing for a feast. Today, Michael Paulson of the Globe looks at the traditions of these feasts:<\/a><\/p>\n

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This weekend’s Holy Ghost Festival in Fall River — the celebration of which is now uncertain because of the tragedy — is one of hundreds of such festivals that take place each spring and summer throughout the Azorean diaspora, in New England, California, Brazil, and beyond.<\/p>\n

The festivals are a unique expression of devotion to the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Christian Trinity, that is closely associated with the intense religiosity of the Azores, a Portuguese archipelago in the northern Atlantic. As residents of the Azores immigrated to the Americas, they brought the festival with them.<\/p>\n

“It’s simply the most important tradition in the Azores," said Manuela Bairos, Portugal’s consul general in Boston.<\/p>\n

The festivals vary in timing and detail from location to location, but share several elements, including a procession, often led by children dressed as saints; a free meal, usually consisting of a soup with bread, some form of cabbage, and meat; and a silver crown or crowns, usually adorned with a dove symbolizing the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n

The celebrations have a strongly Catholic character. The procession takes place on a Sunday after Pentecost and is preceded by a Mass. Often, as in Fall River, people get together evenings before the feast to recite the rosary.<\/p>\n

“The Portuguese people, especially from the Azores, have a great devotion to the Holy Spirit, and that has permeated their culture," said the Rev. James Ferry, pastor of Espirito Santo parish, where a majority of the Holy Ghost Association worships.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week in Fall River, MA., four people were killed by a fire that engulfed a hall where members of the Portugese community were preparing for a feast. Today, Michael Paulson of the Globe looks at the traditions of these feasts: This weekend’s Holy Ghost Festival in Fall River — the celebration of which…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nFestivals, with a shadow - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/06\/festivals-with-a-shadow.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Festivals, with a shadow - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Earlier this week in Fall River, MA., four people were killed by a fire that engulfed a hall where members of the Portugese community were preparing for a feast. Today, Michael Paulson of the Globe looks at the traditions of these feasts: This weekend’s Holy Ghost Festival in Fall River — the celebration of which…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/06\/festivals-with-a-shadow.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-06-16T11:36:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Festivals, with a shadow - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/06\/festivals-with-a-shadow.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Festivals, with a shadow - Via Media","og_description":"Earlier this week in Fall River, MA., four people were killed by a fire that engulfed a hall where members of the Portugese community were preparing for a feast. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}