Sunday, May 13, 2012

Closing of the Octave *

Today was the day for one of if not the biggest religious celebration in the Grand Duchy - the Closing of the Octave of Our Lady of Luxembourg, Comforter of the Afflicted. Starting on the third Sunday after Easter, the Octave closes two weeks later with a grand procession through the city. Almost 100.000 people took part in the various celebrations during the last fourteen days. Like every year the procession brought out quite a big turnout of Luxembourgish royals as well as the political elite (which we will sweep under the table).

In the morning, Grand Duke Henri and Grand Duchess Maria Teresa attended a pontifical mass at the beautiful Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Luxembourg, which almost certainly will also be the stage for the grand wedding later this year.

For the closing procession which led from the cathedral to the Rue de la Reine and back to the cathedral, the grand ducal couple was joined by Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume, Prince Félix, Prince Louis and wife Princess Tessy, as well as Princess Alexandra all dressed up and with their rosaries firmly in hand.

Afterwards like every year after returning to the palais, the whole family stepped out on the balcony to great the people. Louis' and Tessy's boys also made an appearance, Prince Gabriel in daddy's arm and Prince Noah in uncle Guillaume's.

Pictures of the morning mass are available at Wort, while both Wort and Tageblatt has pictures of the afternoon's procession. Both the RTL's French as well as the Luxembourgish news covered today's event. Another massive gallery with more than 1000 pictures can be found over at RTL. The cour now offers a gallery of visuals as well as does Manuel Dias.


Source: Wort

3 comments:

  1. Shame the fiancee wasn't there!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I was thinking the same thing. In most European monarchies, after the engagement the fiance/fiancee begins to participate in public events. Does that not happen in Lux? Or are you just as surprised?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I believe that in Luxembourg it has always worked this way. I've never been sure if Stephanie would participate in the closing of the octave as it is a very religious event, but I thought that she might take part in the celebrations for national day; because if she does not do that, we'll hardly see her again before the wedding because I don't think that Imre's wedding will be covered as much as Marie-Christine's was when she married in Mechelen.

    ReplyDelete