Holidays and Festivals
The Procession of the Passion of Our Lord, the God Jesus, winds its way through the streets of Macau’s Old City on the first Saturday and Sunday of Lent, which are on 13 and 14 February in 2016.
The Procession of Our Lord, The God Jesus, will take place in Macau on 5 and 6 March 2022, the first Saturday and Sunday of Lent.
On the first day, a figure of Christ carrying the Cross will be carried in a solemn procession from St. Augustine’s Church through the streets of the Old City to the Cathedral of Macau for an overnight vigil.
The image figure will be carried back through the city via the stations of the Cross, passing through Senado Square, St Dominic’s Square, Rua do Campo, and the Avenida de Praia Grande on the following day.
Origins of the Tradition
Dating back to the 16th Century, the tradition is said to have originated with Japanese and Vietnamese Christians, who had settled in the then Portuguese colony, an important centre of Catholicism and Christian missionary activity in Asia at the time.
Lent begins on Ash Wednesday (2 March 2022) and ends 46 days later (14 April).
Lent is a period of 40 days of repentance with abstinence, confession, fasting, and prayer in the run-up to the death of Christ on Good Friday (15 April 2022) and his resurrection on Easter Sunday (17 April 2022).
The 40 days of Lent are symbolic of the 40 hours that Christ lay in his tomb. So why are there 46 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday and not only 40?
That is because there was thought to be no duty to fast on Sundays, and there are 6 Sundays within this period.