Corny day

Today was Suchitoto's Festival de Maiz, corn festival, which began with a procession featuring kings and queens of maiz coming in to the church decorated with cornstalks. We had just one Mass today, at 9 AM, so the church was crowded, everyone in the pews sitting haunch to haunch and people standing in the aisles on both sides. The readings of the day were a great fit:

And people will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and will recline at table in the kingdom of God. For behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.

Or, as the Salvadoran hymn puts it, Vamos todos al banquete, en la mesa de la creacion - let's all go to the banquet at the table of creation, where the last are first and the harvest is celebrated. Here in Suchitoto, at least on this day and this feast - dreamed up years ago by Srs. Peggy O'Neill and Pat Farrell - we were all the sons and daughters of the corn. And we all ate:
riguas (completely delicious fresh corn pancakes cooked in banana leaves), atole, tamales, tortas, and corn on the cob. Even with the rain falling unseasonably early, it was a feast.