The red carpet treatment: whether of sawdust or flowers, Corpus Christi carpets celebrate the Eucharist.

I REMEMBER THE EXCITEMENT OF MAKING MY FIRST HOLY Communion: practicing with Necco wafers, wearing a white dress, veil, and shoes, nervously marching up to the altar with sweaty hands folded in prayer, and closing my eyes, waiting to feel the priest place the Host on my tongue for the first time.

But it was hard to explain just how sacred this sacrament is to my 4-year-old son Giona until we helped make sawdust carpets for the Feast of Corpus Christi at my mother's parish. Once he got on his knees with a scoop of sawdust to help turn the gray pavement of the parking lot into a brightly-colored carpet for the procession, he understood how special the Eucharist is. He couldn't wait to tell his grandmother all about it and asked, "Mommy, when can we do this again?"

Holy Martyrs Parish in Tarentum, Pennsylvania, was originally built for German immigrants who came to work in the glass factories. It began the practice of Corpus Christi carpets in the 1950s, laying down one color of sawdust on a narrow sidewalk along the side of the church. Over the years it has grown to a pathway of elaborately stenciled designs using a rainbow of colors spanning the length of the parking lot along with two altars erected for Benediction.

Preparation for the feast begins days ahead of time by dyeing 3 to 4 tons of sawdust from a local lumber mill. Every year parishioners create new designs and sketch them on the pavement. Parishioner Charles Culleiton even put together a book featuring color photographs from every feast since 1957.

One year the youth group created a carpet with a map of Africa and the words, "Ghana, Our African Friends." Another year the high schoolers recreated the "Omnipotence" mural (the eye of God) from the front wall of the church. A First Communion class made a carpet of a gingerbread man with the message, "My Sweet Jesus," and one with the biblical quote, "The Good Shepherd lays down his life for his sheep."

St. Juliana of Mont Cornillon in Belgium is credited with starting the feast of Corpus Christi. She had a great veneration for the Blessed Sacrament from her youth and had longed for a special feast in its honor. After meeting with the bishop, cardinal, and Pope Urban IV, she convinced the bishop to call a synod in 1246 to order that the celebration be held the following year.

By the 1300s the feast was introduced in various countries as an elaborate procession in which the priest or bishop carried a silver vessel for the Host along pathways richly adorned with brightly-colored carpets. In England flower petals were used, while in Germany the idea of using sawdust began at the Holy Ghost Seminary in the Black Forest.

This popular expression of devotion in Hispanic countries is said to date back to pre-Columbian times when priests made carpets with flowers, pine needles, and bird feathers to give thanks for a favor or miracle. At Our Lady of Mercy in Chicago, the parish prayer group for young adults, called the "Guadalupanos," creates sawdust carpets for their procession and Benediction on Corpus Christi. The Guadalupanoscontinuea long tradition from their home countries of Guatemala, Mexico, and Ecuador.

TODAY THE CELEBRATION OF THE FEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI at Holy Martyrs Parish is so well known that the local bishop once remarked it was worth the visit to see what he called a "glorious procession that displays the faith, love, and affection of all of us who recognize Jesus as the bread of everlasting life."

My son Giona certainly is eager to make the trip from Brooklyn to Tarentum. Every time he asks me if we can go back to help prepare the carpets for Corpus Christi, I know we both realize the importance of honoring Christ's presence in this way, that the lively colors and designs of the carpets we make illustrate the life we feel inside when we receive the Body of Christ.

By PAOLA CORSO, a New York Foundation for the Arts poetry fellow and author of Giovanna's 86 Circles (University of Wisconsin Press).