Transforming the Everyday into the Extraordinary: Religious Processions in Portugal

Throughout Portugal, Roman Catholic parishes stage elaborate processions to celebrate patron saints on their feast days. The statue of the patron saint is carried through the streets of the community on a prescribed route accompanied by music, usually performed by a wind band, in an act of devotion that sacralizes the community. This essay draws on religious historian Robert Orsi’s “theology of the streets” to propose a musical theology of the streets as a framework for understanding how music not only physically mobilizes people, but also engages people spiritually into a feeling of communitas within in the context of the procession