When Faith Is Left a Body Without A Soul

I had the opportunity some years back to spend Palm Sunday and Holy Week in Seville.  No one does Holy Week like the Spaniards and Seville is the most famous of the Spanish cities for the marvelous processions of the pasos depicting scenes from the Passion and Death of our Savior.  The figures —some centuries old—depicting Jesus, the Virgin Mary, the apostles and others in the various tableaux are made of wood, wax and wire.  They are dressed, for the most part, in exquisite silks, velvets, and brocades with jeweled ornaments set in gold and silver.  The figures are arranged in their various scenes on large platforms that are carried by several dozen men standing beneath the curtained stages on which they are

arranged.  The platforms are then filled in with silver candelabra and magnificent floral pieces.   The carriers can move only a few steps at a time—perhaps as little as two or three yards—before needing to rest due to the weight of the pasos.

Each procession—and in Seville there are eight and nine each day—are sponsored by the various hermandades and confridias  (brotherhoods and confraternities) which plan their processions for the entire year from the previous Easter.  The members of each brotherhood or confraternity wear their distinctive silk and velvet habits—a tunic, mantle, and large pointed hood covering the face but with slits for the eyes.  The different confraternities and brotherhoods are distinguished from one another by the color combinations of their habits.  Each pasos is also accompanied by its own crucifer,

thurifer, and lucifers—carrying the processional cross, the incense, and the candles.  These men—usually young men in their early twenties—are clad in lace albs and tunicles of various liturgical colors.  The confraternities and brotherhoods also hire bands to precede each pasos in the procession.  The most famous and revered of the pasos is La Macarena, Our  Lady of Hope (also Our Lady of Sorrows). Her procession is in the very early hours of Good Friday morning. 

One would expect all this to be very moving—and it is—but not in the way intended.  As hundreds of thousands of tourists flock to Seville for the spectacle, it has become something like a weeklong circus parade.  Vendors go up and down alongside the procession selling ice cream and cold drinks and balloons for the kids.  Viewers stand there with hot sandwiches and beers as the processions pass by.  Even some of the “penitents” lift back their hoods and quaff a quick glass of wine or, when their procession is done, sit in the cafes, still in their gorgeous robes, feasting on tapas and beer.   And the churches are empty!!!  I was staying in a monastery where I have some friends—all services were cancelled for the week.  I went to church after church planning where to go for the Holy Thursday and Good Friday Liturgies only to find out that, other than in the cathedral, there were no scheduled services.   At the suggestion of my priest friends, I took a train to nearby Jerez de la Frontera and stayed with the friars there.  In Jerez there were the processions too.  Not as many, but five or six a day.  They were just as splendid with flowers and the silver ornaments and the bands and hooded penitents.  But the crowds along the street were dressed in suits and ties, the women in the traditional high combs holding their mantillas.  They watched in respectful silence as the various tableaux were carried by.  Yes there were people in the cafes and bars—we all have to eat—but the atmosphere was both serene and profound.  The churches were filled for the

evening services.  The music was beautiful and young families were well represented. 

When the processions started—centuries back during the late fifteenth-century reforms of the Church of Spain, they were genuine acts of piety.  The immense amount of gold and silver ornaments, processional crosses, candelaria, processional staffs and other accouterments testify to the genuine devotion of the faithful.  But with the increasing secularization of our culture the soul has been eaten out of so much devotion.  What was once faith is now often reduced to mere show.  The urgency of a new evangelization is cannot be overstated. 

Holy Week IV

More on Holy Week.  When I looked at Seville last Saturday, I told you that while the Seville celebrations are spectacular, they actually are more carnival than piety.  I was surprised the year I spent Holy Week in Seville that most of the churches in that city didn’t even have services scheduled for Holy Thursday or Good Friday!!!   In fact, other than the cathedral I couldn’t find services anywhere.  The streets were packed with both locals and tourists to see the processions with their marching bands and hooded confraternity members in their rich costumes and heavy silver wands, scepters, and staffs.  The Paso, or what we would call a “float” supports magnificently carved images depicting scenes from the Passion and is loaded with flowers and candles.  Acolytes wearing magnificent centuries old liturgical vestments in every shade of the rainbow and with heavy silver candelabra, processional crosses, and censers precede the paso and the whole is led by a marching band in a quasi-military uniform.  The paso is carried by anywhere from thirty to sixty costaleros, men who stand beneath the platform and linking arm-over-shoulder slowly carry it through the streets with a slow, swaying dance step. 

One year I managed to be in another Spanish city—Jerez la Frontera, about 60 miles south of Seville.  (Jerez is the center of the Sherry Wine industry—the word “sherry” being derived from “Jerez.”)  There were fewer processions—only three or four a day (while Seville has dozens) but they were just as rich in the pasos and costumes. More significantly, in Jerez there was still an air of religious devotion around them. People dress for the processions—men in dark suits, women in the traditional comb and mantilla.  Holy Thursday and Good Friday were particularly somber with people attending Church in the afternoon and the processions at night by torchlight.  

      Spain has become very secularized over the years since the fall of the Franco dictatorship.  Franco had a close alliance with the Church and under his rigid Fascist regime, Catholicism was not only preserved but forced down the gullet of the Spanish people.  With democracy came resentment.  The Spaniards were fairly quick to legalize abortion in a succession of ever more liberal laws from 1985 until 2010 when abortion became virtually on demand.  Spain legalized gay marriage in 2005 but, contrary to the machismo myth, had been quite socially tolerant of homosexuality since Franco’s fall.  It is perhaps the most open and gay-friendly society that I have seen on my travels.  On the other hand, the churches are deserted with only somewhere between 5% and 7% of the population attending Mass regularly.  Opus Dei is a strong influence among the conservative factions of society but while that includes the wealthiest classes, it is still a very limited group.  My impression of the Spanish Church is that it has withdrawn into a cocoon of its own devotees and has lost influence in the larger society.  When the Holy Father speaks of a “New Evangelization” Spain is where it needs to happen. 
These photos are from the Jerez la Frontera Holy Week celebrations. 



       

Holy Week 1

Undoubtedly one of the most interesting places t spend Holy Week is Seville.  Seville is one of the most magical cities in the world to visit at any time, but in Holy Week it is particularly astonishing. There are incredible processions each day of the week sponsored by various guilds, confraternities, and pious associations.  Unfortunately, while religious in character, these processions have lost their pious association and the city takes on the ambiance of a carnival.  Some of the less touristy towns in Andalusia manage to maintain the drama without the popcorn and cotton candy air, but for the sheer numbers of processions, costumes, bands, Seville can’t be beat.  I will post a few pictures here.