Let me take a minute to explain the utter craziness that is Holy Week. Holy Week, of course is the week before Easter. Everyone in Spain is on break in order to enjoy the festivities. All the stores are closed, no one works, and school is out. There are 60 processions total that happen throughout the course of the week. The processions are like parades. Each procession is composed of 2 "floats," which in Spanish are called pasos. The floats are made of gold, are stored in the Cathedrals every year until Holy Week, and are carried by men on foot. The first float is always of Jesus, and the following one is always one of the Virgin Mary. The floats can weigh up to 100 tons.
Jesus Paso being stored in a Cathedral:
Virgin Mary paso:
Close Up:
The sculptures of Jesus and the Virgin are very intricate, and every paso of Jesus depicts a certain image or scene from the Bible. In the Virgin pasos, Mary has different facial expressions, but most of the time she is crying. She is usually surrounded by candles, flowers or both, and wears that funny looking crown. The Mary floats are way more popular than the Jesus floats because the Spanish feel much closer to Mary. They feel that Jesus is too holy for them, but they can relate to Mary through the death of her son.
Every paso leaves from the Cathedral in which it is kept, is carried to the main Cathedral, goes through the main Cathedral, and is carried back to it's home Cathedral. So the farther away you are from the big Cathedral, the longer your journey will be. Keep in mind that the Santa Cruz streets around the Cathedral our tiny. The pasos barely fit. Men called costaleros serve as conductors in the front of the parade telling the men carrying the floats where to go. The men carrying the floats and people involved in the processions are collectively call brotherhoods, and every church or cathedral has its own. Each member of the brotherhood is called a nazareno, and the nazarenos wear long robes, pointy hats with fabric that hangs down over their face with holes cut out for the eyes, carry long candles, and are prohibited from speaking. The nazarenos 100% look like members of the KKK. It is quite scary.
Kellsey and I walked through them trying to get to the grocery store:
There are also members of the procession called penitentes. Penitentes look like nazarenos except for that the don't wear tall pointy caps. Instead of carrying candles, they carry crosses and walk barefoot through the streets in an attitude of repentance. The number of crosses they carry depends on the amount of repenting they want to do. They are supposed to resemble Jesus carrying His cross on the way to Golgotha.
Each procession usually has a band that accompanies it, and the music is specific to each paso. However, there is a silent one that I will explain later.
Okay, so as I was saying, we were walking home from the bus station when we encountered this, the student procession, filling the streets:
So, it was pretty impossible to do anything except wait for the procession to pass by. We found a spot to stand on the corner of one of the smaller streets that we needed to turn on in order to get home. What we didn't realize was that the spot was available because the corner is the worst place to stand. When the procession came by, there was barely enough room for it to clear the corner without hitting the walls of the buildings. So naturally, as it was turning, all of the people including me and Kellsey were being pushed and compacted against the wall to make room for the paso. I have never experienced anything like it. It was worse than a mosh pit because there was nowhere to go, and it took several minutes for the paso to get by. Let's just say I became very close with the poor woman standing behind me. Everyone was frustrated wtih Kellsey and I because we had our bookbags on, and kept complaining, "ooo, la mochila..." but we couldn't help it. After the paso passed, we still had to push and shove to get through, but I'm just glad we made it out alive.
After recovering from the London trip, we got to see many more processions much more comfortably. We didn't have to go far since we lived close to the Cathedral and they all came there. Here is some footage and some pictures of what the processions look like:
This one is called La 0:
Pretty crazy, huh? The Spaniards love to go and watch their favorite ones. The middle of the week is the most popular, especially Thursday because Thursday night the processions last until the next morning. Popular ones include "El Silencio" and "La Macarena." Kellsey and I stayed up to watch El Silencio, which passes by at 3 am. We staked out our spot at about 1, and waited under a tree eating sunflower seeds and leaning on each other's backs. When the paso finally came, it was pretty intense. Obviously, it had no music and to my surprise, all the people watching really were quiet. If anyone talked they were quickly shushed. You could even hear the footsteps of the nazarenos carrying the paso. It is meant to be very reverent, being the morning before Jesus' death on the cross, but for me it was a little on the creepy side.
The Nazarenos of El Silencio:
Jesus El Silencio Paso carrying the cross:
Mary of El Silencio:
The one following El Silencio is La Macarena. This one is the scene of Pilate sentencing Jesus to death on a cross. Kellsey and I went home at around 4 after watching the silent one, so we didn't see La Macarena at the Cathedral. However, we got up the next morning to see it at the end of it's journey going back into it's home Cathedral. I thought it was a pretty good depiction of the scene. They carried it under this yellow arch that you will see in the video and had trumpets blaring in the background, and since I was up close to the front looking up at it, I really kind of felt like I was there. People all around me were sobbing and crying out to it. There was also a person serenading it opra-style from a window, which is very common and is called a sainete. It was a neat experience. We didn't wait long enough to see the Virgin float, but we caught the back of it on the way home. It is supposed to be the prettiest one. By the time we got home, we watched it going into the home cathedral on the news with Pepe....you know, quality bonding time. He didn't believe we had actually gone to see the first part of it.
La Macarena:
Pontius Pilate and Jesus:
Side view of the Jesus paso:
Semana Santa is a tradition that Sevilla has had for years. Yes, I think it is important to remember Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, but I think it is just as important or even more important to celebrate his rising again!! The climax of their Holy Week is Good Friday. Saturday there are some processions, but on Easter there is only 1!! Easter is the least important day of the whole week for them. I can't understand that. Yes, Jesus was crucified for us on Friday, but then He conquered death so that we could be reconciled to Him and have a way to Heaven!! And he did it so that we could have a relationship and open communication with Him. There should be a HUGE party about this on Sunday.
I think it is sad that the Spaniards feel as though Jesus is too holy for them, because although He is holy, He really wants to know them intimately. It is interesting that everyone is so reverent during Holy Week because like 2 weeks later is Feria de Abril, which is a big party. In a sense it is good that they emphasize Holy Week, but I feel like they are really lacking the relationship with Jesus that grounds their faith. I am so glad I got to experience a huge part of their culture during Holy Week, and I pray that Jesus will become more than someone they acknowledge greatly just one week out of the year, and will realize that He loves them more than they could ever imagine.
Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
John 17:3
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