Semana Santa

This is probably one of the most interesting posts I've written, in my opinion, because there is so much cultural value in Semana Santa.  I'm so glad I've gotten to be a part of this and see what the Holy Week is all about in Spain.  For the rest of Semana Santa (Holy Week), I'm staying in Granada.  My friend Rachel's family is in town, so they're doing site seeing and hanging out.  Since I'd never seen the Cathedral in Granada, Rachel invited me to come along and see it with them!  Rachel's taking a Spanish Art History class right now, so she was able to tell us all about the cathedral! (Sorry if the videos don't work, my computer is all of a sudden hating the internet again!)

This room is where the priest's robes are kept.  They enter this room, get their robes and then go into the next room to change.

This is the priest's changing room.  There were no photos allowed to be taken in this room, but I'm sneaky, so I got pictures of everything!

There is a representation of the Virgin Mary enclosed in glass.  She is standing on a cloud of angels and a half moon, this is a representation of her virginity.  Her robes are supposed to be white, but over time they have changed color.

The main part of the Cathedral is amazing!  It's huge and absolutely gorgeous!

These areas are bought by families in the city, they're called capillas.  They are decorated however the family chooses to decorate them and is a guaranteed place for the family to sit during the services.  You can tell where the wealth of the world has put their money.  All of these are decorated very ornately and all are different.

As unreal as it may seem, there are actually people buried under this.  Rachel said that when she had visited the cathedral with her class, there was only a grate over this area.

The pews have Granadas on them! 

Rachel and I standing in front of one of the capillas.

The choir hymnals are HUMONGOUS!  They have to be big enough for the whole choir to see them.

The outside of the cathedral.  I can't believe I had never been inside and I walk/ride the bus past it everyday!  I'm glad I finally got to go!

Rachel's parents invited me to go out to eat with them.  It was very fun, we had pizza!  At night, a bunch of us met up to go to one of the Semana Santa processions.  I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this, and at first I thought it was kind of scary, but it's just what they do in Spain!  Granada is very proud of the processions that take place here.  The first people we saw walking down the path were picking up twigs and trash, making sure there was nothing on the pathway.

I have been reading a lot about Semana Santa, I'll share my knowledge with you  (Just like I do in every other post!).  Semana Santa is a mass mourning and pubic repentance of sins.  There are more masses in the churches than normal during Easter Week.  This gives everyone a chance to go to as many services as they would like, and it's also a reminder that Jesus died on the cross to save us from ourselves.  The most eerie spectacles of the festival are the Nazarenos, based on the people  of Nazareth, wearing tall, pointy hats and matching robes with their faces completely covered, apart from their eyes.  Seeing hundreds of slow-moving unidentifiable people can be a shock at first, and they appear comparable to the KKK.  Fortunately, there are no ties with the KKK, and the Nazarenos came first.

This was the Silent Procession that we watched.  The only noise was the drum that this person was beating.  Since there was no noise, it made it even more touching.

The drum followed by the cross.

There are even little kids that participate.  This little boy is so cute!

Throughout Semana Santa, there are 32 processions.  Each procession spends tons of money, time and effort in perfecting their procession.  There are usually 2 sculptures, one of a scene from Christ's Passion and the other is depicting a young, mourning Virgin Mary.  These floats, called pasos, are carried by 40 men, some who decide to be barefoot to signify the suffering of Christ.  The men are called costaleros. This literally means "sack men", because of the costal, a sack-like cloth that they wear over their neck, to soften the burden.

After the paso, there were men and women dressed up as Roman guards.

Some of the penitents (people wearing robes), go barefoot or even have chains dragging behind them to signify their suffering.

The Silent Procession, especially being my first procession, was extremely eye opening.  I was lucky enough to see another procession during the day.  This one was with La Iglesia de San Juan and was very close to my house!!!

These people are with the police.

The first paso coming through of Jesus on the cross.

It stopped right in front of us, so we were able to get a bunch of great pictures!

I love this next picture.  You can see all the way up Constitución (the street I live off of) and all the way up to the Albaycin.

The second paso is on its way.

This is a very famous piece of artwork.   The Virgin Mary shedding tears because of the mourning that is caused by the death of Jesus.

This paso was extremely beautiful.

On Easter Sunday, it is traditional to throw rose petals and the Nazarenos remove their hoods to mark the end of the mourning.  In Spain, Easter Monday is a ghost town in the cities.  The people in the processions are sleeping off their hard work that they've completed.  For them, Easter is not a holiday, but it's well worth the pain for the emotion of it.  One of the websites I have read says that the cstaleros carrying the extremely heavy and disturbing scenes of the death of Christ and the Virgin Mary, say they find the experience of Semana Santa overwhelming and heart-wrenching.  Even though this is a emotional week for many, at the end of the ceremonies, in Spain, Semana Santa is considered a fun festival for everyone.