Semana Santa, what does that phrase mean to you? Oh yes, in English , you sometimes hear Holy Week and that of course is the translation from the spanish. For me Semana Santa, IS pageantry, crowds, heavy incense, dirge bands.
This year I am not in Guatemala for Semana Santa, but it fills my mind as I wake, as a friend posts a picture and I relive from the first to the last time I was in my adopted country Guatemala and my small hometown of Antigua whose population including the outer villages is around 35 thousand and swells to over 100,000 during this week. It is known world wide for processions, alfombras, ondas. People create the elaborate alfomobras on the streets made of colored sawdust with intricate patterns, some alfombras are entirely of flowers and SPECTACULAR!! One year a noted artist made a 20 foot depiction of Peter getting out of the boat to join Jesus walking on the water, a realistic flower mosaic, every element flowers, another year he created a tableau with Juan Pablo II !
The processions consists of many many people, one onda could require 50 to 100 people just to carry it through the streets and they walk through the lovingly prepared “carpets” destroying all the creativity, put together over hours and hours , families labour together, groups, neighbours, to produce the alfombras. Spectators line the narrow streets. An important job is someone who goes along just to lift the electrical lines as many ondas are tall and they catch the lines. I have been on a crowded street jammed with hundreds in one location and sparks have flown, they yell, “Alto, alto”! Stop, stop!
The first year I remember being “trapped” on one side of a procession and not being able to get to the other side of the street. There was a little panic and I thought how could this be! The culmination, after Lent begins and every Sunday Catholic churches rotate for their turn to proceed though the streets of Antigua, Santa Ana, Jocotenago, San Bartolome for hours and hours, IS Viernas Santo ! At 3 in the morning men dressed in Roman costume ride through the village declaring that Jesus is going to be lead to Calvary and crucified. All night literally hundreds of people have worked on a 4 entire block alfombra, it has no breaks, but solid design, people take position in trees, hundreds of men dress at Roman soldiers with long spear flank the procession that comes out of La Merced, the largest , most ornate Catholic church in Antigua. There is a man depicting Pontius Pilate and he is constantly washing his hands. Then comes the incense, then the massive, massive onda , all carried by men from the La Merced church, dressed in matching purple satin robes with hoods and white gloves. At times they really labor under the weight of the wooden onda with statues of Christ being scourged, being hung, dying. The crowd is somber, somber as behind follows an orchestra of instruments playing the most melancholy of musical pieces. After they pass, more incense and the women come bearing an onda with Mary, distrought over the loss of her son , this group also has a band following. This goes on and on for hours, up and down the streets of Antigua, the men and women change out, it would be impossible to do the entire route. They hit each station of the cross set up through the cross of the procession and stop to mark it.
How difference was Jerusalem when Christ was lead to Golgotha Hill? The local population was overcome by people flooding in for Passover, the lamb to be slain to roll back the sins. Of course some who came were intent, others had to come and might not have been so interested in nothing more than filling their bellies with the street vendors food. Children ran and played as their parents tried to keep track of them. THAT DAY when Jesus was the reason they stopped to watch The Master go to His earthly death, some did cry, some jeered, some had no idea who He was, but were curious to watch, others laughed and talked among themselves as he labored under the weight of the cross until it was placed on Simon the Cyrenian.
So this week in Antigua people come and they watch, gawk, eat, laugh, cry, remember the death until He comes again in reigning triumph on the clouds as He ascended over 2000 years ago.
