Easter in Spain......

Spain is especially renowned for its Holy Week traditions.

Semana Santa, Holy Week, the last week of Lent which is the week immediately before Easter, sees its most glamorous celebrations in the region of Andalusia, particularly in Málaga, while those of Castile see the more sombre and solemn events, typified by Semana Santa at Zamora.

The Passion of Christ, or Easter Week, known in Spain as Semana Santa is without doubt the most important celebration in Spain. 
The festivities begin with the Domingo de Ramos (Palm Sunday) and end with Lunes de Pascua (Easter Monday).
 It is a celebration of life itself and the whole country comes alive. 
The Catholic Church in Spain is passionate about Easter celebrations.

Huesca - 2008

 People carry statues of saints around on floats or wooden platforms called Tronas in and an atmosphere of mourning, which can seem quite oppressive to onlookers, and then the Easter week processions end with Easter Sunday, a day full of light and colour when church and cathedral bells are heard ringing throughout the country.

Huelva

   Everywhere, processions make their way through the streets, carrying religious icons and symbols of their faith.

In Seville alone there are over 100 of these such images.

 Semana Santa has to be experienced first hand to be fully appreciated and no words can begin to describe the emotions that flow like water, wherever you go.

If you have the opportunity to sample these festivities, one thing is sure, the images of the solemn masses and processions will stay with you forever.

A common feature in Spain is the almost general usage of the nazareno or penitential robe for some of the participants in the processions. This garment consists of a tunic, a hood with conical tip (capirote) used to conceal the face of the wearer, and a cloak.

The exact colors and forms of these robes depend on the particular procession. The robes were widely used in the medieval period for penitents, who could demonstrate their penance while still masking their identity. 

 These nazarenos carry processional candles or rough-hewn wooden crosses, may walk the city streets barefoot, and, in some places may carry shackles and chains on their feet as penance.  

Penitents aren’t meant to be recognisable, nor in any way showy about their repenance and many costaleros carry tronas blindfolded, or barefoot, or with chickpeas in their shoes. 

  Malaga City’s Semana Santa (Holy Week or Easter) officially started on Friday.  Often described as a week full of ‘passion and devotion,’ whatever one’s faith, given the chance it should be experienced at least once in a lifetime.

 Thousands of people, both locals and visitors, take to the streets in Easter to see or take part in the processions. More than 25,000 seats are placed along the official route for people to watch the procesiones (processions).
One of the favourite areas for this is the ‘Tribuna de los Pobres’ (poor people’s stand) in Calle Carreteria, where the large steps are used as seating, for free, hence the name.
Although each cofradia (brotherhood) has its own route, there is one part of Malaga which is common to all of them and is the ‘official’ route of 807 metres from the Alameda Principal, via Calle Larios to Calle Granada.
Readers planning to see the processions, are recommended to find standing space in this area, but make sure they get there early.
Many people find the encierro, when the images return to their churches, the most spectacular moment of the procession, when the figures of Christ and the Virgin meet, and despite their tiredness, the portadores (carriers) place them face to face and begin to sway to the sound of the national anthem.
Some of the figures enter Malaga Cathedral during the procession, which is also very spectacular.

As well as those carrying the ‘tronos’, some weighing up to five tonnes, there are marching bands, penitents dressed in pointed hoods which only show their eyes, local authorities and other members of the brotherhoods carrying the emblems. The colours used depend on each brotherhood.

Semana Santa has been happening in Malaga for 500 years and has accumulated a certain cultural complexity.

 A few facts: Malaga’s Brotherhoods, cofradías, have 70,000 members and growing, each is dedicated to an aspect of the Passion and their tronas can be centuries old.  The cofrades are members of the cofradías, the religious associations that care for the images of Christ and Mary that are used in the processions and that meet throughout the year for various activities and to plan the next Holy Week celebrations and events in their local area.

One of the most revered, to Our Lady of Hope (the Esperanza) weighs 5,500kg, is carried by 254 costaleros and has 110 giant candles.

The trona of Jesus the Nazarene weighs 3,000kg and needs 210 costaleros to carry it. 

 The people who carry the weight of the floats are called "costaleros" and are expected the carry these "thrones" with solemnity and grace. They use a small cushion, "costal" to protect themselves from getting sores from the wood rubbing against their skin during the long processions.

 Costaleros can carry tronas for up to eight-hour stints, though 12 hours is not unknown. 
The nazarenos wear their conspicuous pointy hats to be, well, conspicuously penitent and to show they aspire to goodness and heaven. 

Women were admitted as penitents in the 1960s.

There is high drama in the slow, carefully swaying movement of the tronas as they are carried through the streets. The costaleros are allowed stop every few minutes, even allowed a sip of water or bite of a sandwich proffered by family or friends along the way.

Everything is coordinated, everything is precise; everything has to be.

Tronas and penitents meet at strategic intersections, ceremonies and sacred songs take place at given times and it’s easy to see how a missed step could bring down a trona and its bearers and cause God knows what catastrophe.

To be alongside 254 bearers sweating, swaying and straining under the Esperanza was to look calamity in the eye, all it needed was an unruly dog or an unseen obstacle. It didn’t happen and the fact that it never does is nothing less than a Holy Week miracle.

 

Spanish actor Antonio Banderas on Palm Sunday  led the religious procession carrying the image of the Virgin of Tears and Favors through the streets of the city of his birth, Malaga.    The famous Spanish actor, wearing the white robe of his brotherhood and covered with black  capillo said that participating in the procession of Our Lady of Tears and Favors is "an overdose of identity, roots."     "This is the church where my parents were married, this is the church where I was baptized me, people who go on the throne and those in the guild are friends of mine since we were kids and were it not for the week santa, I would not see, "said Banderas.

Accompanying her husband, as is their custom, was actress Melanie Griffith, who has fully involved herself in the celebrations and traditions that each year at this time Banderas returns to Spain to take part in.  While he finalized the details before the procession, the actor said that he thoroughly enjoyed participating in Holy Week celebrations and was “very emotional because it’s been a very special year for the many activities” in which he had been involved.

Imágenes de la procesión de la Virgen de las lágrimas y los favores , el domingo de ramos en Málaga. Vemos a Antonio Banderas vestido de nazareno con la cofradía de la Iglesia de San Juan de Málaga.

La Mantilla is a traditional Spanish garment that has special roots in Andalucia. It is a unique garment that despite the passage of time and fashions, still adorning the Andalusian women on important occasions. La Mantilla is of greatest significance during the Easter holidays. In the seventeenth century began to use the lace mantillas, as seen in some female portraits by Velazquez, part of the wardrobe of some fashionable women. However, its use is not generalized to the ladies and courtesans of high status well into the eighteenth century, because until then La Mantilla was used almost exclusively by women from the "people". It was also in this century when silk cloth were replaced entirely by the lace. At Easter it was traditional for the ladies to be dressed in black wearing their best clothes: head tortoiseshell comb on which they put the black lace mantilla to accompany processions and visit churches.

Until mid-century this tradition was kept faithfully from mothers to daughters, in some houses of a certain social rank dressed all women in the family, and even had a mantilla on the bench in case guests came out. There were a few decades in which this practice seemed to decline, but today the tradition of the mantilla at Easter resumed its rise.

Malaga’s Semana Santa has to be seen to be believed. There is no other way to enjoy it, or come even close to understanding it. 

Holy Thursday is a national holiday and the only day Malaga’s shops close, though restaurants, bars and cafes are open all hours and food, especially fresh fish and pork from the pig farms in the surrounding hills, is excellent and served in large portions. Most hotels serve generous, buffet-style breakfasts that will keep you going for hours of the processions.

Viernes de Dolores Friday, March 30
Sabado de Pasion Saturday, March 31
Domingo de Ramos Palm Sunday, April 1  Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem
Lunes Santo Monday, April 2
Martes Santo Tuesday, April 3
Miercoles Santo Wednesday, April 4
Jueves Santo Thursday, April 5  The Last Supper
Viernes Santo Good Friday, April 6  The Crucifixion
Sabado de Gloria Holy/Silent Saturday, April 7
Domingo de la Resurreccion Easter Sunday, April 8

Easter Tortilla

Ingredients
 
- 1 small smoked sausage
- 40 g of butter
- 6 eggs
- salt
- pepper
- 1 clove of parsley
- 1 onion
- 100g of bacon



 Tradition dictates to climb the mountain and settle near a church for optimum preparation but that might not be necessary. 

Light a fire and beat the eggs, while the onions and bacon are frying in the pan with lots of olive oil, peel, wash and cut the vegetables in fine slices, and do the same for the botifarra and the smoked sausage in larger bits.
Throw them all in the pan when you feel the onions and bacon are fried to your convenience, and let them shimmer.
When your mixture seems appealing to you, add the eggs, and watch the pan carefully, they are fast cookers!
Do not forget that a tortilla has to be cooked on both sides, not just one!

Serve warm in a sandwich or with a light salad.

Enjoy!   and happy Semana Santa...