"Tus dolores son mis penas"

Over the course of Semana Santa, Brad and I saw 16 pasos. We were paso experts by the end of the week. Some people try to stake out a spot near the main route to the cathedral – this way they can see every paso on its way to the cathedral. I say “near” the main route because you have to spend hundreds of Euros to get on the actual route. Every paso goes down La Carrera Oficial (the official path), which includes several blocks and a couple of big plazas leading to the cathedral. To sit along the Carrera Oficial, however, you must pay to get one of the chairs or bleacher seats set up by the city.

Plaza de San Francisco filled with bleachers

But who wants to sit in the same spot and watch paso after paso all night? Brad and I walked all over central Sevilla to watch the pasos exit the neighborhood churches. And, sure enough, we were squeezed into plazas and streets with hundreds of other Sevillanos and about zero tourists. It was so cool to watch glimmering pasos come out of the nearby churches that we’ve passed by for months and the churches where we’ve gone to mass.

Detail of a paso

One really special neighborhood paso was El Gran Poder (The Great Power.) This paso happens to be during the Madrugá and it is very famous. To get a good spot, we got to Plaza San Lorenzo at midnight and stood outside waiting for 2 hours. Just before the paso left the church at 2 am, all the street lights in the plaza were turned off. The crowd hushed. Then the Cristo paso slowly emerged from the church in complete darkness. All you could see were the red candles glowing inside the huge lanterns on the paso. All you could hear was the heart-wrenching saeta a woman on a balcony. It was definitely one of the spine-tingling moments of Semana Santa.

El Silencio (The Silence), the oldest hermandad in Sevilla, also has its paso during the Madrugá. This hermandad is based at one of my favorite churches in our neighborhood, and we actually went there for a beautiful Easter service. While waiting on El Silencio to pass, we were trying to keep warm (it was 4:30 am by this point) and we were satisfying our hunger with some candy and a chorizo sandwich.

Luckily for us, the most popular – and largest, with 2500 Nazarenos – paso, La Macarena, passed by the street where we were waiting. The Virgin of La Macarena is essentially a rock star in Sevilla. Every tiny crusty little bar in the city has a huge framed photo of her tear-stained face. Just as the Virgin passed by, the women on a balcony above the street threw a huge basket of rose petals onto her palio. Thousands of white rose petals showered the Virgin’s paso as it swayed down the dark street. What a stunning display of veneration.

Staying awake for El Silencio was totally worth it. This hermandad had the most dignified and reverent paso we saw that week. The Nazarenos and Penitentes wore all black robes and hoods, and kept silent throughout the paso. Their symbol, a Jerusalem cross, was on every silver staff, candle and wooden cross. The only music at this paso was from a lovely woodwind trio that occasionally played a short mournful melody. The Virgin paso in El Silencio was extraordinarily beautiful. On the underneath side of the canopy on the paso, was a beautiful embroidered design, and little tassels and silver balls hung down from the edges of the canopy. To the right and left of the Virgin, silver urns mounted on the paso were filled with sweet peas.

The cross of El Silencio

Not every paso was as moving and reverent as those during the Madrugá. Some of the gypsy Triana pasos were a bit tacky. Even Sevilla has rednecks. During some pasos, you saw things like a hooded Nazareno walking with his girlfriend, who was wearing red patent leather heels and tight low-rider white jeans and smoking a cigarette. Sick. Some of the more rag-tag pasos had lots of random people in street clothes chatting with the members of the hermandad who are supposed to by anonymous. The first paso we saw (on Palm Sunday) was full of teenagers and their annoying friends there to watch. However, at that paso, we saw a woman sing a saeta to the crucified Cristo and I thought it was the most Sevillano thing I’d ever experienced.

La Estrella, A Nazareno carrying the cruz de guia

Another super cool tradition during Semana Santa is women wearing mantillas! A mantilla is a long piece of black lace that goes over a comb in the woman’s hair and down her back. Any woman who wears a mantilla wears a knee-length black dress, black stockings and black heels. Nice jewelry and black lace gloves are typical accessories. The outfit is worn only on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday because these are mourning clothes. You also see many men in dark suits on Thursday and Friday of Semana Santa.

Women wearing mantillas

You may be wondering what happens if it rains during Semana Santa. Well, it rained this year – on Holy Wednesday. It was a sad day in little churches all over the city. If there is even the threat of rain, pasos cannot go out because the platforms would be ruined. All nine pasos on Wednesday were cancelled. The news coverage of hermandades waiting inside churches showed countless grown men crying as well as many women and children.

The hermandades prepare for this all year – the band, the costaleros, the Nazarenos and Penitentes. They can’t reschedule the paso for another day because there is a strict schedule kept at the cathedral and every day of the week there are several pasos. If a paso is late in arriving at the cathedral on its day, the hermandad is fined. I’ve never seen Sevillanos being as punctual as they are during Semana Santa.

A child dressed to walk (or be carried) in a paso

Overall, Semana Santa was a week that fully engaged all of my senses. After that first bewildering paso, I thought, “This is interesting, but it has no connection to my faith whatsoever.” By the end of the week, I started to get it, and I was brought to tears with one of the haunting songs played by a brass band during Santo Entierro. Some people say Sevillanos are idol-worshippers, but I appreciate their rich religious tradition of Semana Santa. I think my Sevillano friend explained it best, he said that Catholics focus on the suffering of Holy Week, whereas Protestants focus on the resurrection.


On Holy Saturday, the Pietà

Sure enough, during our Easter Service, the Cristo and Virgin pasos were situated just behind the altar. All the candles on the pasos were lit and the images were still breathtaking, but the carved face of Mary was still weeping even though Jesus had risen.