Holy Week

This week Spain has been celebrating Semana Santa. In Santiago catholic churches do processionals throughout the city and focus on different events that happened throughout Holy Week, but especially focus on the crucifixion. Yesterday we saw one of these processions with the girls on our way home from the park. The first time you see one of these processions it can be kind of freaky. If you don´t understand what is happening you really wonder why masked people are walking through town carrying heavy altars and crosses (in Spain it has nothing to do with racist organizations). A lot of the people who take part in the procession do so as a form of penance. I think that they cover their faces out of a mix of guilt and humility. Humility that they can´t say or think, "look at what a great person I am, I am carrying such a heavy cross for my penance".

Many of the ones that I have seen in past years have been very dark, focusing mostly on Jesus' death. I was pleasantly surprized by the one we saw yesterday. It was definitely solemn with the simple drum cadence and the eary trumpet blasts, but throughout the procession it had reminders that Christ did not remain dead on the cross. They also had children carrying various objects to symbolize different parts of the passion (bread, a cup, pieces of silver, a longe stick with a sponge, dice, a white robe, etc..). If you were paying attention it told the whole story.

One of the coolest things about it was that the girls kept asking us questions about all of the things that they saw. It was a great teachable moment, a different way for them to learn about the story of Easter. It all culminated with Abigail´s question "Dad, why did Jesus have to die?". I did not want to give her an easy or trite answer while we were distracted by drums and trumpets, so when we got home we pulled out her Big Picture Story Bible. We read about Jesus and the cross. It showed his disciples asking questions after his death including "Why did Jesus have to die?". This led into us having a great discussion about what happened to Jesus and why.