Tree trimming and an Eastertide procession

As I surfaced from sleep this morning, the street outside, normally quiet on a Sunday morning was full of the sounds of warning beepers and slow moving vehicles. I wondered what on earth could be happening. The carriageway on the bullring side was closed to traffic again, as last Sunday, several mobile platforms were positioned alongside and above the tree canopy, each with a worker armed with a fearsome looking chainsaw. Tree trimming time.

They worked through until lunchtime and did the entire section of trees lining the west face of the Plaza de Toros, about two thirds of the total length of trees to be trimmed. A start on this job was made early last Sunday at the far end it seems, although it didn't last long, and left a certain amount of foliage in the street, which took a couple of days to get clear away. I wonder if they'd arrived but then had to abandon the task last week because not all the crews or equipment turned up? This week they certainly seem to have got it right.

Adult Confirmation class scheduling meant that Doreen and I were both at St George's this morning, so she presided and I preached, as happened with Gilly on Easter Day. Doreen has done classes over the past two weeks, and the next two week, I'll be doing. She's been working with a couple of young lads whom Gilly has been preparing for Confirmation, teaching them to be acolytes, and eventually serve at the altar as well. Also she's press-ganged a couple of adults into acting as book bearer or crucifer, without them having wear robes, as there aren't any. Until lately adults have only taken part in lesson reading and interceding, so it's good that participation is slowly and gently increasing.

Michael, who's been caretaking and acting as sacristan at St George's for several years is leaving for Nigeria to see his family this week. There's a certain urgency about encouraging others to take on sacristy duties in his absence. This too is good for participation levels. Michael was reticent about coming up to the altar for a blessing to send him on his way, so we met him at the door where he often stands, giving out books, and blessed him there informally instead. Apart from regular British and Nigerian church members, there were worshippers from the USA, New Zealand and Germany in church this morning. All part of normality here in Malaga. I love it.

After lunch and a siesta, I did my usual walk around the port and the Old Town, taking care to end up in the vicinity of Dos Martires Parish Church by seven, as I discovered earlier in the week that the Cofradia de Nuestra Señora del Amor Doloroso, one of the several that are based here, would be holding an evening procession. The crowd wasn't large, in comparison with Semana Santa, so much so that the cafe opposite was operating normally with tables out in the street occupied by customers. It wasn't obliged to close as happened a month ago. There was, nevertheless, a full length procession with a fine band, which according to the church notice board, had come from Seville to play. There's such a lot I don't know about the history and organisation of these processional guilds, and how they integrate into city life. It's hard to know where to start finding out.

  

Malaga - Good Friday

Today's service of the Word was scheduled for eleven o'clock, a simple affair, starting with the Song of the Suffering Servant from Isaiah, then the dialogue St John Passion read from Gethsemane to the condemnation of Jesus, and followed by Stations of the Cross. The text I was given for the Stations didn't read aloud as well as I thought it would and needed ad lib adaptation. I;d have done better to have chosen something from my own web library of texts, and came away feeling rather unsatisfied. Plus there were just six adults and two children present, again, due to the difficulties of access on a day of few public transport services and much traffic disruption.

After lunch and a siesta, I walked to the Cathedral and joined in their Good Friday Passion Liturgy at five, presided over by the Bishop and Cathedral Canons, plus three robed Deacons for the reading of St John's Passion and the solemn intercessions. Every seat was taken and I guess there were five to eight hundred people present. There was one cross to venerate, and the queue promised to last as long as the service had done so far, so I negotiated my way out through the crowd, with the aim of meeting up with Clare who'd promised to follow me later into the Old Town.

In fact, she texted me from a vantage point above the road tunnel where she was standing to watch the passage of La Malagueta barrio's cofradia del Descendimiento along Avenida Cervantes into town. The sound of drums and then the band starting up had alerted her to its departure up in the apartment, and she found her vantage point just in time to hear a saeta being sung from a balcony above the bar whose terrace overlooks the street where the procession had stopped. 

The saeta is a devotional lament or praise song of Andalucian culture. They happen whenever there is a procession. Clare was most fortunate. Despite being out and about a lot this week, I've not been so lucky, though I did hear one in Rincon de la Victoria last summer during the procession for Our Lady of Victories patronal fiesta.

After a few phone calls and text messages, we achieved a rendezvous outside the Ajuntamiento building where the Alcalde and his chief officers stood outside on the steps paying homage as the procession passed by on Avenida Cervantes. So far Clare had seen Our Lady's procession at the back, but when she caught up with me the Descendimiento trona was just level with me. It depicts the dead Jesus being lowered from the cross into the arms of his mother and the other Marys by two men using long linen sheets. A very powerful image indeed.

We left the procession once at had passed us by and went together to the Cathedral, to be honest in the vain hope of getting access to a toilet. A modest crowd gathering in the churchyard which joins the Cathedral and a substantial sixteenth century building called El Sagrario. Up until this time I had been quite unaware that it was a church. I believed it to be a big sacristy or treasury kind of building. Only later did I learn this is the Parish Church of the barrio in which the Cathedral is set, and that it was one of the elite group of four established immediately after the reconquista in 1495.

As we arrived a procession was forming from El Sagrario stretching across to a large side entrance to the Cathedral, which wasn't the main north porch door. After a while a modest simple trona emerged from El Sagrario bearing a crucifix laid down, but at a slightly raised angle. The hombres de trona wore suits, though other Nazarenos in the procession were robed in black. The crucifix was a very fine piece of 17th century sculpture by Jerónimo Gómez de Hermosilla. What immediately struck the eye was the absence in the image of the feet and most of one leg. It was evident that this damaged image was accorded the utmost respect, but at this moment we had no idea why.

Later we learned it was taken into the Cathedral to be carried about during the Stations of the Cross, and that it would not be paraded out in the Old Town, as it had been occasionally before. This crucifix had been vandalised during an early republican insurrection in Malaga in July 1936, at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Two years later it became the devotional focus of Nationalist military amputees and a patriotic cofradia developed around it. Fast forward a couple of generations and a reconciling effort was being encouraged by church authorities to make it a focus for both Republican and Nationalist amputees, and the cofradia acquired a more civilian ethos, calling for suits rather than uniforms. 

There were still questions around this procession going public however, due to its origins  in military propaganda. Over recent decades movement has been restricted to crossing the Parish churchyard. The story isn't over yet, however. Consensus has grown that the story of Cristo Mutilado should be taken to closure by its repair and restoration to its original form, as part of the long slow process of reconciliation post-Civil War, whose wounds are less spoken of but often still unhealed in Spain. It's an amazing story of enduring religious institutional patience in an effort to bring good out of ill, to the benefit of all who were victims of violence. There are many other such examples at different fault lines in the history of war torn twentieth century Europe. Politicians easily forget when it suits them, but the church remembers, and thinks in centuries.

After this encounter, we walked back to the apartment for supper, then I made my way back into the Old Town as the sun was setting, for the last act in the week of processional dramas.

First I encountered the procession of Nuestra Senora de la Piedad, and then that of Santo Sepulchro. An image of Jesus now recumbent in death on a funeral bier, accompanied by Nazarenos in black, and slow solemn music of mounding from the accompanying bands, with the crowds quiet, subdued, no longer exuberant or applauding. This is the image which is to be found normally on the retable behind the altar in the stark simplicity of the former Cistercian convent of Sta Ana not far from the Cathedral. I followed it for a while past Plaza de la Merced until it turned into a side street. Ahead on a junction of Los Alamos, another crowd was gathered. Another image of the Descendimiento had not long passed by. I saw it later, depicting the dead Jesus being wrapped in a shroud ready for burial. 

The crowd hadn't dispersed however, as another procession was winding its way down the hill from Lagunillas, Nazarenos robed entirely in black and carrying lit candles, a slow moving trickle of light in the encroaching darkness of the street. This was the cofradia of the Third Order of the Servants of Mary, making its procession with the final processional image of Our Lady, standing on her own in mourning black, having laid Jesus to rest. This procession wan't due to return to base at St Philip Neri Parish Church until three in the morning.

It was gone eleven o'clock, so I headed for the Alameda Principal on my way back to the apartment. When I was here for Semana Santa four years ago, most of my time was spent on the Alameda or Larios. This year I've not often visited, spending more time out with the free moving crowds in the streets of the Old Town. Although late, there were crowds of people wandering in the Alameda and  still seated in the stands. Here I saw the passage of yet another Descendimento image, perhaps the most familiar one of all in Western art, known as the Pieta - Mary at the foot of the cross cradling the dead Jesus in her arms. 

On my way back to the apartment, appearing from Calle Cister was the trona of the Descendimiento from La Malagueta barrio, on the last leg of its eight hour journey through the streets of the Old Town.  A very satisfying way to end the day and conclude my project of witness to the living tradition and culture of religious processions here in Malaga. Over the previous six days I saw perhaps half of all the week's processions, and realise how much more there is to be seen. It's all been so brilliantly organised and supported by many thousands of committed people, no matter how great or small their personal faith may be. I feel sure Malaga is not only a more prosperous place as a result but also a more kindly, humane decent and welcoming a place to be.

So glad I could be here for this. And relieved that Holy Saturday is a quiet day of reflection before the night time Easter Vigil. You can find my photos here.
  

  

Midweek pilgrim encounter

There were none of the regulars at St George's this morning, but two American women arrived for the Eucharist. They'd been in church last Sunday, learned of the midweek service and decided to come. Today it was my turn to celebrate St James the Apostle and pray for Spain, after last night's celebration at Santiago Parish Church in the Old Town and they were glad to share this.

I learned that they were related through the marriage of their children to each other. Both had been widowed in the previous year. They decided to take time out to travel, and to think about what they might do with their lives, post three score years and ten. Over the months past they had lived and travelled an unplanned journey in Europe, especially Spain, and felt much enriched by people they'd met and places discovered they never knew about before on their personal pilgrimage. 

They hadn't yet come to a decision about their futures, but both said they had experienced freedom of the Spirit in a new way, having sold up their homes before leaving, to make ready for whatever new life might lay ahead of them. I thought about T S Eliot's phrase in the last stanza of 'East Coker, which equally applies to women

'Old men ought to be explorers

Here or there does not matter

We must be still and still moving

Into another intensity

For a further union, a deeper communion...'

After we parted company I went to the bank nearby to cash a cheque I had been given by the church treasurer. Last time I queued for ten minutes, this time I was there for forty, chilled by the air-con, which didn't seem to have a de-humidifier setting. I was glad to get back to the apartment for a cold cerveza sin alcohol before making lunch. This week I have been winding down the perishable food stocks, as the apartment will be empty for six weeks or so. It means I have to think more carefully about what I need to buy, so there's nothing but rubbish to dispose of at the end of Monday, when I have to clean, pack up and wait for a 04.00am taxi to the airport. I'll appreciate a more temperate climate back home for a while, but soon start missing endless sunshine.

In the evening, I took a walk along the Paseo La Malagueta and around the port. At the moment no cruise ships are docked, just a few luxury sailing yachts, so it was quieter and less crowded than usual, and perhaps a little more hazardous to walk as more space makes pavement cyclists and skateboarders bolder in weaving their path at speed among walkers.

  

Another up-country visit

This morning, I collected the car from St George's cemetery and drove out of town towards Granada for my second visit to celebrate the Eucharist for the Salinas congregation. I made sure I was early enough to get a drink in one of the village hostelries beforehand, and take a stroll around the place with my camera. I discovered there's a working train line running through the place, that connects Cordoba with Granada, although Salinas station is no longer operational, so it's necessary to drive 18km to Loja for a train.

There were fourteen of us for a Sung Mass, with eight in the choir. Once again I enjoyed the quiet and reflective nature of the occasion. It was great to have such a good sing. We met at Bar Manolo for a drink afterwards. Curate Doreen soon arrived from taking the service and Velez Malaga so that we could have lunch together, and spend the afternoon discussing ministry and the chaplaincy. It was something we'd promised ourselves we'd do during my stay, as we did during last September's locum duty here.

It was six by the time I drove back to Malaga. The countryside of the Comarc de Noroma on the plateau 600m up behind the coastal sierras is heartbreakingly beautiful. Heartbreaking, because it's impossible to stop and take pictures where the views are best. It's so photogenic in the warmth of early evening light, richly green, but with darker greens than we get further north. The slopes grow olive and almond trees. 

The rolling plains grow cereals and have recently been harvested, leaving swathes of bright golden stubble tinted red, grey or white, depending on the underlying soil. That palette of yellows and greens is so exquisite it almost moves me to tears. I can't even gaze at it on the move, as I must keep my eyes on the road! I could do with a few days to wander the back roads and capture this landscape at different times of day. Villages and farms are relatively few and far between. Three small towns along this route have Villanueva as their first name. But, it's the open rolling countryside that captures the eye.

I can see what draws painters to Spain, like Provence. I wish I could paint, not just take travel snaps. But that requires the kind of time and patience as well as vantage points I don't have. Well, at least I can talk about it!

Hidden spiritual treasure

Well, the streets were quiet and empty by two in the morning, but I still woke up at the usual time and found it hard to slumber on in the heat. There were thirty of us at St George's for the Eucharist including three small children, and a couple who'd arrived on one of the cruise ships which arrived overnight - two of larger regular craft which take holidaymakers around the Mediterranean and the Aegean. Afterwards we were taken out to lunch in a nearby Italian restaurant called 'Mamma Mia, to which it was possible to walk. There were seven of us. The conversation was interesting and the food was good.

After the obligatory siesta and recovery time, I went with Clare to La Malagueta beach for her daily swim. On the way there she pointed out a gateway into a hillside domain in between two apartment blocks on Paseo Reding, which I'd seen but not previously taken notice of. The marble name plate reads: 'Casa Ejercicios Villa San Pedro'. It's a retreat house for the practice of Ignatian spirituality right in the heart of the city. 

While Clare was swimming I googled the place, and was much surprised by what I discovered. It's one of a pair of places in Andalusia with this mission. The other is in Seville. A Spanish nun, Sister Nazaria Ignacia March y Mesa working in Bolivia founded a community in 1925 called 'The Missionary Crusaders of the church' with the aim of living and propagating Ignation spiritual path. 

In 1943, the Villa San Pedro, a rather grand mansion at the foot of the Gibralfaro, was acquired and became a Casa Espiritualidad. The domain and its gardens are nowadays hemmed in by apartment blocks, but at least this means it's shielded from traffic noise and so able to offer a tranquil space for individuals and groups of retreatants. Some time soon, I think I'll go and visit the place and find out more. In Britain, Ignation spirituality continues to grow n appeal, to non-Catholics as much as to Catholics, thanks to a new generation of translators and interpreters of the tradition for our time. I wonder if this is equally true, here in the land which brought St Ignatius to birth? 

  

Twilight concert delight

Another hot day today, spent lying low until early evening, when I went to St George's to help with the preparations for the evening's piano recital by Thomas Kaurich, held outdoors on the patio in front of the building. It was mainly a question of setting up tables and laying out rows of chairs. Thankfully, the sun sinks behind the Gibralfaro fairly early, making it possible for the specialist piano transporter to bring in his van - a tight squeeze on the narrow path up the hill to the church - and then unload from the van and assemble a Steinway baby grand paino single-handedly. It was a remarkable feat of skill, as it weighs several hundred kilos.

There were about fifty people for the concert, not quite as many as had been hoped for. Something was amiss with the advance publicity apparently. Thomas played with passion and sensitivity works by Beethoven, Schumann and Chopin. Some I was familiar with, others not. Earlier in life, Thomas was a recitalist on the world touring circuit. Then he went into the organisation and management side of the music business. Then seven years ago he and his partner decided on a change of career direction for them both and took on a guest house in the mountains beyond Velez-Malaga. Now he's returned to giving piano recitals as well, much to everyone's delight. He was very well received.

Sitting in the fragrant churchyard garden at twilight, with blackbirds singing in the background, and little evidence of traffic on the road nearby was a sublime setting for listening to great classical romantic music. Just imagine, Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, one piece everyone present will have known, as darkness descends. Sadly the moon is one the wane and had not yet appeared in the sky, in apparently in the past there have been full moon concert nights at St George's. What an asset! I'd love to see a small but intimate festival in this setting - several nights of lieder singing, string quartets, wind ensemble, piano and harpsichord music. It would need a small team of professionals to run. I've seen how much hard work went into this event by a handful of church members. One can but dream.