By Florencio Martín de Blas Dorado
Christ and his Death. Station of Penitence of the Holy Burial
The Christ of the Urn is carried on the shoulders through the streets and squares of our Catholic Herencia in a procession of respect and tranquil silence, fitting for this procession and our Holy Week. The Knights of the Holy Burial are the custodians of Christ, and with their slow but steady pace, they transfer Christ to his final resting place. The Immobile Christ impresses both locals and visitors in every outing, every act, and every station.
Only the sound of trumpets and drums break the silence when the image of this Christ passes by. Anyone who sees it feels a shiver followed by great peace, and more than one of us has shed a tear, since it reflects peace and love. It was not the nails that held Jesus on the cross, but the love for you, for me… and that love you can give back to anyone who needs it… a child, an elderly person, a friend, a brother.
The silence is absolute when Mary, the mother, follows her son through the streets of this Manchego and Marian town, knowing that the procession is already approaching on this Holy night. Our Lady of Sorrows with seven daggers plunged into her heart, each with its own meaning, from the first that symbolizes Simeon’s forecast that a great sword will pierce her heart, to the last dagger, the burial of her son, Jesus.
Reflection on Holy Week
Holy Week in Herencia 2023.
Although today’s society presents us with almost daily cases of corruption, materialism, pedophilia, mistreatment, abuse, etc., we can find Jesus and his Church, the mystical body of Christ, visible and present in the world and teaching that he left behind, giving material and spiritual relief to the miseries of so many people who, unjustly, bear the consequences that the slavery of sin causes in those who should be defenders of the weak and needy.
When the supposed freedom of women to decide on their motherhood is preached from the ideology of noise, we can find the Lord and his Church, defending, without noise, the truth of human dignity, life as a sacred gift, desired by God and loved at all times in a concrete and exclusive way by its Creator. The weak, voiceless, discriminated or ignored ones are the sign that the Lord sends to his Church because they are our same Lord, with whom he calls every Christian to receive the truth with joy, to defend and preach it with meekness but with firmness, knowing how to bear witness to the Lord, the true light that illuminates us towards a full life.
Florencio Martín de Blas Dorado
Spanish post in Reflexiones de Semana Santa
