April is a month of renewal. And while northerners may be experiencing April showers in hopes of May flowers, they are also preparing to celebrate Easter with stores showing pastel decorations of Easter bunnies and candies and creating Easter eggs out of anything but real eggs. They will go to church maybe once with their Easter best clothes and listen to a 45-minute sermon of the death and resurrection of Christ. The Jewish people will be in celebration of their Passover.
But here in Mexico, Easter is an occasion. It is celebrated over a two-week time span. Schools and some businesses close, and there are parades and community Passion plays. Each village celebrates a little differently.
After Christmas, it is the most widely celebrated holiday in Mexico, and is known as Semana Santa, or Holy Week as we would call it, the week leading up to Easter, starting with Palm Sunday, or Domingo de Ramos. This is a quiet celebration where palm fronds are woven into crosses and other various arrangements and brought to the altar to be blessed with holy water. Flowers and the palm frond crosses fill the streets, along with other religious symbols. Some villages have palm fronds laid in front of a man representing Jesus riding a donkey, as they make their way through the city streets reenacting travel to Jerusalem.
While there are celebrations that will take place throughout the week, of the most important are Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday.
Maundy or Holy Thursday, called Jueves Santo in Mexico, commemorates the Last Supper and Jesus washing the apostles’ feet. Many in Mexico will be offering prayers at seven churches, in reference to seven places Jesus went between his arrest and his crucifixion. Unlike most Mexican holidays, from Thursday until Easter church bells are silent.
Good Friday, or Viernes Santo, represents the day that Jesus was crucified. Many communities will have another procession with statues of the Virgin Mary and Jesus at the center. Some will reenact the Passion Play, portraying the trial of Jesus, and his crucifixion, suffering, and death. Ajijic has done this many times and it is quite a moving scene as the Jesus figure on bended and bloodied body carries the large wooden cross to a place for crucifixion, with a Mary figure following along in tears. Once there, they reenact the Passion Play, portraying the trial of Jesus, and his crucifixion, suffering, and death.
Sabado de Gloria or Holy Saturday represents the mourning of Jesus’ death. Statues of the Virgin Mary are dressed in black. Many communities in Mexico will burn cardboard or paper mâché models of Judas as punishment for his betrayal of Jesus. In San Miguel Allende, they go all out on this day and the ‘Burning of the Judases’ celebration involves giant paper mâché Judases, and also includes other figures painted to resemble disliked social and political figures. In the ceremony, they are sentenced to be hung and then blown up with fireworks. In other communities, Sabado de Gloria is a quiet day for relaxing with family and friends.
Easter Sunday is the beginning of Pascua, the week after Easter. The day itself is reserved for crowded masses and ringing church bells in some communities after an early morning parade to discover the removal of the stone and Jesus as Risen. When mass is finished, people fill city centers in celebration.
Even though Semana Santa is a spiritual and festive time in Mexico, and it is a special time to celebrate and enjoy age-old Mexican traditions, our northerners will still be able to find a chocolate bunny or Easter candies or even some decorated eggs!
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