PALM SUNDAY March 29, 2015 – DOMINGO DE RAMOS
I arrived too late to see Don Fulgencio bless the palm branches, but not too late for the procession which commemorates Christ’s entry into Jerusalem and the start of the events which led to his crucifixion. We’re quite a subdued little throng, not like the crowds in Jerusalem who shouted out ‘Hosanna’ and, then, within barely a couple of days, called for Christ’s death. The image, which looks rather plasticky, consists of the Saviour, side-saddle on a white donkey, hand raised in benediction. He’s carried, as the Virgin was when she descended, on a float supported on two long beams, supported in turn on their shoulders by four bearers. Christ is long-faced and on his head he wears a kind of reindeer headdress – three branching clumps of flat and gilded, or supposedly gilded, material – maybe plastic, maybe metallic. These bend and buckle in the stiff breeze. They are the three ‘potencias‘ or powers of Christ. We have quite often asked priests in churches here and there what exactly the potencias represent and the answers seem as various as the seminaries the priests must have attended. Top contenders are faith, hope and charity but almost equally the Trinity itself.
There are many little palm trees about the village and plenty of their rather delicate, bendy branches figure in the procession. There are also lots of little sprays of olive branch. Children mainly carry these and they are hung about with boiled sweets. So are the palm branches but the leaves, if that’s what they are called, are so delicate the sweets have to be attached as close as possible to the stem, giving the assemblage rather an awkward appearance.
Off we go from the in-village ermita or hermitage under the huge cedar tree, a chapel effectively, properly as ‘el humilladero’ – the place for humbling yourself before Christ as you approach the village centre with its impressive church. We shuffle off in the opposite direction, maybe a hundred people, some in advance of the image, a choir immediately behind holding mimeographed hymn books and singing harmoniously enough but voices, as always, thin in the open air. Then comes the bigger bulk of the procession. It’s not by any means the same people as the elderly congregation you find in the church. Lots of mothers, lots of smallish children.
At the swimming pool we turn up left, potencias and palm-branches bobbing and swaying in the anti-cyclonic breeze then down again and in through the church door. I’m walking with Marcelino, very smart, well-pressed trouser creases. Just before the church door he performs a neat swivel and carries on towards the bar.