Walking with God: The Procession of El Señor de Los Milagros
Una coincidencia
Sunday, October 22nd. One of the most beautiful days of my life.
It starts with my boyfriend Sam and I walking out of Fordham to get some breakfast. On our way to Olympic Flame, we notice some
people selling street food on 10th and 60th. It’s South American food: picarones and anticuchos.
I ask what they are and order in Spanish. I decide to try some picarones.
It turns out they’re kind of like donuts, covered in a delicious, syrupy fig sauce.
We keep walking down 60th, and we notice something big going on up ahead. There is a huge
tent in the middle of the street, and the street is blocked off from traffic.
The street is also full of people, selling food, candy, snacks, rosaries, and
other religious apparel, especially around the church up at the end of the
block, the Church of St. Paul the Apostle. Flowers line the street next the
tent, and when we get to the other side, we can see into the tent, where there is
an altar. It’s a beautiful, enormous structure which has to weigh at least a
ton. In the center of it is a huge, ornate image of the crucified Jesus, and on
the other side is the Virgin Mary. The image is a reproduction of El Señor
de los Milagros, or the Lord of Miracles, a Peruvian painting from the 17th century. In Peru, this painting is the most venerated of all
images of Jesus, and its feast day is the most important Peruvian Catholic
celebration of the year. Protruding from the altar are large spokes, which are
for carrying the altar, as I would find out later.
There are many men walking around, dressed in purple robes.
I ask one of them what is going on. They tell me there will be a procesión
(procession) in an hour, starting in front of St. Paul’s. There is also a Mass
happening inside the Church. The Mass is near the end, but I take Sam inside
just to observe what it’s like. All of the pews are full and there are people
standing in the aisles, on the sides, and in the back. A full choir with a full
band is singing a communion hymn, and everyone is singing along in Spanish.
The Mass is beautiful, but all the while I feel deeply
uncomfortable. I have not been to a Mass since I started my relationship with
Sam. I no longer felt like I belonged in the Catholic Church since I had
rejected the Church’s heteronormative teachings on love. A few minutes ago, I walked
in holding Sam’s hand, but now I feel like a million eyes are on me, and I feel
like it’s almost disrespectful to these other people’s culture to display my
love for Sam, or to be there at all. As uncomfortable as I am, I decide to stay
and watch and I eventually start to sing along. I realize no one is watching me
at all, and no one is judging me. Everyone is focused on the Mass and the
beauty of the service.
La procesión
After the Mass, we wait for
the procession to start outside the church along with an enormous crowd of
people. They’ve brought the imagen, the enormous altar with the image of
El Señor de los Milagros, in front of the church. And behind them, a full
marching band of brass, woodwind, drums, and cymbals are prepared to follow.
The men in purple robes, who are part of the Hermandad de Cargadores y Sahumadoras
Del Señor De Los Milagros (roughly: the Brotherhood of Carrying-Men and
Incense-Burners of the Lord of Miracles), gather around the altar. They line up
around it, at least four men to each spoke of the altar, and some carrying it
on the sides, so that there are at least 40 men prepared to carry the altar
together when the call comes to start. Everyone is eagerly anticipating the
start of the procession.
Then, the leader of the procession cries “¡Hijo!” and rings
the bell on the front of the altar, and all at once, the imagen springs
up into the air, supported by the cargadores. Everyone cheers and
applauds the men’s efforts. Then, the music begins. A lone trumpet sounds a
mournful melody and fades away at its completion, leaving us with a moment of
silence. Then the drums and cymbals enter, beginning with a slow, plodding,
sacred rhythm. The horns return, now with a triumphant energy that will carry
us all forward. The bell rings, and the altar bows as it begins to turn. More
cheering. The bell rings again, and the procession begins. The cargadores sway
to the plodding, steady beat of the music as they slowly proceed forward, and
the imagen of Jesus seems to float above the street as it sways side so
side in a sacred dance. The faithful begin to march alongside the altar as the
procession begins to wrap around the corner, always in the same slow, mournful
yet triumphant tempo: “1... 2... and 3...! and... 1... 2... and 3...!”.
Close behind are the sahumadoras, veiled women in purple
robes who burn incense as they follow the procession. The smell of the incense
adds yet another layer to the overwhelming sensory experience of the procesión.
A full camera crew and a legion of people recording on smartphones (including
me) are also among the followers. On the other side of the street, there are
pedestrians and cars passing by on their normal day to day business. The imagen rounds the corner, and behind it
I see the front entrance of Fordham University Lincoln Center. I am in awe that
such a beautiful, sacred event is happening right outside of my school, and
amazed that most of my classmates probably don’t even know about it.
Then almost abruptly, by some signal I must have missed, the
procession stops. The music cuts out, the bell rings, and the men put the altar
down. Two men climb up onto the altar to adorn the imagen with more
flowers and decorations. This is the first of many breaks for the cargadores.
They have been carrying the altar,
which I imagine must weigh at least 1000 pounds, for almost 20 minutes, and we
have traveled probably only 100 feet. There’s still a long way to go. Some of
the cargadores switch positions with other men, so no one gets too
tired. After the break, the procession and the music start again.
At this point, I decide to stop taking pictures and videos, as I
realize my phone is creating a barrier between me and the full experience of
the procession. After that, Sam and I continue alongside the imagen for
a full hour, hand in hand. We begin to march in the same rhythm as the cargadores,
the plodding, steady rhythm of the music. “1... 2... and 3...! and... 1...
2... and 3...!”. The entire crowd is moving as one in this sacred journey
alongside the image of Jesus. And all at once, the music, the smell of the
incense, feeling Sam’s hand in mine, the image of Jesus slowly swaying, dancing
down the street, seemingly floating on the backs of the cargadores,
directly in front of my school, in the city that I love, on a street which I
walk on every day, completely overwhelms me.
For me, the procesión perfectly captures what Christianity
is all about in a way that integrates body, mind, and soul as one. Christ asks
us to follow Him, to bear the burden of His cross, and this is exactly what we
do when we participate in the procesión.
Comunidad
Later, I was forced to consider just how much
these cargadores lives were at stake in the procesión. At the end
of the second break, the men tried to lift the altar as they had done before,
but there was a miscommunication, and one half of the men tried to lift it
while the other side did not. The whole altar almost tipped over onto the backs
of these poor men, many of them older gentleman, probably in their fifties and
sixties. The whole crowd gasped in fear. Thankfully, however, the other cargadores
who were standing on the sides came in to steady the altar, and no one was
hurt. The leader yelled “¡Dos!”,
letting all the men know that they would lift the altar after two rings
of the bell. This time, all the cargadores acted as one, and the altar
sprang up into the air as it had before, seemingly light as a feather. The
crowd cheered the men’s bravery, and the procession started once more.
As we began to move again, I thought about the level of
self-sacrifice and community that such a procession requires. These men put
their own bodies, their own selves, at risk for the sake of their religion and
for their sake of their community. How often do we do that in our everyday
American consumerist lives?
There is no space for disagreement when the time comes to lift the
altar. There are lives at stake. Everyone has a part to play in the procession,
from the cargadores to the sahumadoras to the musicians, to the
priests, to the followers of the procession, to the peddlers selling street
food and rosaries. Even local government has a part to play; there were police
officers clearing the way for the procession, and signs posted throughout the
path of the procession that said “No Parking Sunday.” It was an intricate,
symbiotic arrangement of all the parts of the community. The fullness of life
was present at the procession, and that made it all the more meaningful.
Everything was carefully orchestrated to make the procession a sacred experience
unlike any other I have ever experienced.
The procesión made me
think about how Latin American Catholicism really comes from the heart. There’s
such a purity of devotion and love for God, for Jesus, for Mary, and for the
saints, that I feel is missing from the white American Catholicism I was brought
up with. For Latin American Catholics, the religion seems integrated into their
entire lives and into their communities in a way that I never felt growing up
in a predominantly white Catholic church in suburbia.
Después
After following the procession for an hour, we
arrived only a block away from where the procession had started. At that point,
I realized that the procession would probably last for a full day. Part of me
really wished I could stay and dedicate a full day to the procession as the cargadores
and sahumadoras do, but hunger got the best of me, and I decided we should
go find something to eat.
We chose the Olympic Flame, which was directly across
from the procession. As I sat watching the procession through the window and
reflecting on what I had just experienced, I was again overwhelmed with
emotion. I looked at the procession outside the window, and I looked back at
Sam, into their eyes. I reached out to touch their hand, and I wept. I felt so
full in that moment. If you asked me now what I cried about, I couldn’t put my
finger directly on it. But it had something to do with how overwhelming the
whole experience of the procesión was for my body, mind, and soul, and
how I was able to experience that intense sacredness with Sam by my side, after
so many years of being told that my love for someone like Sam could never be
sacred. I wept because before that day I thought I had to make a choice between
loving Sam and loving God, and in that moment I saw I didn’t have to choose
between them. The love I feel for Sam and the love I feel for God could become
one.
Aún en la noche
That night, as I was walking from the Fordham to the Columbus
Circle Subway Station, I was surprised to see the procession again. They were
still going! They were just beginning to walk the altar back into the tent,
some 9 hours after the procession began. The band was still playing with full
force, and the imagen was still swaying and floating with the same
vitality. The altar was shining in the night, lit by candlelight, and surprisingly,
the crowd of dedicated believers had actually grown since the beginning of the
procession. I couldn’t stay for long this time, but I was filled with such
admiration for these people’s dedication, devotion, and stamina. I thought
about the strength it would take to carry such a heavy load for such a long
time, and the stamina it would take to play in a marching band for a full 9
hours, and the dedication it would take to spend a whole day as a follower of
the procession. I wished I could have devoted more time to it myself.
Una
tradición sagrada
Later on, I searched for the Hermandad de Cargadores y
Sahumadoras Del Señor De Los Milagros online, and I found that this
practice originates in Peru, where the feast day of El Señor De Los Milagros is
the most important Catholic celebration of the year. In fact, the procession
happens all over the world in late October every year, wherever a strong
community of Peruvian Catholics exists.
I
realize now that, had I not done this project, I might never have stopped to
experience something like this. My experience with the procesión affirmed to me the idea that religion is about practices,
and not only about beliefs, and that liberates me to explore my relationship
with God in new ways that I may not completely understand before trying them. I’m
profoundly grateful that I was able to experience the procesión, and I hope I can take part in this beautiful tradition
again next year.
Wayne C Babineaux
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