By Gary Topping–
Chimayo is a small village in the New Mexico highlands about thirty miles northeast of Santa Fe. Calling it a village is actually a bit of a reach, for it is little more than a loose string of shops and residences dribbled out along some narrow country roads, with no real community center other than the grounds of the Santuario de Chimayo, a small mission church some two hundred years old. The Santuario is the spiritual center of the Penitente country, and every year during Holy Week it becomes the destination of thousands of pilgrims who arrive by all means of conveyances, including many who walk from points as far away as Albuquerque. A couple of years ago, my wife and I and one of our friends became three of those pilgrims. Although our walk began only at our bed-and-breakfast, Casa Escondido, about a mile away, I retain vivid memories of the experience. Those memories rush into my mind during this hot and air-polluted summer in Salt Lake City as I reminisce about the cool, clear spring air of the New Mexican highlands and the spiritual intensity of Chimayo.
The Penitente brotherhood arose during the years following the Mexican Revolution of 1821, when the Franciscan missionaries, who supported the Spanish regime, largely packed up and returned to Europe, leaving behind them a clergy-less church. The New Mexicans were serious Catholics, and they set out to improvise ways to function as a church with only very rare access to the sacraments. The Penitente brotherhood organized services for prayer and penance and cared for the poor, the elderly and the infirm much as priests would have done. The movement was particularly prominent in the rural highlands, where people had had to fend for themselves even in the best of circumstances. Membership in the brotherhood was largely secret, for the official Church did not approve of their often violent penitential practices of flagellation and mock crucifixions carried out in their moradas, the tiny windowless chapels that still dot the highland countryside.
The Santuario was built about that time on a site long considered holy by the indigenous people, who discovered healing properties in in the local earth, properties eventually embraced by the New Mexican Catholics. Pilgrims to this day—including us—bring away little containers of the earth to trigger our faith in God’s healing power when we are ill.
The church itself is very small and crudely fashioned and decorated, as one would expect of a Penitente establishment. As one steps into the church, one is confronted with a shocking life-size statue of the crucified Christ woven out of sticks, while the pews and kneelers are made of barely finished lumber that offers little in the way of creature comforts.
When we joined the pilgrims, we found ourselves among a bewilderingly diverse array of people, some exhibiting no visible religious motive, while other individuals and small and large groups carried crucifixes or prayed rosaries or followed large processional crosses and sang Marian hymns. We found ourselves swept up in the spiritual energy of the whole scene, pulling out our rosaries and praying as we walked along. I found that one of the chain links of my rosary had broken in my Levi’s pocket, but I made it work anyway.
When we reached the Santuario grounds, I rested on a low wall while I continued praying. Across the street, a beautiful Hispanic woman who was selling homemade religious articles out of a streetside booth caught my eye and called out, “Happy Resurrection Day! Forget about the Easter bunny; he never did nothin’ for us”! I laughed and waved back across the flood of humanity that must have resembled the Palm Sunday throng of Jesus’ day.
Later in the day, we witnessed no fewer than two Penitente processions (neither, mercifully, accompanied by flagellations). The second was the most impressive, and my wife had the presence of mind to record it with her smart phone. About twenty of the brothers, clad in the Franciscan habit, followed a large processional cross with a curious gliding gait, one step forty-five degrees to the right, the next forty-five degrees to the left. Only the ones in the rear, which we took to be postulants, were singing, belting out Penitente songs in Spanish from lyrics scrawled on index cards.
Knowing that the tiny church was going to be packed for Easter Sunday Mass, we arrived about an hour early to claim our seats. It proved to be a very long wait, for the priest was over a half hour late in starting the service. But it was worth waiting for. As I looked out over the people, our three faces were the only obvious Anglos in the crowd, so I settled in for a Spanish liturgy. To my surprise, it was all English but for one Spanish hymn. Speaking of resurrection, the cantor was a reincarnation of Janis Joplin; her singing was extraordinary. The priest turned out to be a jokester—and why shouldn’t our Easter joy include humor? During the sprinkling rite he hit the pail of holy water against a corner of the altar and drenched it. “Hmm, that’s an interesting way to consecrate an altar,” he muttered. As he came back up the aisle, he stopped beside one of his buddies and sprinkled him repeatedly. “You need some extra, don’t you”? he asked. We all needed some extra that day, and we got it.
I hope to go back one day. It was a profound spiritual experience, and I carry it with me to this day. At the very least, when the procession starts down the aisle of the Cathedral of the Madeleine on Easter Sunday, I find it easy to remind myself to forget about the Easter bunny: “he never did nothin’ for us.”
