If Murcian Holy Monday did not exist, with its racket of magenta tunics and old bar counter riots, someone would have to invent it. Or maybe invent the whole of Murcia. Because if that of Good Friday is the most beautiful ‘morá’ morning, as everyone knows, that of San Antolín is perhaps the purest and most intense.
With the particularity that there, in the heart of the traditional neighborhood, as its people impose and enjoy it, the morning lasts twelve hours: they are the ones that go between the descent of Christ, that a Murcian who has never seen him does not boast of being citizen of this city, until the parish door is closed when that passage, which is an authentic Nazarene sailboat, sails through the city and returns after completing its procession.
To end soon: the Forgiveness thing is another world, a kind of brotherly black hole that every year gobbles up the entire spring on its day, turning San Antolin into the epicenter of the universe. And the universe, well measured, is concentrated every Holy Monday in the triangle of the academic Bermudas from San Santo that fix and give shine, shine of vermouth and sailors, the taverns of La Viuda, with its Angel in front, the Luis de la Rosario, without the irreplaceable Pedro, or Guinea. Almost nothing.
Every Murcian, to boast that he is, must experience in his life the brotherly atmosphere of the Sanantolinero Christ on his big day
Now they are joined by Tabanko825, a brother from Cádiz of not little brotherly art. Traditions never written, but observed for generations. Namely: balconies covered with magenta flags, restless parishioners from the church to the bar or the other way around, lines of faithful at the twelve o’clock kiss, reserved chairs with pages where lifelong surnames are read, grandmothers with their bulrush chairs, to see who is the handsome one who warns them that they are in the way, the commotion of the gypsies who charge them, the carts of trinkets, the scandalous conversations that fill the streets… Holy Week in Murcia.
My hands ache from writing it every year. And it’s been almost three decades now, without missing a Holy Monday, giving an account of something that, even without having any faith or creed, every Murcian, to presume that he is, I insist, must experience in his life: the atmosphere of San Antolín on his big day. It is not a religious question. That neighborhood and that brotherhood, well defended by President Diego Avilés, are the ultimate essence of how our Holy Week is one of the best in Spain. For not writing about the world, that too.
And there, in the most traditional neighborhood, the one with people who always sought their bread more at the wrong time than at the right time, the balconies of restless parishioners, long lines of brothers on the side of San Antolín when, at seven o’clock In the afternoon, time stands still.
Magical moment
A bugle sounds. Forgiveness will come out. National anthem. But a piece of wood does not come out, even if it is. A true neighbor of the neighborhood comes out, as everyone considers him, although nailed to a piece of wood. This is how Isabel sings it, that you can’t have more art. This is how those who live there and the band from Paso Blanco de Lorca that captivate many understand it. That’s why they speak to the Christ about you. That’s why it arouses passions. And for this reason, whether they are from the left or the right, because there is no valid card, if you touch their Forgiveness, God’s is armed, never better written.
Magical moment. The door hinges creak and the ‘pater’ Don Rafael, another symbol of this city, restlessly leans out into the square. The sounds of the deaf drums announce, this time yes, that the Brotherhood of Forgiveness returns to rule, because it is their fate, of the streets that so long for it.
And so, with a firm step and an accurate blow on the stage, the parade of the tastiest tradition vanished yesterday, the one from the neighborhood that demonstrated how his Pardon continues to be irreplaceable, who is a citizen with a national Nazarene document in the heart of San Antolin.
#Nazarene #sailboat #named #Perdón