In Seville, faith is lived at street levelin the daily routine of their daily lives, in the greetings around the neighborhood, shopping in the market and, of course, in the visits to the temples. The way of being and living in Andalusia, to the outside, and how deeply rooted the external cult and the public manifestation of religiosity Over the centuries, they have given rise to this being understood as something intrinsic to the personality of the Sevillians. For this reason, the streets of the Seville capital feel popular piety regardless of the day, week or month of the year.
Just take a walk through any neighborhood in the city to discover the tile of an image, an almanac of the neighboring brotherhood hanging in the window of a business or a hanging hanging on a balcony, even if no brotherhood passes through the street in question. The affection and devotion to images floods everything and it is permanently present, whether transmitted by the family, socially or otherwise.
ABC was in Triana during the transfer of the Virgin of the Star for their extraordinary services in the parish of San Jacinto, and also in the Plaza de San Lorenzo on one of the many Fridays in which the faithful come to visit the Lord of Great Power. The testimonies of the people who were there, like those who can be found every day at any brotherhood event or in the vicinity of one of the dozens of temples spread throughout the urban geography of Seville, leave no hint of doubt about how they feel. popular religiosity in Seville.
They ask the Lord, the Virgin, for very diverse matters, but above all for what truly matters: “Health, work, for my grandchildren,” say Dolores, Aurora and Lola, three friends from the neighborhood, after their visit to San Lorenzo. However, and contrary to what is sometimes said, that we only remember God when we are going through a bad time – which too -, many people have a deep-rooted habit of turning to his devotional images. not only to ask them, but also to thank themas happens to Rafael Garrido, brother and devotee of the Lord of Seville: «I try more to thank than to ask. You always ask for something, but I try to thank you more than ask you”; or simply to tell them things and feel accompanied by them: “I tell him everything that happened to me during the week and it calms me down,” as Mireia Rodríguez, who enters the basilica every time she goes from the conservatory to the faculty or vice versa, points out. With images we speak as friends, as confidants… as if they were part of our family, the father or mother on whom we can always lean on. Garrido has no doubts: “My father died a few years ago, and in moments of weakness during that period of my life, the Lord always came to mind.”
Popular religiosity is the family
Where does the fervor that so many Sevillians, whether from the capital or the province, feel for images come from? In many cases it is precisely inherited from the family, the tradition that is instilled in the most tender years of childhood to, as one grows, develop one’s own bond with God and one’s mother through the replication of family customs and the inclusion of new ones arising from personal experience. This is what happened to Rafael Garrido: «My mother brought me as a child every Friday in the summer, when there was no longer school, to see the Lord. Besides, we lived in the suburbs, we took the bus… it was a habit. All roads lead to San Lorenzo.
Of course you can’t leave it behind the legacy of grandparentswho often raise the children while the parents are at work, transmitting the legacy of centuries that constitutes an inseparable part of the Sevillian identity: «My grandparents, above all, are an essential part of my life and they were the ones who mainly taught me. “They instilled everything that is a brotherhood, living Holy Week and the love that I have for images today,” says Juan Manuel Hidalgo, a young man from Marchena who does not miss a brotherhood.
Grandparents who were also young and joined the brotherhoods through causes as universal as lovethe case of Rosa and Germán, an endearing couple whose heart has been beating in a star-like way for more than half a century, 68 years for the husband and a little less for the wife, since she started with him: «We have been with Ella for fifty years now, all our lives . My children are all here; my children, too; My daughter’s name is Estrella, we are very much part of Estrella.
The faith that emerged from the people
What do the images that are loved and prayed for so much mean? Seville has an apocryphal gospel for each person who prays an Our Father or a Hail Mary, or that accompanies a family member or a friend to visit its owners, who become pillars that support so many other aspects: “For me, the Lord is a fundamental pillar in my life.” The feelings that arise from the carvings of Christ and the Virgin, sometimes ineffable and even irrational, come from the depths of the heart, as Marina Franco, a young Aljarafeña devotee of the Star, eloquently recounts: «We live everything very sentimentally. My Virgin is the Marian devotion to which I give my life so that She may guide it. A brother owes everything to his images.
The brotherhoods and brotherhoods, which that they belong to the people and they owe it to the peoplehave been playing that unifying and structuring role of faith for centuries. The celebration of the Second International Congress of Brotherhoods and Popular Piety reminds us of the importance of this extraordinary phenomenon so marked in the Christian life of our Archdiocese, but the truth is that it can be verified any day, temple by temple, street by street.
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