A nightmare in Holy Thursday
My friend Empires
was a man of many lectures and adventures a great reader, in his young days, he
came across of a big short story by the Asturian writer Leopold Alas Clarin
called EL DIABLO EN SEMANA SANTA (The devil in the holy week). And as it
happens, what is in books later is in real life, fulfilling the norm by
Aristotle’s quod est prius in sensu postea etiam in intellectu, but the
other way round. The plot was about a man of good will going every day to the
library. He was a dreamer; he lived by the Law of Books, in the middle of a
country of illiterates, and the great ideals thinking that there was hope for
human kind. By education. The inception of good morals. Reforms. The quest of
excellence. He read and read. He dreamt and dreamt. One day-it was Good Thursday
when Christ invited his disciple to the Passover dinner and instituted the rule
of love, a new commandment I give to you that you love each other as I have
loved you- went to the hall of the municipal books, choosing that endeavour
because it was quiet and warm. The precept of loving each other was hardly
followed by the so called Christians. And he lived in a small Spanish town by
the name of Epicidia, when the believers brought the images of the
passion to the streets and organized the big processions typical Spanish, the
poor guy was a believer but he never was in a procession. Humbug he said,
humbug and superstitions. Poor guy, he became the odd out man and was always
under suspicion, our poor writer and reader he worked long hours in the pursuit
of happiness and endeavoured at the local library. Religion was for him a free
feeling of intimate and personal convictions of respect for the other criteria.
That was why perhaps that his faith was more consistent and deeper. He loved
that silence and seclusion and quietness, only transgressed by the drone of a
solitary Spanish fly and the distant sound of the glare of drums and trumpets
at the sacramental processions of Holy Week. When barefooted Nazarenes in black
or crimson cassocks baring candles or carrying crosses went to the streets. You
could also perceive the murmurs of their steps mingled with the strophes of the
Miserere. Some of them trailed big chains cuffed to their barefoot. The
spectacle was quite medieval. It was the Day of Atonement. For their sins they
mounted crosses and pillories staging the different passages of the Crucifixion
in real. It was a public manifestation of Catholicism and a signal of their
conversion in a country where the Cross achieved victory over the Half Moon and
the Menorah by the rule of sword. For fear of the Inquisition, they had to show
and make the big performance demonstrating adherence to Orthodoxy, and that the
reason why from the windows of many homes hung the ham’s big logs and strings
of black puddings and mondongos. Physically, faith had to be proved, or demonstrated
the allegiance of the culinary codes of Roman Catholicism which permitted the
flesh of the pig at meals. Jews and Moslems, meanwhile, never ate pork. It was banned
by their prophets as inmundus or forbidden animal. Christ said, it is true,
that what made man pure or impure was not what he ingested through his mouth
but what he expelled from it. The inmundus
or unclean had to do more with immaterial things like bad thoughts dwelling
inside or ill wishes. With that rule he destroyed the puritanical commandments
of the Synagogue and he said beware of the false prophets. Don’t trust them,
the devil is marauding like a lion and there are wolves disguised under sheep
skins. The resurrected Christ is always in perpetual war versus antichrists.
Here it is the perpetual fight of our Lord who was a rebel against conventions
of satanically established forces of the Pharisees And there is the devil
coming even in the Holy Week. However,
the Conversos, in their zeal, went further up and appear more roman that the Romans
and more popish than their own pope although in private they might remain to
the religion of their father. That is why in
On the balmy
spring evening as he was leaving his beloved library he came across with one of
the many processions organised by the Guild Hall. This one was one of flagellants.
Man barefoot and naked backs came down flogging themselves wuith flagella and
batons staging the scenes what happened two rhousand years ago in the
Lithostros of Jersualem, oh vos omnes qui transtis per viam videte si es dolor
quasi dolor meus. Jeremiah said. He stepped aside and looked in awe to the
representation of the Holy Burial (Santo entierro) but he did not kneel down or
made the signal of the cross, as perceptive, and for that he became under the
suspicion of the local policeman. One of them who looked exactly like some of
the Pilate bailiffs who executed the Lamb of god in Via Dolorosa. The town was
full of henchmen and burrows. The gallows by coincidence in Epicidia stayed
behind the old library building. It was called El Rollo. They were burnt at
the staked after long processes to be
condemned by the Inquisition.
-
Eh
you, why are not you in the processions. Are not you a Christian?-the myrmidon
in blue police uniform said.
He did not
know quite to answer.
-Em… I had to do a little work with my thesis, and need consult some
books for my readings
-Didn’t you know, you bastard, you heathen you scum of the earth, what
day today is?
-Holy Thursday, sir, and tomorrow Good Friday should be-, he answered
meekly.
-I did not see you at the Oficios
(liturgical services)
-Perhaps I thought it was not necessary. At home I read the Passion of
our Lord.
-Esa misa no te vale (that Mass is not valid) are you a protestant or
somewhat?
-No, sir, I am catholicus, apostolicus, romanus.
-Well then. You had to explain that to the Judge. Come with me.
In Epicidia
the holy Tribunal of the Faith was suppressed in the XIX century but that infamous
court is in open session in the mind of many ignorant. The warden asked him for
the brief where he kept his books and jotters. Give those papers. He resisted
the order and the local policemen called others of his cronies and they beat
the archivist, the writer, the searcher, the dreamer, the mystic, on the spot.
They handcuffed him and took him apprehended. Regardless of the exempting privilege
of habeas corpus, was conducted to the police station or cuartelillo. There they beat him again, they harassed, impeached,
called him names, slapped his face, and punched his nose. He suffered with
patience the effrontery and in a way he was proud to undergo the same suffered
of his Lord in the presidium. He realized that the Devil is at loose even in
Holy Week The world since then is full of kangaroo courts. Unfortunately Anas
and Caiphas, the holy sacerdotal class, the pontiffs had many emulated too long
during 2000 years of history. And when the cockcrow sang three times the
welcome to the new morning, they released him but he was in a poor state after
the “paliza”. He could hardly walk and was all bruised. His hands, his head all
his limbs ached but he could at the end by the grace of God reach his humble
lodgings. And when he went back home and entered in the hall of his house, his
wife seeing him as an Ecce Homo” said:
-Eh, you have been drinking again .
That was her salute. Poor guy! Even his wife wasn’t interested but such sort of things were
quite frequent in Epicidia tose days. There was no love.
13/02/2005
que corresponde al dia de hoy idus aprilis 2009 13
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