A letter from Marcia Towers in Guatemala
June 2012
Holy Week in Guatemala is very different from in the United States! This year I had three distinct Holy Week and Easter celebrations that represent much of the week’s religious celebration.
First, on Palm Sunday the PC(USA) Young Adult Volunteers and I were on a retreat in the town of Santiago near Lake Atitlan, a beautiful lake surrounded by three volcanoes and in an area with strong Mayan heritage. We were pleasantly surprised to find that all of the youth from the local Catholic Diosis were in Santiago for an annual youth Palm Sunday festival. We came upon a procession of probably 10,000 youth and others with banners from their local churches. The procession culminated a half mile out of town in an area called Panajabaj with a huge Catholic mass. In a 2005 hurricane Panajabaj suffered a large-scale landslide that resulted in the deaths of up to 2,000 persons. The field where this outdoor mass was held was home until recently to a temporary shelter for the families whose houses had been destroyed. Standing in this large field in an area with such a history of suffering, with thousands of Mayan people, hearing about how Jesus came to be one of us and walk with us in all of life’s joy and suffering, was a powerful moment.
Second, I enjoyed the visuals of Holy Week in Antigua. The town of Antigua, Guatemala, hosts one of the largest celebrations of Holy Week in Latin America. During all of the Sundays of Lent, Holy Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Saturday and Easter, Antigua is full of devout Catholics wearing purple robes and carrying, about 100 people at a time, a huge float on their shoulders. The floats carry images depicting the life of Jesus during his passion, death and resurrection. The floats can weigh more than a ton and the processions go on all day and sometimes all night, with the carriers changing after each block. Along the streets hours before the processions pass by, others are using colored sawdust, flowers and stencils to create artistic carpets. Families, churches, and organizations start weeks or months before Holy Week to design their carpets and cut out the large stencils. The day of the procession they begin by spreading out sand to create a level space over the cobblestone streets, and decorate with the colored sawdust and flowers such as roses, chrysanthemums or bougainvillea. The Protestant community is not so involved in this tradition and may participate more as observers than as participants. But this year our 5-year-old son Josh and 2-year old daughter Eva were able to participate in a kid-friendly carpet preparation.
And third, of course we didn’t miss the fun of decorating Easter eggs and having the kids search for eggs with some other friends from the U.S. and Guatemalans as well.
Holy Week in Guatemala is meaningful to me because it engages so many senses. The visual way that the occurrences of Holy Week are displayed is powerful. The smell of the burning incense is ceremonious. The instrumental music played by a band accompanying the processions is engaging. My feet feel tired after walking around all day to take it all in. What rich tradition!
Marcia Towers
The 2012 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 6
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