By Morgan Lee
Chimayó, NM (AP) – A unique tradition of Holy Week is thousands of Catholic pilgrims in a small Adobe church in the hills of the north of New Mexico, in a trip to foot through the badlands of the desert to reach a spiritual source.
During the generations, the people of the Rio Grande Upper Valley and beyond worked to reach El Santuario de Chimayó to commemorate on Good Friday.
The pilgrims began to arrive at dawn. Some had crossed the night in half a moon, wearing glow sticks, pocket lamps and walking employees.
Some travelers are attracted to an inner dirt well that would have curative powers. Throughout the year, they leave behind crutches, hugs and rods in acts of prayer for infirm and other children, and as proof that miracles occur.
Visitors of Easter week exceed an adobe arch and narrow interior passages to find a nustro Señor of Esquipulas crucified at the main altar. According to local tradition, the Crucifix was found on the site in the early 1800s, a continent far from its analog in a basilica in the Guatemalterian city of Esquipulas.
A spiritual place
Chimayóó, known for its handicrafts and Chilean cultures, rests above the Rio Grande valley and opposite the National Defense Laboratory in Los Alamos which was born in the race to develop the first atomic weapon.
The emblematic church Adobe of Chimayó was thrown from the local mud at the sunset of Spanish domination in the Americas in the early 1800s, on a site already kept sacred by the Amerindians.
Located in the middle of narrow streets, curio shops and streams flowing quickly in the spring, El Santuario de Chimayó was designated as a national historical monument which includes examples of popular Hispanic art from the 19th century, religious frescoes and saints sculpted by wood called Bultos.
A distinct chapel is dedicated to the Santo Niño de Atocha, a patron saint of children, travelers and those looking for liberation and an appropriate figure of devotion for the pilgrims of Chimayó on the move.
Hundreds of children’s shoes have been left in a prayer room there by the faithful in homage to the holy child who carries shoes on miraculous races. There are even tiny boots stuck to the ceiling.
The people of Pueblo who lived in the chimayóóóó region long before the Spanish settlers believed only healing spirits could be found in the form of hot sources. These springs finally dried, leaving behind the land attributed to healing powers.
A lifestyle
Photographer Miguel Gandent grew up in the Española valley under Chimayó and made the pilgrimage like a boy with his parents.
“Everyone went to Chimayó. You didn’t need to be Catholic,” said Gandent, who was one of those who photographed the 1996 pilgrimage through a federal subsidy. “People went there because it was a powerful and spiritual place.”
Scenes from this pilgrimage – exhibited at the New Mexico History Museum in Santa Fe – include children eating snow cones to stay cool, men exhausted large wooden crosses, infants borne in blankets, leather bikers and tired pedestrians based on railing for smoke.
A generation later, the Pilgrims of the Good Friday still carry crosses on the road to Chimayó. Crowds of visitors often wait for hours for a turn to deposit in Santuario de Chimayó to commemorate the crucifixion.
Adrian Atencio, 30, fell on his knees and passed his hands through the red earth in the ground well in the Santuario. ATENCIO, from San Juan Pueblo nearby, has been moving on Good Friday since the age of 7. This time, it was the future and new beginnings.
“I have a newborn baby on the way. I was sort of walking for him today,” he said.
It is only hundreds of Adobe churches anchoring a unique Mexican lifestyle for their communities. Many are likely to collapse in ruined soil while congregations and traditions are fading.
A trip on foot
Some pilgrims walk 20 miles from Santa Fe, while others travel for Albuquerque days and beyond. They cross an arid landscape speckled with juniper and piñon and cholla cacti which finally give way to lush cotton and green pastures on the final descent in Chimayó.
Sellers sell religious trinkets, coffee and treats. State transport workers, organizations responsible for the application of laws and other volunteers are stationed on the road to ensure the safety of traffic coming in the opposite direction, external elements and exhaustion.
The magnitude of the religious pilgrimage has little or no competitors in the United States, many participants say that their thoughts live not only on Jesus Christ but on the suffering of family, friends and neighbors with prayers for relief.
“You can’t come here and not feel something,” said Dianna de Leon d’Al Albuquerque, who arrived on foot with her 78 -year -old mother, Victoria Trujillo, who wore an altered crucifix on a shoulder.
Trujillo has been traveling for 51 years, except when the church closed during the COVVI-19 pandemic.
“It is a little piece of paradise-all this faith and all this hope,” she said.
The coverage of the Associated Press Religion receives support thanks to the collaboration of the AP with the conversation in the United States, with the financing of Lilly Endowment Inc. AP is solely responsible for this content.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
