Meanwhile, In Spain

One of these days I want to spend Holy Week and Easter in Spain. I'd love to watch a religious procession and just soak in the Catholic Culture, while you can see it, as Spain has become very secularized these days.




While surfing the Catholic Blogosphere last night, I saw a post on Fr. Longenecker's blog "Standing on My Head" to pictures of the Spanish Penitent Brotherhoods and thought I'd make a post of my own, also linking to the pictures. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to embed this slide show but start here and soak in the culture. The Penitentes are wearing their hoods and are all very different because they come from different brotherhoods.

Relatedly, the Penitente Brotherhood in Northern New Mexico almost certainly, traces its origins come from these brotherhoods in Spain. Though, here, women have never been allowed to join as we see in some pictures from Spain. The Penitentes also were crucial in keeping the faith alive in the area when there were very few priests in the area. Hee, New Advent has an article about them and here's a brief history about them on a New Mexico touristy website.

I've been too lazy to write up a real blog post about them. Add it to the list of ever growing things I want to blog about.

(posted at the lj first.)