On April 20, 2022, the Government of Spain decreed that masks were no longer mandatory indoors. It was the penultimate step to return to complete normality after the pandemic. The churches were one of the spaces that saw their parishioners stop wearing masks indoors, although the decree did not arrive in time for it to be applied in Holy Week 2022.
For this reason, this year, if there is something that will characterize the Holy Week in Tenerife It is absolute normality, now without masks indoors or under steps, without distances, and with renewed faith. Today, with the celebration of Palm Sunday, the religious acts begin with which, officially, Holy Week begins, although already on Friday there were many parishes on the Island that were celebrated on Friday of Dolores, with the procession of The hurt. This was the case in La Laguna, and also in Santa Cruz.
In La Laguna, the Virgin of Los Dolores, La Predilecta, took a procession this Friday from her home, the parish of Nuestra Señora de La Concepción, through the streets of the Laguna town. Also on Friday, mayor, Luis Yeray Gutierrez, was in charge of the proclamation of the Brotherhood of the Brotherhood of María Santísima de Los Dolores. In Santa Cruz, La Dolorosa, he made a procession from the main parish of La Concepción through the Plaza de Santo Domingo, Calzada de la Noria and Domínguez Alfonso. Also in La Orotava, another municipality with a religious tradition, he carried out a procession of Nuestra Señora de Los Dolores, an anonymous carving of a candlestick whose origin dates back to the 17th century.
This opens a period in which not only believers attend the different religious acts, since Holy Week is one more cultural expression. The bishop, Bernardo Álvarez, recalled, in the letter addressed to the faithful in 2023, that Holy Week, “although in the way it is celebrated, especially in its external visibility, it has historical-artistic and traditional elements, and they make it it is seen outside as an attractive cultural phenomenon; all that is not the most important thing.
The artistic excellence of the images, the beauty of the monuments and the processional parades are, without a doubt, a sign of the importance we give to what we celebrate. However, we cannot turn Holy Week into “the religion of aesthetics” or into a tourist attraction, but aesthetics is at the service of living faith.”
Palm Sunday
Today, the main parishes celebrate the entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem, with which Holy Week officially begins. In all of them, the blessing and distribution of the little palms will take place, with which the faithful return home after the Eucharist and procession.
In Santa Cruz, Passion Sunday is celebrated in several churches. In that of San Francisco de Asís, the procession and blessing of branches will take place at twelve noon. While in La Laguna, the bishop, Bernardo Álvarez, will bless, at ten in the morning, the palms and olive trees in the Monastery of Santa Catalina de Siena, after which the procession of branches will take place, from that point to the Cathedral . After the mass, the procession of the Entry of Jesus will take place accompanied by the Brotherhood of the Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and Christ the Preacher.
Tomorrow, Holy Monday, the image of the Lord of the Orchard both in La Laguna and in Santa Cruz, the latter city where the Lord of Humility and Patience will also go in procession, which this year is the image chosen for the cover of the program Easter in the capital.
