After two years of the pandemic, faith returned yesterday, Palm Sunday, to the streets and temples of La Laguna. The city of Aguere recorded a large influx of people who accompanied numerous brothers from the different brotherhoods and fraternities throughout the day.
The good weather accompanied at all times, but in addition, “people behaved, kept the safety and distance health measures agreed at all times and that is to be appreciated”, confirmed the secretary of the Board of Brotherhoods and Brotherhoods, Antonio Regalado.
The 250 brothers who participated yesterday in the different processions and processional marches that took place in Aguere did the same. In this case, only those who did not wear a hood and those responsible for uploading the images used the masks, since this year it was decided that they were not covered underneath but outside and protected.
Holy Week in La Laguna is one of the most important in the Canary Islands due to its devotion, magnitude, beauty, artistic expression and reference to the passion of a people that yesterday, Palm Sunday, commemorated the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.
The celebration began at ten o’clock in the morning outside the chapel of the Servants of Mary. There, the palms and olive trees were blessed and carried by the faithful, in procession, to the Cathedral where the Holy Mass was celebrated, presided over by the Bishop of the Nivariense Diocese, Bernardo Álvarez, who invited those present to “proclaim from the heart our faith: Jesus Christ is Lord”, according to Nivariense Digital, the communication portal of the Bishopric of Tenerife.
Already in the temple, the Passion according to Saint Luke was read. The Nivarian prelate in his homily called to begin Holy Week “with a new ardor.” “Let’s try to stay consistent between faith and life,” he said. “The triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem asks each one of us for consistency and perseverance,” he pointed out, while recalling that “we are on the Lord’s side. We belong to Christ.”
For Álvarez, the Passion of Christ must be seen from four complementary perspectives: a historical event; a scandal (execution of an innocent man), a sign (he responds to violence with love and forgiveness) and a mystery (God seems indifferent, but the truth is that the death of Jesus becomes life and salvation).
At another point in his speech, he highlighted some attitudes to cultivate, such as asking for forgiveness, giving thanks, carrying the cross each day with love, being for others like the Cyrenean and the Virgin, and opening wide the doors of the heart to Jesus. At the end of the Eucharist, the procession took place with the image of the entry of Jesus into the Holy Land accompanied by his brotherhood.
Religious devotion continued in the afternoon with the processions of Padre Jesús de la Sentencia and María Santísima de la Amargura in the Parish of Nuestra Señora de La Concepción and the Santísimo Cristo de las Caídas, in San Juan Bautista.
About 3,000 brotherhoods from the 23 brotherhoods and brotherhoods of the municipality participate in this year’s Holy Week programming. The day in which more people gather in the street together with all the brotherhoods is Good Friday.
In this sense, Antonio Regalado hopes that the weather will be good again and the public will be large, like the years before the pandemic, because “I think many people were waiting for Holy Week in Aguere,” he stressed.
