The week from Palm Sunday to Easter, Semana Santa — Holy Week — is Catholicism’s most sacred period. In Spain and Mexico, it’s an affair both joyous and sad, colorful and austere
The Heart of Holy Week
Dating back to the 4th century, Semana Santa commemorates events in the days leading up to the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday. Celebrated all over Latin America, the observance has its unofficial home base in Spain where penitents hold hundreds of processions around the clock. During marches — like this one in Mallorca which honors Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem — members of cofradías, or brotherhoods, often wear what is called a nazareno or robe consisting of a tunic and a pointed hood to hide their identities as they repent of their sins. The robes were maliciously co-opted in the U.S. by the Ku Klux Klan, which is virulently anti-Catholic.Dani Cardona / Reuters / Corbis
Men in Black
In Mexico, Catholics also celebrate Holy Week with various pilgrimages. Churches are decorated with flowers and plants and hundreds of candles on Thursday, drawing a flood of patrons. In some parts of the country, people carry images of Jesus around their villages, washing the pictures with after-shave and hanging them on large crosses on Good Friday. Devotees in Mexico City also traditionally burn an effigy of Judas on Holy Saturday. In the weeks leading up to Semana Santa, people rejoice in the streets, some made up with oil and ash as in this photo of men in Puebla.Ulises Ruiz / EPA / Corbis
Repenting
Another tradition in parts of Mexico involves flagellation as a form of voluntary penance using whips or rods. Some members of the Roman Catholic Church have argued against flagellation and self crucifixion as forms of "popular piety" that have no place in modern commemorations of the Passion of Christ.Mario Vasquez / AFP / Getty
The Virgin
If Spain is the epicenter of Semana Santa, then Seville is its ground zero. Here pasos — lifesize, painted wooded images — are taken from their shrines and paraded around the city on large floats. Each brotherhood, including La Esperanza de Triana above, has at least two pasos — one representing a scene from the Passion and the other a Virgin (pictured here). 's mantle is decorated with gold and jewels and takes nearly two years to create.Christina Quicler / AFP / Getty
Our Lady of Sorrows
This close-up of a statue of the Virgin shows the great detail that goes into depictions of the holy. Processions in Valencia, Spain are particularly elaborate; sacred "imagenes" of the Passion of the Christ serve as the centerpieces of several key parades.Orban Thierry / Corbis / Sygma
Dressed for the Beach
As holy as the week is, there are inevitable contrasts between the sacred and the secular, such as in this image of celebrants parading down the beach in Valencia. These gents, members of the Brotherhood of the Holiest Christ the Savior and Protector, are just one of 28 Valencian Brotherhoods. Much like the self-organized "krewes" that celebrate Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Brotherhoods are groups that come together and organize processions dedicated to particular scenes in the Passion play.Diego Tuson / AFP / Getty
Flower Girls
Thousands of elaborately dressed men, women and children — dressed in 18th and 19th century garb — participate in Valencia's tribute to the "Virgen de los Desamparados" (Virgin of the Defenseless). These young ladies are carrying clumps of flowers that they will arrange to form the gigantic robe of city's patron Virgin.Kai Foersterling / EPA / Corbis
Under the hood
Penitents in Algeciras — a town in southern Spain across the bay from Gibraltar — prepare for a Holy Week procession. Easter Sunday marks the end of Semana Santa, when many of the hooded Brotherhoods cast off their hoods to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.Anton Meres / Reuters / Corbis
