The medieval streets smelled of incense, softly sweet, and the crowds whispered among themselves as the first robed men walked by carrying crosses. I was entranced watching the most beautiful parade I had ever seen. It wasn’t really a parade but a procession, one of many public Catholic ceremonies that take place all over Spain during “Semana Santa,” or Holy Week.

Over the course of six hours, hundreds of people marched to the tone of somber drums and melancholy horns, some dressed in full-length robes carrying ceremonial candles, the only light on the dark streets. The main focus were the “pasos,” enormous floats with statues of the Virgin or stations of the cross weighing thousands of pounds and carried on the shoulders of a hundred men each. Every couple of minutes they would stop and let the floats down to rest while the crowd stared in awe at the statues glittering in the candle light. 

The Semana Santa processions were unlike any kind of worship I have seen in the United States. It was so public, so extravagant. The processions serve as a form of penance for the people marching. The hours-long trek over uneven cobblestone streets takes a toll on the body – whether struggling under a float or masking your identity with a pointed hood and full robes. 

It had nothing to do with the Baptist traditions I grew up with. Nothing about growing in your faith by reading the Bible, or singing songs that express perfect theology or even sharpening your values from a four-point sermon. The whole purpose was to feel small compared to the procession of thousands of penitent worshipers. 

I ended up at Semana Santa because I was studying abroad in Spain last spring, living in a little town called Segovia in the neighborhood of Santo Tómas, named after the parish church built in the 13th century, where my host mom still goes to Mass. While most Spaniards still see themselves as Catholic, few actively practice the religion today, making the towering cathedrals and the beautiful processions feel like relics of a former Spain. But centuries of Christian traditions still exist there. So, with a “when in Rome” attitude, I gave up Bible studies for liturgy to join believers in a foreign country worshiping in a foreign way.

There’s little telling in Catholic worship. Everything is showing. Mass is not personal, but the call and response makes each worshiper known to every other. I couldn’t take notes during the homily, but I remember the sound of bells and soft chanting as the priests entered with the smell of wafting incense, bringing me into God’s presence in a full-body experience. The spectacle of Semana Santa was set up the same way, processions on a larger scale than major movies to show the tragedy and hope of Easter.

Completely different from my Minnesota Baptist church.

What struck me most about Semana Santa was how human it was. This maybe wasn’t the takeaway that the Catholic Church wanted for me, but I couldn’t help noticing the teenagers adjusting their robes or the people gossiping to each other when the procession stopped. Just as a packed Easter service at my own church would never be complete without babies crying and little kids running up the aisles, it seemed to me that this gorgeous tradition would be incomplete without an obvious humanity. 

Midnight neared on Good Friday after hours of watching the Semana Santa processions. A woman who noticed that we were Americans came up to my group and asked what we thought of the whole thing. We said it was impressive, moving, like nothing in the States, as a couple small boys rushed up to the barrier and held out small balls of wax. One of the hooded figures walked over and lowered their candle so melted wax dripped onto the ball and hardened — a child’s souvenir built over years of attending Semana Santa processions. 

A different form of worship for sure, but maybe any act of faith in God is not so foreign.