Semana Santa in Mexico City - 1st in a series of three

Since Surf hasn't made his appearance, we decided to spend Easter in Mexico City, exploring the culture. Easter, or "Semana Santa" is quite an event here that actually trumps Christmas. All schools are out for two weeks, and EVERYONE has at least three days vacation. Don't bother looking for jelly beans, chocolate easter eggs or easter bunnies. You won't find them here. (Believe me, I've tried!) What you will find is a plethora of Easter-related events, albeit each quite different from those in the U.S.

The first event we are highlighting is a tour of "las siete casas - arte y simbolismo en Samana Santa". This tour is hosted by the "gobierno federal," or federal government. We immediately noticed a quite obvious lack of "separation of church and state." As we boarded the bus, we were given a small tin enclosed with rosary beads, and a Catholic prayer book.

The two-hour tour of seven magnificent churches in the Centro Historico was guided by a very exhuberant Catholic host.

Our first stop was at San Francisco Grande, a Catholic church built in the 1600's. Note the flat surfaces on the face of the facade, which once displayed saints and apostles, but were stolen or removed by the "gobierno federal."



Next we visited San Felipe de Jesus, another Catholic Church. Interestingly, many of these churches were founded by Jesuits trying to save the "Church" from reform.


Just around the corner was San Felipe de Neri, yet another magnificent Catholic church.
Services were in process when we arrived, but that didn't stop our guide from taking us on a tour explaining all of the interesting architecture while the pastor and congregation were worshiping.


We next visited the Templo de San Bernardo. Note the beautiful engravings, all in pure gold. This one represents the "sacred heart."


Next, the tour took us to a beautiful church, the inside adorned with mural mosaics. We found this one the most interesting. It reads: "Maria Salvadora del Genero Humano" (Mary, Savior of the human race)


Another church - Nuestra Senora De Valvanera - boasted similar sentiments. There they displayed this image, which they call the Sacred Heart. Our guide was quite distraught about this, because he said it was incorrect. The heart displayed actually is of the "Siete Dolores de Maria" (seven pains of Mary.) He didn't seem to be bothered about the description of Mary being the "Savior of the human race," however.
Our final stop - at Concepcion Convenio - one of the city's first churches - actually a convent. At that time there were 40 others, all but this one were destroyed. It also contained the first hospital in Mexico. Cortez had the church built, and was buried here. Ironically, we couldn't go in because they were cleaning. (Apparently it 's OK to interrupt a mass, but interrupting cleaning is a no go.)

Very interesting tour - we visited seven churches - all within a few blocks of the Zocolo. I almost felt like I was in Utah, except with a Catholic flare.