I have said in a previous blog that we all have special places, well this one is up there with my most ‘holy and special’, if not the top of the pile and the image of the three crosses used on all my posts on this blog is in fact from this place. It isn’t a place that we have discovered on this trip. We have been a number of times over the years and we take any of our friends that come to stay with us to see and feel the atmosphere it creates. It has yet to fail.
On the outskirts of the town of Rojales south of Alicante on the Costa Blanca, Spain there is a hill on which stands three large iron crosses. They stand at the end of a climb up steps which has the stations of the cross, all in smaller iron crosses. The plinth on which the three stand has the central cross raised on a mound and before them lie steps and a large paved area. The place is serene, tranquil except for the birds, overlooking the landscape inland for miles towards the hills inland from Alicante and behind Crevillente, up the coast to Santa Pola and down towards San Javier. Quite a view. However it isn’t the view that makes this place. It’s the place itself with the stark, bare crosses.
There is one other reason for this place being so special. Every year on Maundy Thursday, late in the evening, after dark, a procession takes place from the church in the centre of Rojales, through the narrow, dark streets up to this place. Hundreds of people take part following three alabaster figures on wooden crosses, carried by men. The crowd follows in carnival atmosphere, laughing and joking, children playing games, a sense of excitement. When I first witnessed this I thought it was wrong, disrespectful. Then I thought of Jerusalem and what the atmosphere there would have been as Christ was taken to the cross. It would not have been quiet, the crowds were baying for blood. Then the mood changes. The crowds file past the three figures, now stood at the bottom of the hill. People become more solemn as they climb the hill, past the stations, to the base of the crosses above.
The people mingle and chat quietly, then the local police force a way through the crowds followed by the three figures. They’re taken up the mound and silence falls. Now around midnight and starting in darkness the three figures are raised up slowly upon the large iron crosses. Music and readings from John’s account of the Passion of Christ are heard. Lights flash, smoke erupts and thunder rumble’s across the landscape. Then silence, quiet, stillness and the people file away.
Moving! Emotional! Spiritual! Holy! Special!
Holy Places - a journey of discovery 