Living Holy Week in Mexico

Despite the fact that San Miguel de Allende is a popular tourist city with a substantial population of U. S. retirees and parttime residents, the traditions of Holy Week remain vibrant among the city’s Mexican population and are the civic highlight of the liturgical year. Each parish has its own traditions, with the whole congregation turning out to participate in sacred ceremonies and parades within the church and the streets beyond, both day and night throughout the period. There are many enactments of the events of Holy Week, some involving costumed actors and others statues that normally reside within the churches, or a mix of both. Although the events in San Miguel attract large numbers of tourists and resident American ex pats, those a few miles away at the Santuario de Atotonilco—one of Mexico’s major pilgrimage sites, renowned for the Baroque mural work of its interior—are a more initimate experience, almost entirely local, but intense in its enactment of the events of Holy Week in which the whole community are participants. This portfolio contains images from both the city and the sanctuary.