The Cathedral and the Church



Santa,del Mar,  photo from Wikipedia



Santa del Mar

Last night Joaquim asked me which of the two buildings I liked better in the Gothic section of the city: the church or the cathedral. I was stumped. I thought I could compare them on the basis of their nativity scenes which were as charming as a person could want to see. Santa del Mar´s Pessedre was in the basement and even then in a sunken area about four times as big as a Mormon baptismal font. What caught my eye is that the creche was at the edge of the seat and there was a large fishing vessel in the water, a fisherman standing beside the boat, nets over his neck and around his arms. He was in the foreground and the viewer had to look past him, up the beach to see the Holy Family there in the stable.

The man holding the nets was a nice reference to Jesus as the fisher of men, foregrounded and took about one quarter of the space. Of course that was charming. , looking down from above on that scene.

Barcekiba Cathedral, photo from Wikipedia

A short walk away is the Cathedral which we were trying to get to but were always in a hurry, walking past. Then we walked by and it was closed. But now it was evening, the open hours and here was a chance to see the live nativity in the cloister.

It was the animals that were live: snow white ducks lifting their wings and ruffling their feathers, orange and red feathered hens clucking from their wire cages, rows of ornamental cabbages, lines of carrots in the ground and a beautiful nativity. There were two line ups for this nativity. One to get in the entrance and one to get out, since they used the same door, so there was a security guard letting us both in ... and out.

The Cathedral proper is an amazing structure with gold leafed chapels, and a crypt like the one at St. Peter´s in Rome where you enter it from stairs that lead downward, but are just below the altar.

I can see why I was stumped when Joaquim asked me for a comparison because I knew he could not be asking me about size, nor embellishment.  Bonnie says that if she were to choose which one to attend each Sunday, she would choose Santa del Mar, ... ¨more intimate, if you can say that about a Gothic stucture,¨ she said.

There have been three churches this week and maybe I could say altogether 10 hours in church, if I can count waiting in the lines outside to get in.  Sagrada Familia turned my mind to the old stories with it´s impressive Nativity and Passion facades.  Santa del Mar has been refurbished and the decorating (all of the candles flickering in a red containers) had a gentle calm atmosphere.  The Gothic Cathedral in the centre of Barcelona --the ornate gold work brought back iterations of other such buildings in France and England.  As well, we could hear ¨Oh come, all ye faithful,¨ but I was surprised not to hear it sung by a choir of monks.  It wasn´t until we were leaving that I could see a congregation at worship in one of the side chapels and that must have been where the music was coming from.

Good-bye from here in Calella were the celebrations are still going strong as we await the arrival of the three wise men.

Arta