Help on heights

[Rosina Lila]

Hi Elyn and all,
A booklet that I got at the church in Cebreiro says that the church is
located at 1,293 meters above sea level.
The booklet also relates the origin of the two anthropomorphic sepulchers
there:  in a cold and rainy day, in the middle of a particularly harsh
winter, a pilgrim arrived at the church in time for Mass.  The priest, seeing
the pilgrim soaking wet and trembling with cold, wondered how anyone would
brave the rigors of a forbidding winter storm just for a bit of bread and a
swallow of wine; at that very moment the transubstantiation occurred whereby
the bread became the flesh and the wine became the blood.
The chalice and the patena (host dish) from that Mass are kept in the altar,
watched over by our Lady of the Miracle who leaned over to see the prodigious
event and remains in that position.
Both chalice and patena are maintained in crystal cases reinforced in silver,
a gift from Queen Isabel  as she worshipped in the church in 1486 during her
pilgrimage to Santiago.
Many scholars have sought in this happening the origin of the French version
of the Holy Grail legend.  It is believed that Wolfram von Eschembach, who
wrote the poem later used by Wagner for his opera Parsifal, stayed for some
time in the Cebreiro monastery.
I was told by some Spanish pilgrims who have been there that no other place
can rival Cebreiro in winter for beauty and peace.  I can just imagine.
Warm regards,
Rosina