[Gocamino] San Juan de la Penha

[blaroli@aol.com]

Hello you all,
Beethoven once complained that the piano is a very imperfect instrument because he couldn't make it express what he felt. Visiting San Juan de la Penha one becomes aware of how very limited human speech is: there are simply no words to convey the wonders of the place.... nor can they be photographed or otherwise recorded.  (Would that Richard Wagner, that larger-than-humanity human  had visited the place; he might have left us some musical expression worthy of the monastery's grandeur). There is another place that, I think, renders useless all efforts to express its marvels: the Falls of Iguazu in South America; but whereas the Falls were built by God, th Monastery of San Juan de la Penha was built by medieval humans on the side of a steep cliff, and that is what makes it awe-striking and what enabled it to safeguard the Holy Grail, now in Valencia, for three hundred years. The first time I went to the monastery I was standing around absolutely dumbfounded next to an English!
 man who was a major in the British Army. He was as speechless as I, and after a rather long time he said, to no one in particular, that humans may be able to travel all around the universe some time in the future but they will never be able to build another wonder such as San Juan de la Penha..... I couldn't agree more.
Recently, a fellow GoCamino member lent me a striking book about the Holy Grail, "St Laurence. The Holy Grail. The story of the Holy Chalice in Valencia", by Janice Bennett.  The author writes this about the Monastery:
 
"San Juan de la Penha is the jewel of all the monasteries of the Pyrenees, unique because of its placement on a large cave in a site that offers itself as a worthy ambient for the exultation of the spirit towards the ideal of freedom, raised high in the mountains as a symbol of strength against the Moorish invaders.......
The site is astonishing, with a winding road surrounded by thick vegetation and the sounds of singing birds and gurgling streams. As the visitor descends toward the monastery, the rose-colored boulder or penha, appears quite suddenly, with the massive rocky overhang that encloses the cave. It would be impossible for the visitor not to recognize that this natural phenomenon in which the monastery is sheltered from view is a totally unique, grandiose and  awesome marvel of the landscape that seems to have been conceived by providence eons ago with a special purpose in mind. Before it humanity seems small and insignificant, unable to find an adequate explanation for the mystery that permeates the enclosure, transporting the spectator into a world populated by knights, where the quest for the eternal is what causes the mere mortal to rise above the purely mundane.
The rocky cupola served as more than a camouflage for the Holy Grail.......its massive cupola was a mysterious guardian ordained by nature for the extraordinary and momentous occasion when mortal beings sought protection for the relic of relics, th Holy Grail, an event that inspired the wondrous and enduring legends and poems that arose in the Middle Ages, composed by a humanity that wished to sing the eternal praises of the holy relic whose fame emanated from the mysterious rocky cave, in spite of all attempts to stop it."
 
The attached engraving is one of my favorites. Enjoy.
Big hug!
Rosina   
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