[Gocamino] Jaca and Saros

[blaroli@aol.com]

Hello again,
I forgot to mention that the Santiago Church on the main street in Jaca is now open and they have Pilgrims´benedictions (in five languages) and Mass every evening at eight.
After the large and busy (albeit very, very clean) Valencia and Zaragoza it was sheer joy to reach Jaca, in the pre-Pyrenees mountains, with its narrow, cobbled, up and down streets, its fog, its rain and its cool climate. The Cathedral is as mysterious and puzzling as always, and the hollows on the outside left column framing the door keep getting deeper and shinier, a la Puerta de Gloria, from the placing of hands of all those who visit.
Alas, the Cathedral´s museum has been closed for reparations for some months, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
The economic boom in Spain has not squirted Jaca;there is construction everywhere, including a large arena-type structure, for a skating rink, at the rise towards the city of the valley that separates it from the Oroel . But Jaca is Jaca: beautiful in its cozy way and a blessed relief from the hustle and bustle of the cities.
Now..... many of you remember the Santa Cruz Seros church at the bottom of the mountain wherefrom one ascends to San Juan de la Peña. That perfect Romanic church was the first female monastery in the region.
It turns out that the upper hall, reached by a cork-screw stairway that could be removed, and that extends s into various smaller chambers and even into the tower, was a sort-of secret place where the nuns labored as copyists of the Gospel as far back as the tenth century  (long, long before Martin Luther). Nuns did the copying in secret (they were not supposed to) and removed the stairs and disguised the copying room when they felt it expedient to do so.
You may also remember a statue of the Virgin Mary with Baby Jesus sitting on her lap. She is holding a round object on one hand which, the young woman attending visitors to the church said, represents an apple meant to signify Mary as vindication of Eve!
We were also told that the ancient inscription says that Mary´s lap is  her infant´s son throne.  (That,s over my head.... but I like the apple story.....Eve was framed, for sure)
It appears that more and more pilgrims are being encouraged to go up to San Juan de la Peñá and that bona fide pilgrims may be accommodated in the facilities to be. That, I think, is wonderful.
Big hug!
Rosina
 
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