Yesterday, we went on an excursion to a bunch of pueblos not too far from Morelia. We saw old churches and convents. There are a lot of old churches and convents in Mexico. Each one has some unique detail or story, but pretty much they’re a bunch of really old churches. Some of them are very beautiful and magnificent, with giant gold-plated alters and murals. Others are not quite so old and have more simple gold-plated alters.
They all have plaster figures of Jesus and the Virgen Mary and often the saint of the church. One church we went to last weekend had the skull of the monk or priest who founded the church. Yeah, the actual skull, held by another figurine way at the top of the alter, looking down at the congregation. Another church had a figure of Jesus lying in a glass “tomb.” This Jesus keeps getting longer, so they have to extend the coffin. The people of the church say he is alive and they’re faith causes him to grow.
While the churches all have their unique details, they’re all fairly similar. Cathedral ceilings, wood floors and pews, figurines, flowers, dim, cold, dank. They’re old. They smell old.
Honestly, most kind of give me heebie-jeebies. One that was really old, like the oldest on the continent, had doors in the floor that led to tombs. If the bloody Jesus doll didn’t creep me out, that sure did. I found myself walking on the planks of floor that were between the doors. That wood was old – I didn’t want to join someone in his resting place!
Overall, though, the churches are interesting. They are a much different place of worship than what I am used to. There is a richness in it, an adoring adornment. At first I thought the baroque beauty was a waste, that the money of the church should be used to feed the poor or something rather than make a spectacle. But, the people the money would have fed are gone now, and perhaps the beauty of the church draws in the people who worship there, so their spirits may be fed.
