Of Saints and Roses
The evening sky glows peach and lavender above the Rio Mondego. The bridge is lined with people holding candles, as are all the streets leading from Convento de Santa Clara to the Mosteiro de Santa Cruz. Tonight, Saint Isabel will make the journey across the river, watched over by her devoted disciples as they believe she watches over Portugal’s ancient capital. I am wary of crowds, so I take up a perch on what must be a utility box in Parque Verde do Rio Mondego. I sit with my notebook and watch the pilgrims move through the dusk towards the procession. Families, lovers, friends—the majority dressed in white —all excitedly talking and taking photographs as the brilliant peach evening gives way to the expanding lavender and smoky blue.
Everywhere I have gone this week I have seen Saint Isabel. Shrines have been set up in every shop window, every restaurant, real estate agency and hotel. Beds of roses surrounding statues of a woman in medieval robes holding a spray of roses in her apron. Rainha Santa Isabel—Queen Saint Elizabeth—she who, despite her privilege, worked always in service to the poor and as a diplomat between the eternally warring kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula. It is a role played by other female saints of the middle-ages, such as Saint Geneviève—devotees of the church, benefactors of the poor and hungry—intermediaries between armed factions of men vying for more power, territory and renown. This is the first summer in two years that the beloved Saints’ Festivals are allowed to take place all across the country—every major town and city celebrating their patron with masses, dances, music and processions. I have long been fascinated by this instinct towards pilgrimage—even these small ones, from one side of a river to the other—and as I watch the faithful gather I wonder at their inner lives—what is it they are holding within as they gather, holding their candles to light the path of the holy relics? Does this elderly lady leaning on two canes come with prayers for her untrustworthy legs? Are these three teenage girls coming for intercessions as they approach entrance exams for university? Is this young man on his own asking for St. Isabel to pray for him to find a wife as devout and kind as she?
The world over we engage in such public rituals. When I lived in New Mexico there was much anticipation every year for the Easter pilgrimage to Chimayo, and the guarded feast days and the Kachina dances on the Reservations. There is Croagh Patrick in Ireland, the ghats along the Ganges, the sacred caves of Lapchi. There are also the secular pilgrimages—Life Cycle, the Pacific Crest Trail and the Appalachian, Coachella and Burning Man. What is it in us as humans that needs these journeys? What is it within us that is seeking its reflection without? What is it these acolytes gathering in the gradual night tonight in Coimbra seek to take home with them?
My return to Coimbra for a week was unexpected, and other than tending to tedious official tasks, I had no idea what I would do with my time. I had no notion that not only was this the week of Saint Isabel’s festivities, it is also the Festival of the Book. I have spent several hours every evening sitting on the steps of a medieval church, listening to Portuguese authors and musicians, watching the crowds and the swallows wheeling overhead, their sharp calls echoing throughout the narrow plaza. After two years of isolation, I find myself thrown among all manner of pilgrims—travelers visiting a famed city, lovers of literature looking to meet a beloved author, and the river of candle light created by the adoring throngs waiting to catch a glimpse of a long-ago queen.
As the sun goes down—as lavender and smoky blue give way to indigo and the stars take possession of the heavens, the litter carrying Santa Isabel appears on the western side of the bridge. The crowd goes silent. From a loudspeaker a voice rises in the dark, singing the praises of St. Isabel before a priest takes over and leads the people in a prayer for their patron’s intercession—a prayer they all know by heart—all their lips moving together—all their purposes joined, for these few minutes in July night—united.
The day after the procession, as I was strolling past Mosteiro de Santa Cruz, I was captured by the sound of choral chanting and the sight of a woman dressed as St. Isabel, standing below the portico of the monastery. I dropped some coins into the hat of a man begging for change before entering the church. I have been here a few times to visit the tomb of my ancestors, but on those occasions the church was nearly empty—a few people saying the rosary, and perhaps some members of the congregation sweeping or dusting. On those visits I sat quietly, telling the ancestors I had made it—that my feet now walked the streets once tread by their own. That my eyes looked out over the river they had once gazed upon. The day after the procession the church is full, and St. Isabel stands before the main altar on a litter piled high with pink and white roses. More roses are brought by parishioners and left at the foot of her shrine. The faithful cross themselves and look at her—some mouthing prayers, others with their hands on their hearts. The main altar is open today, and tourists with guide books and cameras wander back and forth between the tombs. Armed soldiers stand before the elaborately carved mausoleums—impassive—commanding. I wait for an elderly gentleman to take his pictures and move on to another curiosity before I approach the ancestral tomb I have never been able to get close to before. Below the carved image of D. Afonso Henriques lie his wife Mafalda's remains. I think of mortality. I think about how many ancestors each of us has and how without whom we ourselves would not be here; would not be wandering narrow allies and contemplating human nature; would not spend an evening in a park by the river watching a candlelit procession. I take a seat near the statue of Isabel. I think of her tending to the poor and the sick. I think of her intervening to prevent war, or to bring a war to an end. I think of this age of war and hunger; this age of drought, famine and conflict. I think of all those disappearing into the deep waters of the Mediterranean, or languishing in concentration camps because the world cares not for refugees. I think about how I have come to be here, in this city, in this church, unexpectedly—and offer a simple appeal for peace—which is the only prayer I know.