CHIMAYÓ — Alfred Garcia, now buried in Peña Blanca, carried a cross with the names of people for whom he prayed scrawled in various types of ink — a tradition he maintained for years, a many-mile sacrifice he felt he needed to endure.
Although Garcia died a couple of years ago, his granddaughter and two great-great-granddaughters on Thursday found themselves a few miles from El Santuario de Chimayó, where they would have the wooden cross blessed before returning it to Peña Blanca, fulfilling a final wish of a man they loved.
A ceaseless gale blew up from the canyons, and Mary Trujillo — Garcia’s granddaughter — kept on despite two knee replacements and the apparent endlessness of the road.
“The names of all of the people he prayed for over the years are on the front. Some have faded. Some haven’t,” Trujillo said. “He did this faithfully.”
“All the heartache we’ve been through,” she added. “I’m just hoping God will show us the way.”
What is widely perceived as the foremost Catholic pilgrimage in North America was well underway Thursday — ahead of its peak on Good Friday, when tens of thousands of wayfarers will line the shoulders of the two-lane roads snaking through the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains en route to the shrine.
As they walked early, dozens of pilgrims carried rosaries, as well as their memories and hopes for the future, as they prayed and belted out songs of penitence, pain and resurrection. An estimated 30,000 people make the journey to the revered adobe shrine during Holy Week, attracted by the purported healing properties of the holy dirt within the chapel located about 30 miles north of Santa Fe.
But for many, great importance is attached to the notion of devotion, the willingness to undertake journeys of pain and longing in the name of a higher power.
Gloria Lujan late Wednesday afternoon was among the few walkers out, a lone silhouette on the horizon propelled by a walking stick as the foothills stretched before her on Juan Medina Road, the badlands rising up in the distance, a wide-open scene that dwarfs the pilgrim.
“Christ, being that he died on the cross for us, we can at least give him one day of showing him what we can do for him when he does everything for us every day of the year,” said Lujan, of Albuquerque, still about five miles from El Santuario de Chimayó.
The secretive penitente groups of Northern New Mexico, who practice a brand of Catholicism unique to the region, held forth this week within the adobe chapel — saying rosaries and performing the stations of the cross while singing laments, their voices echoing in the chambers of the santuario. When these lands became a Mexican territory after Mexico gained independence from Spain, it is said, the priests left, the hermanos stepped in, and traditions formed that are still being practiced today.
The shrine is still adorned with 19th century Hispanic religious folk art — santos and religious frescoes that reflect the state’s cultural and religious history. A long line was forming outside around noon Thursday.
‘Life as a pilgrim’
The Rev. Sebastian Lee, a priest at the shrine, says he’s humbled by the enduring faith of the people of Northern New Mexico. Business cards in an office he uses in the chapel bears an aphorism: “Live your life as a pilgrim not as a tourist.”
Discussing the mesmerizing phenomenon of tens of thousands arriving to the santuario’s door, Lee told a story about how he was once a priest in Barcelona, Spain — a city he enjoyed, but where he said people tend to be more secular. His station in Chimayó, he said, is one he appreciates more because of the belief of the people here.
“I see this more as an active life,” Lee said. “In terms of a faith perspective, it’s very valuable that they kept the tradition of faith, handed down from generations. Still, they maintain. It’s fierce practice, actually. What I love about them is they are serious about this.”
Asked whether he believes in the healing properties of the holy dirt at the santuario, Lee told the stories about physical healing relayed to him by those who have journeyed to the shrine suffering from some ailment or pain.
“These healing stories that I’m hearing … of course, I don’t see it, but they come and tell you that it healed them,” Lee said.
“I’m believing it more and more. I’m believing it more and more,” Lee added, noting he feels spirituality itself can mend in certain ways.
“Healing happens every day. Faith moves. People come to have that peace.”
The walkers
Parking at the Cities of Gold casino parking lot in Pojoaque Pueblo, Lujan on Wednesday was about halfway through a 10-mile walk to the santuario, where she would eventually pray for health and financial reasons. Around 3:30 p.m., with the sun still high in the sky, she moved along the roadway as cars barreled past. Giving her strength, a wooden rosary was wrapped around her walking stick.
“I have roots from way back when,” Lujan said. Her great-great-grandfather built the Santo Niño Chapel, she said, positioned near the santuario and a private chapel until 1992, when it was sold it to the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.
Lujan said she stopped using drugs about a decade ago, when she found Christ.
“I give my day to him and my life to him. If it weren’t for him, I would still be on drugs,” she said. “I found him. Or I should say he found me.”
When Abel Hernandez makes the trek to the santuario, he feels closer to God — that a clarity has washed over him, that distractions have fallen away. He walked about 15 miles beside his father Thursday.
“All the distractions, whether that be lust, drugs, anything that goes against Christ,” Hernandez said. “Every time I go on these walks, I feel more connected to Christ.”