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A Sight To Behold One of the joys I had of travelling - at least in the days when the actual process of getting from here to there was more pleasurable and relaxed - was visiting some of the great cathedrals of the world. The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain was one such, and on 6 November the Pope celebrated Mass outside it. The faithful believe that the cathedral holds the relics of the martyred St. James the Great. According to tradition, the tomb of St. James was discovered in 814 by a Galician bishop who was said to have been guided to the spot by a star and who brought the relics back to Compostela. They eventually became the major focus of pilgrimage, the Way of St. James, and pilgrims wore a scallop shell to identify themselves. Even today, in excess of 100,000 pilgrims are drawn from around the world to the saint’s shrine in the cathedral’s crypt. Construction of the cathedral, which replaced a chapel and two churches, was commenced in 1075 when it became an episcopal see, being raised to the status of an archiepiscopal see in 1100. Between the 16th and 18th centuries the cathedral was much embellished and expanded. The cathedral is, as one might expect of a place of pilgrimage, splendid in its ornamentation, and one of the greatest joys of visiting it is to witness the swinging of the ‘Botafumeiro’, a giant thurible, being swung from one end of the nave to the other. Constructed in 1851 and weighing 80 kg and measuring 1.6 metres in height, this is the largest censer in the world. On important religious holidays - and sometimes when commissioned by tourists and others - the botafumeiro is filled with 40 kilos of charcoal and incense and swung backwards and forwards by eight red-robed ‘tiraboleiros’ dispensing clouds of incense around the church. Higher and higher the thurible is swung, occasionally bursting into flames because of its downward speed. The tiraboleiros are extremely adept in handling the heavy thurible and will sometimes terrify the onlookers below by swinging it just above their heads. As with the cathedral itself, the swinging of the botafumeiro is certainly a sight to behold, though I don’t know if His Holiness was given the opportunity to see the latter.
Related Articles -
botafumeiro, thurible, tiraboleiros, Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, St. James the Great, the Way of St. James, Compostel,
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