Immaculate Conception, which is the excuse for the second public holiday in three days (tomorrow), partly owes its existence (if one can describe it as that) to Ramon Llull. The mediaeval Franciscan came up with what he and other Franciscans believed was a pretty solid argument for the Immaculate Conception. This relied on the notion that Jesus's grandparents had a desire so pure that God graced them with the ability to conceive the Mother of the Son of God. Mary was thus conceived without sin. Given that, in the Llullian version of events, Mary was destined to the Mother of the Son of God, she had to be without sin - actual or original. It was impossible for God and sin to exist within the same person, i.e. Jesus. Ergo, Mary had to be without sin.
While religious philosophers continued their debates as to the Immaculate Conception, it was to become a political tool. Some time in the late fifteenth century, the Franciscans were to convince Isabel and Ferdinand that Spain was without sin and thus free of stain. Spain was therefore pure.
Given all this, you can begin to appreciate how and why the Immaculate Conception is such a big deal in the religious calendar. Or at least why it should have been deemed of major importance several centuries ago. Llull's logic would have been perfect for the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The super-race notion would have chimed well with an expansionist Spain littered with Inquisitional head cases at the end of the fifteenth century. But nowadays?
I recently asked a thirteen-year-old why there is a holiday for Immaculate Conception. It had all been explained at school, she said. But she hadn't really been listening. It was, after all, rather boring. Quite probably. And rather implausible as well. There again, this is how it is with religion. Concepts such as the Immaculate Conception are predicated on beliefs from pre-scientific times. The philosophy that went into them was within the grasp of a select few scholars who grappled with explaining the inexplicable. For a rational and questioning society, and one that is older than a generation hooked up permanently to the ramblings of a Youtuber, arcane theology is indeed boring. It also defies belief. Except to the believers. And also, from a different credo, to contemporary fanatics who mangle ancient and mediaevalist mumbo-jumbo into a form of collective psychopathy.
Although the philosophy is obscure, the history isn't, especially the physical manifestations of it. We have now come to the end of the year of Ramon Llull, who is bound so closely to Mallorca's history. Miramar, the Monestir de la Real, the Puig de Randa in Algaida: here are places which ooze with a Llullian past. But what impact has this year had?
Religious tourism, according to the World Tourism Organisation, moves some 300 million people across the globe per annum. A report for 2014 found that this tourism generated 32,520 million euros. In 2017, there are jubilee years for Caravaca de la Cruz in Murcia and the monastery of Santo Toribio de Liébana in Cantabria. Two million visitors are expected in Murcia and one million in Cantabria. These are significant numbers.
The point about the 2014 report can be found in its title: "The Economic Impact of Church Real Estate". This wasn't a report into religion per se. It focused on religious sites. Visitors do not need to be religious to appreciate such sites; they are attractive to and do attract all-comers.
Which brings us back to Llull and his year. In Mallorcan terms, he is the most significant figure in the island's religious past - more so than Juniper Serra, the physical manifestations of whom, save one or two buildings in Petra, are on the Pacific coast of the USA. But what value - in economic terms from religious tourism related to Llull - has been generated? Any?
The Llull year has seemed more a celebration of his obscure side than the commercial side: a celebration of one of the chief scholars who contributed to the Immaculate Conception dogma. Perhaps this is as it should have been, but here was an opportunity to have developed a brand of religious tourism which by and large passes Mallorca by. When one looks at other studies of this tourism in Spain, Mallorca doesn't feature.
Ultimately, it may be because Llull, despite the reverence in which he is held in Mallorca, simply isn't that well known in global terms. But then maybe this is because of a failing to make him better known. Granting him sainthood, and the Pope appears inclined to do so, might help in this regard, but one wouldn't bet on it.
There is a desire to develop religious tourism, there was a conference about it not so long ago in Lluc, but it requires far more than a holiday to honour Catholic dogma.
Showing posts with label Immaculate Conception. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Immaculate Conception. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 07, 2016
Thursday, December 10, 2015
The Immaculate Confusion
On Tuesday they celebrated Immaculate Conception. Bells rang, some went to church. Good Catholics should go. Immaculate Conception is an event in the church calendar which carries a certain obligation.
There is, to put it mildly, some confusion as to what 8 December is all about, especially among those with limited or zero knowledge of Catholic doctrine. The first point to make is that this is not the conception of Jesus (which should in fact be obvious given the proximity of Christmas), it was the conception of his mother. Consequently, there is, as some might be aware, a feast day on 8 September. Simple maths and a simple knowledge of human biology (lacking when it comes to drawing the mistaken Jesus connection) will allow you to figure out what that's all about.
There is, however, far more to this confused story, one that goes back to before mediaeval times but which really sparked into life some 750 or so years ago. The debate as to the Immaculate Conception was, in no small part, a battle of philosophical and theological wills between Dominicans and Franciscans. And as such, into the whole argument stepped our old friend Ramon Llull.
The Mallorcan man of mystery and general know-all was in the Franciscan camp, and it was this Franciscan faction, within the Catalan Catholic tradition, which was to lead to the suggestion that lands which were associated with the Crown of Aragon, as was the case with Mallorca, were ones from which arose a fundamentalism.
The point to make is that mostly all religious debate of the time was of a fundamental nature. Rationality and logic had yet to be subject to the earth-shattering influences of the scientific revolution which were to draw into question whole bodies of religious work. The scholars of that era, therefore, grappled with the issue of Mary's conception purely from the perspective of notions such as original sin and preparation for the arrival of the Son of God. Most didn't veer away too drastically from such fundamental concepts. To do so was rarely a wise move, as being denounced as a heretic and ending up on the wrong end of a burning stake were not uncommon consequences.
Nevertheless, the debate was fierce, Llull and many others setting about trying to explain how Mary was conceived and why. Neither was as simple as it might have seemed. Essentially, what Llull believed was that Mary was destined to be the Mother of the Son of God. Given this, and so given the fact that the Son of God would eventually, as they liked to put it, "take flesh from her", she could not have been corrupted - at time of conception - by actual or original sin. Had she been, then the Son of God would not have ultimately been able to derive flesh from her, for the simple (?) reason that God and sin cannot co-exist in one person.
In other words, Mary was conceived without sin, and to reinforce this, according to Llull, when Anne and Joachim, Jesus's maternal grandparents, set about conceiving, they did so because their desire was so pure that God bestowed upon them the grace to be able to conceive the Mother of the Son of God, thus guaranteeing the purity of Mary.
Which was all pretty mind-blowing stuff back in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but the idea that Mary was conceived without sin was to cause a schism. Enter, therefore, the Dominicans, and in particular Saint Thomas Aquinas. Though his views have been scrutinised, analysed and revised over centuries, Aquinas seemingly denied the immaculate nature of the conception (as other Dominicans were to). For Aquinas, the Blessed Virgin contracted original sin.
While this whole argument was to rage for years, centuries and still does rage, the fundamental fundamentalism of Llull became a given in Aragon and associated lands at the time. Mallorca, therefore, was driven by the philosophy of the "Immaculists". So this philosophy, despite an outbreak of the burning of Llullian texts for a while (Dominicans who considered the doctrine heretical), dominated political as well as religious thinking and was to transfer, through marriage, to Castile. When Ferdinand of Aragon married Isabel of Castile in the fifteenth century and produced the quasi-unification of Spain, Isabel grabbed hold of the Immaculate Conception and La Immaculada big time. And it was here that the story became distinctly odd, as the Franciscan advisors to the Catholic Kings were able to use the without-sin narrative to arrive at an explanation of the purity of Spain. The country itself had been born "free of stain". To say the least, it was a somewhat racist idea.
So there you have it. A brief story of a very long one. The Immaculate Conception probably better known as The Immaculate Confusion.
There is, to put it mildly, some confusion as to what 8 December is all about, especially among those with limited or zero knowledge of Catholic doctrine. The first point to make is that this is not the conception of Jesus (which should in fact be obvious given the proximity of Christmas), it was the conception of his mother. Consequently, there is, as some might be aware, a feast day on 8 September. Simple maths and a simple knowledge of human biology (lacking when it comes to drawing the mistaken Jesus connection) will allow you to figure out what that's all about.
There is, however, far more to this confused story, one that goes back to before mediaeval times but which really sparked into life some 750 or so years ago. The debate as to the Immaculate Conception was, in no small part, a battle of philosophical and theological wills between Dominicans and Franciscans. And as such, into the whole argument stepped our old friend Ramon Llull.
The Mallorcan man of mystery and general know-all was in the Franciscan camp, and it was this Franciscan faction, within the Catalan Catholic tradition, which was to lead to the suggestion that lands which were associated with the Crown of Aragon, as was the case with Mallorca, were ones from which arose a fundamentalism.
The point to make is that mostly all religious debate of the time was of a fundamental nature. Rationality and logic had yet to be subject to the earth-shattering influences of the scientific revolution which were to draw into question whole bodies of religious work. The scholars of that era, therefore, grappled with the issue of Mary's conception purely from the perspective of notions such as original sin and preparation for the arrival of the Son of God. Most didn't veer away too drastically from such fundamental concepts. To do so was rarely a wise move, as being denounced as a heretic and ending up on the wrong end of a burning stake were not uncommon consequences.
Nevertheless, the debate was fierce, Llull and many others setting about trying to explain how Mary was conceived and why. Neither was as simple as it might have seemed. Essentially, what Llull believed was that Mary was destined to be the Mother of the Son of God. Given this, and so given the fact that the Son of God would eventually, as they liked to put it, "take flesh from her", she could not have been corrupted - at time of conception - by actual or original sin. Had she been, then the Son of God would not have ultimately been able to derive flesh from her, for the simple (?) reason that God and sin cannot co-exist in one person.
In other words, Mary was conceived without sin, and to reinforce this, according to Llull, when Anne and Joachim, Jesus's maternal grandparents, set about conceiving, they did so because their desire was so pure that God bestowed upon them the grace to be able to conceive the Mother of the Son of God, thus guaranteeing the purity of Mary.
Which was all pretty mind-blowing stuff back in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but the idea that Mary was conceived without sin was to cause a schism. Enter, therefore, the Dominicans, and in particular Saint Thomas Aquinas. Though his views have been scrutinised, analysed and revised over centuries, Aquinas seemingly denied the immaculate nature of the conception (as other Dominicans were to). For Aquinas, the Blessed Virgin contracted original sin.
While this whole argument was to rage for years, centuries and still does rage, the fundamental fundamentalism of Llull became a given in Aragon and associated lands at the time. Mallorca, therefore, was driven by the philosophy of the "Immaculists". So this philosophy, despite an outbreak of the burning of Llullian texts for a while (Dominicans who considered the doctrine heretical), dominated political as well as religious thinking and was to transfer, through marriage, to Castile. When Ferdinand of Aragon married Isabel of Castile in the fifteenth century and produced the quasi-unification of Spain, Isabel grabbed hold of the Immaculate Conception and La Immaculada big time. And it was here that the story became distinctly odd, as the Franciscan advisors to the Catholic Kings were able to use the without-sin narrative to arrive at an explanation of the purity of Spain. The country itself had been born "free of stain". To say the least, it was a somewhat racist idea.
So there you have it. A brief story of a very long one. The Immaculate Conception probably better known as The Immaculate Confusion.
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Immaculate Misconceptions: Mallorca's holidays
There are misconceptions surrounding public holidays in Mallorca, not least the misconception related to the day off for Immaculate Conception. It is not the day when Mary was mysteriously taken by the Holy Ghost, or whoever it was; that was in fact on 25 March, which isn't a public holiday. What makes 8 December immaculate is that this was when Mary was conceived. Or at least I think that's what it's all about, unless I am labouring under a misconception. Or maybe Mary went into labour having had a misconception. I really don't know. But on 1 May I wouldn't be labouring under a misconception, as this is Labour Day. So, no chance of getting that wrong.
What there is every chance of is forgetting that a public holiday is a public holiday because it does not coincide with one from the land in which one was raised, as is the case with Immaculate Conception. The misconception, however, is that there is a public holiday in Mallorca approximately every fortnight. In England there are eight holiday days, in Mallorca there are thirteen. So, not so many more after all.
However, there is a bit of latitude. Officially, any municipality can have a maximum of fourteen holidays a year, which gives it room for manoeuvre to add the local patron saint's day. I say officially, but there is a bit of craftiness that goes on. In Alcúdia, as an example, there is a saint's day for the town itself (Sant Jaume) and one for the port (Sant Pere). A holiday in the old town is not strictly speaking a holiday in the port or vice versa, but of course this is what happens. Indeed it would be difficult to think how it couldn't happen, given that they are the same municipality. Then there are holidays which are nothing to do with the likes of Alcúdia directly but which have sort of crept in, such as Sants Antoni and Sebastian in January. They aren't holidays, but unofficially have become so.
Where confusion and further misconception as to the number of holidays can arise is with this business of municipalities deciding. I'll give you a case in point. One day I happened to go along to the municipal building in Playa de Muro wherein is the local sub-post office. Tourist information was open as usual, but the post office was shut. "Fiesta," came the word from the helpful Cati at the information reception. "Fiesta? Where? Not here there isn't." "No. In Can Picafort." "But this is Muro." "Yes, but the post office is in Can Picafort." There was something distinctly fishy about this. The post office quite clearly wasn't in Can Picafort. It, or rather its locked door, was staring me in the face. "The main post office is in Can Picafort," added Cati. "But there's a main post office in Muro town." "Yes, but this one doesn't belong to it. It's Can Picafort's."
More fool I, of course, for having forgotten that this was the duck-tossing day off in Can Picafort and for not being intimately associated with the intricacies of postal service organization. Similarly, were one in Can Picafort and wanted, on the same day, to go to the local Eroski, it would be shut. If you were none the wiser, and why would you be, you might assume that all supermarkets would be closed. But they wouldn't be. There would be another Eroski a short drive away in Alcúdia that would be open. Perish the thought though that Eroski, being a Basque company, might decide to apply the Basque Country Day to its Mallorcan shops as from next year when the day is to be introduced.
Despite this confusion, there is, if you are of a mind to think like this, the potential to increase your own personal number of holidays substantially. Bear in mind that on 15 August, you can be on one side of the roundabout entering Can Picafort from Playa de Muro and you will be working. Go to the other side, and you'll be on holiday. How many municipalities are there in Mallorca? 53? Something like that. Each with its own saint's day. Even allowing for the fact that some towns have the same saints, my guess is that you could, by moving around the island, be on holiday for at least 50 days of the year. Now you're talking. And now you're also talking about how those misconceptions aren't so misconceived after all.
But to return to the hard core of nationally or regionally observed holidays, two are relatively recent additions. Balearics Day is one, Constitution Day the other, and it has been a holiday since 1979 and celebrates the referendum on the constitution that was held on 6 December 1978. But why did they choose 6 December? The Constitution had been approved on 31 October of that year. It actually came into effect on 29 December. 31 October might have made sense, as 1 November was already a national holiday. But no, 6 December it was, with 7 December between it and Immaculate Conception. It was all another bit of craftiness, as it means there is a three-day holiday. And 29 December wouldn't have meant much, because from now until 6 January and indeed further on until Antoni and Sebastian, it's all pretty much a holiday anyway.
Misconceptions? Maybe not. Happy holidays.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
What there is every chance of is forgetting that a public holiday is a public holiday because it does not coincide with one from the land in which one was raised, as is the case with Immaculate Conception. The misconception, however, is that there is a public holiday in Mallorca approximately every fortnight. In England there are eight holiday days, in Mallorca there are thirteen. So, not so many more after all.
However, there is a bit of latitude. Officially, any municipality can have a maximum of fourteen holidays a year, which gives it room for manoeuvre to add the local patron saint's day. I say officially, but there is a bit of craftiness that goes on. In Alcúdia, as an example, there is a saint's day for the town itself (Sant Jaume) and one for the port (Sant Pere). A holiday in the old town is not strictly speaking a holiday in the port or vice versa, but of course this is what happens. Indeed it would be difficult to think how it couldn't happen, given that they are the same municipality. Then there are holidays which are nothing to do with the likes of Alcúdia directly but which have sort of crept in, such as Sants Antoni and Sebastian in January. They aren't holidays, but unofficially have become so.
Where confusion and further misconception as to the number of holidays can arise is with this business of municipalities deciding. I'll give you a case in point. One day I happened to go along to the municipal building in Playa de Muro wherein is the local sub-post office. Tourist information was open as usual, but the post office was shut. "Fiesta," came the word from the helpful Cati at the information reception. "Fiesta? Where? Not here there isn't." "No. In Can Picafort." "But this is Muro." "Yes, but the post office is in Can Picafort." There was something distinctly fishy about this. The post office quite clearly wasn't in Can Picafort. It, or rather its locked door, was staring me in the face. "The main post office is in Can Picafort," added Cati. "But there's a main post office in Muro town." "Yes, but this one doesn't belong to it. It's Can Picafort's."
More fool I, of course, for having forgotten that this was the duck-tossing day off in Can Picafort and for not being intimately associated with the intricacies of postal service organization. Similarly, were one in Can Picafort and wanted, on the same day, to go to the local Eroski, it would be shut. If you were none the wiser, and why would you be, you might assume that all supermarkets would be closed. But they wouldn't be. There would be another Eroski a short drive away in Alcúdia that would be open. Perish the thought though that Eroski, being a Basque company, might decide to apply the Basque Country Day to its Mallorcan shops as from next year when the day is to be introduced.
Despite this confusion, there is, if you are of a mind to think like this, the potential to increase your own personal number of holidays substantially. Bear in mind that on 15 August, you can be on one side of the roundabout entering Can Picafort from Playa de Muro and you will be working. Go to the other side, and you'll be on holiday. How many municipalities are there in Mallorca? 53? Something like that. Each with its own saint's day. Even allowing for the fact that some towns have the same saints, my guess is that you could, by moving around the island, be on holiday for at least 50 days of the year. Now you're talking. And now you're also talking about how those misconceptions aren't so misconceived after all.
But to return to the hard core of nationally or regionally observed holidays, two are relatively recent additions. Balearics Day is one, Constitution Day the other, and it has been a holiday since 1979 and celebrates the referendum on the constitution that was held on 6 December 1978. But why did they choose 6 December? The Constitution had been approved on 31 October of that year. It actually came into effect on 29 December. 31 October might have made sense, as 1 November was already a national holiday. But no, 6 December it was, with 7 December between it and Immaculate Conception. It was all another bit of craftiness, as it means there is a three-day holiday. And 29 December wouldn't have meant much, because from now until 6 January and indeed further on until Antoni and Sebastian, it's all pretty much a holiday anyway.
Misconceptions? Maybe not. Happy holidays.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
