On Pilgrimage: "The Holy Family Says, 'Thank You!'" - 3nd in a Series

The trip to Auschwitz that I went over previously was a major event of our pilgrimage, but I'm happy to turn, at this point, to more joyous, but no less important stops on our journey.

I go back now to the beginning of the pilgrimage, to our stop in Barcelona, Spain. I specify Spain, because there is a city of the same name in Venezuela. There is a legend in our Salesian province of a confrere who was invited to visit that fair Mediterranean metropolis, bought a ticket and left without his director's permission. God had a way of correcting his disobedience, because when he got off the plane he found himself in South America instead of Europe. How he worked things out with immigration and the airline, I can't say, but he got the next available flight back to the States, slinked back to his community, trying to act as if his extended absence was the result of heavy traffic on the interstate.

But I digress...

There was no mistake on our part: we did land in the correct Barcelona, and as with most of the stops on the pilgrimage we made the most of the brief time we had there.

To reiterate, our World Youth Day pilgrimage had two distinct parts. The first ten days were spent busing around Western Europe, hitting random holy spots between Barcelona and Paris. The first day in Spain we visited the Salesian church, Sagrat Cor (Sacred Heart in Catalan), that sits atop Barcelona's Mount Tibidabo. The mountain looms 1,680 feet up, to the north west of the city, so the minor basilica can be seen from almost anywhere in Barcelona, as well as itself supplying breathtaking views of the city and sea. 

Just a brief note on the use of the name Sagrat Cor as opposed to Sagrada Corazon. The Catalonia region of Spain has a strong separatist movement, much like Quebec has with Canada vis-a-vis it's French population. Like our neighbors to the north, all signs are bilingual. In Barcelona signage is in Catalan and Spanish, with the former taking precedence. In spite of warnings I got to the contrary, everyone I dealt with was able to communicate in Castellano, and while distinct languages, it wasn't so different figuring out what the Catalan signs were saying. 

Again, sorry for the digression. 

As for Sagrat Cor, The story goes that in the 1880's rumors were rampant in Barcelona of a Protestant plot to build a church on the site, along with a hotel - casino -- strange combination considering Protestants usually have a problem with games of chance not necessarily shared by Catholics (I got this from Wikipedia, so it has to be true). A local Catholic organization acquired the land at the summit and handed it over to St. John Bosco when he visited there in 1886. Don Bosco was on a fundraising tour on behalf of Pope Leo XIII, who wanted a basilica built in Rome dedicated to the Sacred Heart. A small hermitage was build immediately, followed by a crypt church, completed in 1902. Between 1915 and 1951 the main church was erected (though dedicated in 1952, further work on the church's towers would continue for another decade). The length of construction is certainly attributable to the Spanish Civil War, that also caused work to stop on the Sagrada Familia. But work did finish, and Sagrat Cor was designated a minor basilica by Pope St. John XXIII in 1961.

Instead of a casino, just below the basilica is an amusement park, that opened in 1905. It's Spain's longest running and Europe's third oldest continuously operating amusement park. It's a private concern, of which the Salesians have no connection. 

In a way I wish this stop had occurred later on our pilgrimage. By the time we got there, which was probably about two in the afternoon, we were already late (a theme that would continue throughout the trip). The Chicago and New York contingents met up that morning in Amsterdam after their respective overnight flights from the States. We then boarded our connection to Barcelona - once there we had to hurry up and wait as we tried to find our tour buses. Keeping the group together proved difficult - some scattered to exchange money, others got lost in the shops (I have no love for the person who decided to turn airport terminals into shopping malls). I hate to say that it was members of my Chicago group who were among the culprits. 

I really don't want to get bogged down in useless details over inconveniences that, though at the time really were important, as time goes on, and the full scope of the pilgrimage is better appreciated, are better left to dissolve into the ether. Lets just say I was too tired, grungy and aggravated to appreciate what was in front of me. 

But it wasn't lost on everyone. That Don Bosco walked these hills, that the Salesians played such a big part in literally shaping the landscape of this beautiful city was commented on by many. 

Where we spent our nights while in Barcelona was also significant. The Residencia Salesiana Marti-Codolar is just down the hill from Sagrat Cor, and was also visited by Don Bosco during his 1886 tour. The property was donated by a local noblewoman, and the original mansion and gardens still stand, along with newer buildings which serve as a hostel, open to the public. There is a famous photo of the saint seated, looking fatigued, surrounded by Saleisans, boys, and other local dignitaries that was taken near the mansion's courtyard. The large tree behind them had to be chopped down, and now there is a plaque commemorating the event.

Fr. Luis Aineto, a Salesian of our province, born and raised in Catalonia, lived there in the early 1960's when he was studying theology. He told me there had been a zoo on the property prior to his time time, and the cages were more like small concrete buildings. By the time he got there the zoo was closed and the cages converted into bedrooms for the students.

Our first day ended with a pleasant evening downtown featuring a paella dinner in a small local place.

Sunday we split up, breaking into ad hoc groups, exploring different parts of the city. Our only mission was to meet up at the Sagrada Familia for Mass at 2pm. The group I was with paid a visit to the city's Cathedral in the morning. 

The city's main cathedral stands in sharp contrast to the Sagrada Familia. The Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia is a medieval structure built between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. The exterior of the original structure was actually quite bare, as was the custom for Catalonian churches, until renovations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries gave it its present gothic façade and central tower. The distinctive feature of the cathedral is the cloister area that houses 13 swans. The cathedral's co-patron, St. Eulalia was an early Church martyr who died at 13 years old - thus the number of swans to coincide with the age at which she died. 

The cathedral is clearly beautiful, but also unremarkable. And knowing that most of it's beauty is derived from work done in the last century and a half only diminishes it's significance. This isn't the echo of a past age sharing its spiritual vision with posterity, but a later generation, with no firm spiritual identity, guessing what a medieval cathedral should look like. 

Barcelona Cathedral tower from courtyard 

The Sagrada Familia, on the other hand, is a new structure - still unfinished after more than a century and a quarter of work - but doesn't look back in nostalgia to a lost age. Rather it offers a new, bold and distinctive vision that isn't easily categorize.

Antonio Gaudí, aka "God's Architect," dedicated the last decades of his life to this project, and it is infused with his eclectic vision. As a student he studied varied architectural styles, eventually incorporating Gothic with Eastern and Asian concepts. His statues are traditional, but seem to echo an almost surreal sensibility. He saw God in nature, incorporating columns echoing tree trunks in the building's interior, ornamenting the roof with figures of grape clusters and other vegetation. What I saw there was similar to the art work I saw in Lourdes and later at John Paul II's church in Poland - artistic expressions that are clearly different, contemporary, but also rooted in reality. Some contemporary art is abstract to the point of being unintelligible. It's as if the artist is involved with communicating an inside joke that he might be the only one who really gets. In Gaudí we have someone with a unique vision, but because the vision is rooted in faith and not purely the individual ego, it can't help, almost, but to be communicated. 


After we celebrated Mass in the crypt church, we were supposed to have a tour of the main basilica. The arraignments were set up with a priest there, who naturally was away for the day. An older priest who was there was more than happy to set things up for the Mass, but was clearly not interested in spending his Sunday afternoon showing us around. Sagrada Familia is a big tourist spot in Barcelona, and the lines to get in are long. The chance to get what was essentially a private tour was a coup, but one we were seeing quickly slip though our fingers. 

Since I speak Spanish, and Fr. Abe (who speaks the language better than I do) was with another part of our group, I was sent to ring the door bell of the office, prearranged donation in hand, and basically beg the priest for a tour. After a few moments, that seemed like much longer, the door flew open, the priest took a brief glance at me, then looking past at the pilgrims sitting about the small courtyard proclaimed in a joyously ironic tone, "God bless you! Go in Peace!" 

I tried my best to explain the situation, that we were promised a tour, we have the donation, I know that this is an inconvenience, and so on. I wasn't sure he was really listening as he hustled me into the modest reception area and office. Grumbling a bit, he began giving me photo copied sheets in English meant for self guided tours, and like the loaves and fishes I, along with a couple of the pilgrims began distributing them to the group. The priest went and spoke to the security guards, and they began breaking us into groups of thirty. We were hurled past people who had been waiting on line in the hot sun, who made their displeasure at being passed over well known as we skipped by them, heads hung in embarrassment. 

We reached the famous Nativity Façade, on the north east side, the first part of the Sagrada Familia to be completed. The priest began to explain it in the best English he could muster (I have to admit to being slightly out of earshot) As he spoke I saw in the old priest's eyes something that would become familiar over the course of the following two plus weeks: a look of aggravation or indifference that instantaneously transformed into one of delighted joy. He was clearly reveling in the opportunity to show off this beautiful monument to the love of God. At one point he asked us if we knew any Christmas hymns. We had more than a couple of fine voices in the group, including one young woman who is a trained singer. We broke into "O, Holy Night," and suddenly the blazing Spanish afternoon was transformed into Christmas Eve. Another thing happened that would become a common sight: startled bystanders puled out their smartphones and began videoing us. When the singing ended, he proclaimed, with all the joyousness of his first proclamation at the office, but with none of the irony, "The Holy Family says, 'Thank you!'"

He began the tour wanting us to just leave already. He ended it, while I'm sure still glad he could get back to the quiet Sunday afternoon he had planned, nonetheless glad for the disturbance. And for our part, glad he took the time.