Placing the Cross in Colonial Mexico

In 1960 the May 3 feast of the Invention of the Holy Cross was removed from the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church in order to reduce the number of major feasts and to focus devotion to the Holy Cross on September 14, the day commemorating its Exaltation. For many Mexicans, this change was more distressing than papal authorities had anticipated. People from various walks of life and places were not inclined to give up this favorite feast day, which they felt was a lifeline to well-being here and now and the promise of salvation hereafter. For them it was an essential practice, not a vestigial one. Workers in the building trades were conspicuous dissenters. Virtually every construction site in Mexico must have its protective cross, to be decorated and honored on May 3. And communities all over Mexico, especially in rural towns and villages, celebrated the day by decorating their special crosses in public and private places, attending mass, praying for rain and an abundant harvest, and celebrating with food, drink, fireworks, music, and dancing. For many, it was the only Day of the Holy Cross they had known. To steer clear of a prolonged dispute over popular traditions of faith, Mexican bishops successfully appealed to Rome for May 3 to remain a major feast there.

What made the May 3 feast day so vital in Mexico? Part of the answer is rooted in the long-standing importance of crosses there as both liturgical symbols and objects of devotion in religious practices going back to the early colonial period. References to outdoor festivities abound in early church chronicles, cathedral chapter minutes, parish archives, and civil and religious regulations and court records. Attempts by bishops and the Inquisition to police and reform May 3 celebrations in the seventeenth century provide a glimpse of how the day was observed in colonial cities. At Valladolid (now Morelia, Michoacán) in 1639, they included a mock battle of Moors and Christians that concluded with the victorious Christians wresting the cross from the infidels. During the festivities that year, a stone cross on the house of one of the cathedral dignitaries was damaged, leading to an inquiry into possible sacrilegious intentions.¹ This mingling of sacred and profane activities evidently was common, and a worry to authorities. Spirited gatherings mixing sorrow and joy in the presence of the cross during Holy Week and the subsequent May festivities were a concern of the Inquisition in March 1691 when it prohibited celebrations in the streets of Mexico City on the grounds that some crosses were placed in "indecent locations, and the celebrations with Mass, sermon, and processions were mixed up with farces, bullfights, and masquerades on the pretext of honoring the cross," which "results in serious scandal in the Christian Republic."²

Colonial era references to how May 3 was observed and how the cross was honored outside the cities are sketchy, but they usually mention fertility rites, a Moors-and-Christians pageant, and Calvary processions.³ Recent ethnographic descriptions elaborate on the association of the cross with nourishment and sacrifice, and suggest some historical patterns of worship that invite further study.⁴ Here I draw from Octavio Hernández Espejo's modern-day description of the feast of the Holy Cross in San Francisco Ozomatlán, Guerrero.⁵ The festivities there from May 1 through 3 center on offerings to crosses located on the hilltop of Tepehuizco. On May 1 household and neighborhood crosses are taken up and planted there, with food offerings and flowers piled high to form an altar. The faithful sing and pray on their knees, and the crosses are decorated with chains of flowers and bread. At about 3:00 a.m. hot chocolate and bread from the comestible altar are shared; shortly before dawn, mole and tamales are served; and at sunrise, the fruit and the first offering of flowers are distributed. Then the people come down from the hill and place their crosses at the town entrance. At noon they reassemble to pray a rosary and join in a procession to the...