Divine Presence in Spain and Western Europe 1500–1960: Visions, Religious Images and Photographs

Chapter 2. Images as Beings: Blood, Sweat, and Tears1

45 Chapter 2 Images as Beings: Blood, Sweat, and Tears1 Toribia del Val introduced one of the ways of connecting with the divine: the visit of a supernatural with counsel and instructions for a specific purpose, in her case to end a drought in 1931. Because Toribia saw the visitor and no one else did, we call this a vision, or, from the point of view of a believer, an apparition. Her vision introduced new information into the constellation of grace in the zone around Casas de Benítez. If all had gone well and rain had fallen as predicted, it would have enhanced local devotion to San Isidro and the Virgen de la Cabeza. For the district it would have added these sources of help, at least for rain, to those in already existing shrines like the Christ of Sisante, Our Lady of the Holy Spring in La Roda, and Our Lady of Riánsares in Tarancón. In an earlier time there might even have been a shrine built to the holy visitor in Toribia’s garden, as there was to the Angel of Ayora. 46 One can imagine this constellation of grace, slowly changing from late antiquity on, as a bird’s eye view of a nocturnal scene. Laid out on the landscape are lights, some brighter, some blinking, some dying out. Some are new, intense and brightly colored, others steady and constant for centuries. Some are isolated in the mountains like a beacon, other in bright clusters in cities with Rome and Jerusalem shining in the distance. The lights are sources of supernatural help; their intensity varies according to their power to resolve human needs and provide salvation. This constellation is in constant renewal, as old grace is exhausted or routinized, and new material replaces it in a system that, whatever the mix of lights, provides consolation, divine company, and practical help. The sources of this help have slowly shifted over time, from a predominance of the bodies and relics of saints and the magnetic attraction of living saints, to representations of divine beings, icons, paintings, statues, or prints. These power sources had their tenders . Some were towns, cities, kingdoms for which the images were cherished protectors. Others were religious orders, brotherhoods, or secular shrine keepers for whom this power was the origin of income and prestige and a field for competition. In this constellation there is much dark matter that is not, or not yet, powerful: bones unrecognized as relics, relics that 47 do not heal anybody, strangers unrecognized as angels , children who may be saints, images no one cares about. As time went on more and more Spaniards ceased to believe in this meta-physics and indeed considered it an obstacle to social and economic justice. The Spanish Civil War unleashed the wholesale destruction of the sources of divine power with a violence unique in European history: the killing of the clergy that maintained them, the systematic burning of images, and the desecration of holy places. But under Franco the lights came on again, and for believers they are still on now. What does this dynamic system, constantly refreshed , look like on the ground? The expectation of new grace, the very latest in divine presence and help, translates into a general alertness among many believers to people and things that are more than they seem to be: the stranger or pilgrim who may be something else, the priest, nun, monk, or lay volunteer who may have a charisma for healing or prophecy, the image whose potential as a portal to heaven lies unrecognized . The recognition and propagation of new grace gives agency and provides excitement to active believers in Catholicism. Here we will consider images, meaning any likeness of a divine figure—statue, painting, or engrav- 48 ing. Particular ones, not countless others, became special2 in many of the same ways that particular relics became special, not others. They could come to stand out by the miracles they performed; by the way they were discovered; by their ritual shifting; by their promotion by saints, preachers, hermits, shrine keepers or lay enthusiasts; and by visions that identified them.3 In some images—as in Spain Our Lady of Guadalupe , Our Lady of Montserrat or the Christ of Burgos —this power was generally acknowledged, retroactively endowed with a legendary origin, and carefully managed by guardians, curtains and protocol. But in fact any...