The Friday before Palm Sunday is "Viernes de Dolores" (Friday of Sorrows). This was marked by a Via Crucis, a candlelit procession with readings, singing and prayers, visiting 15 stations of the cross spread throughout the town. It lasted about two hours, by which time my candle had burnt down to a stub and my hand was covered in wax. The whole thing was very atmospheric and reflective, and I was struck (as I regularly am) by the eloquence and social relevance of the prayers. In a tradition started by the Jesuit Reductions and later renewed by the Ligas Agrarias Cristianas, Christianity in Misiones has always been linked with radical social models.
For Palm Sunday itself ("Domingo de Ramos"), the Jesuit-Guarani wooden statue of Christ on the donkey is brought from the museum into the church. If the weather is good, there is a procession from a little hill near the edge of the town, but it was raining so it was just in church. Everyone brings woven palms to wave, and there was a semi-dramatised Passion reading.
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| Church on Palm Sunday with statue |
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| One of the variety of woven palm branches |
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