It is night in Seville. The city is passionately engaged in the most stirring hours of its world-famous Holy Week: La Madrugá, that is, the period between midnight of Holy Thursday and the dawn of the following day, a vigil in which some of the oldest penitential confraternities, in a strictly followed sequence, file along the picturesque streets towards the altar of repose of the Blessed Sacrament, set up in the cathedral.
In contrast with the commotion typical of other processions, in which the predominance of tourists and curious onlookers over true devotees largely detracts from the due degree of recollection, here a confraternity of Nazarenes – the longest-standing of them all – advances in complete silence, interrupted only sporadically by a simple trio of oboes and bassoons or a heartfelt vocal saeta, since the statues of Our Lord and His Blessed Mother that they lead are not accompanied by an orchestra or a brass band and drums, as in most of the brotherhoods.
With complete composure, they avoid glancing at the people around them through the openings of their capirotes, for their rule is to only look straight ahead. Clad in striking tunics of black ruan fabric, with its unique waxed appearance, and a penitential belt of esparto, the bearing of the confraternity members, graver than that of most of their Sevillian colleagues, has made them known as the Brotherhood of Silence. Its official name is as majestic and replete as a litany: First Brotherhood of the Nazarenes, Pontifical and Royal Archconfraternity of Our Father Jesus the Nazarene, the Holy Cross of Jerusalem and Mary Most Holy of the Conception. Founded in the 14th century, it is affectionately called the “mother and master” of all the penitential brotherhoods of Seville’s Holy Week.
In its long name, we discover the titular image of Our Lady that its costaleros carry in this emotionally charged procession: the Immaculate Conception, albeit in a distinctively sorrowful version. Among other singularities, her splendid silver pallium is adorned with abundant orange blossoms – a symbol of the utmost purity – which spread a very pleasant fragrance when mixed with the aroma of the tapers’ beeswax and the incense particular to the confraternity.
Along Our Lady’s endless entourage, adorned with various flags and emblems, three insignia powerfully attract the attention of the faithful lining the route. A white standard with Marian symbols embroidered in blue is flanked by two Nazarenes, one carrying an ornately painted lit candle on the right and the other a traditional ropera sword made of Toledo steel on the left. What do these symbols represent?
Numbering among the spiritual families such as the Franciscan Order, and the various peoples who fiercely defended the honour of Mary Immaculate in the dispute that, in a sense, split Christendom before the proclamation of this dogma of faith in 1854, is the Spanish nation, where to this day all kinds of buildings bear tiles and plaques at their entrances, engraved with these vivid lines: “By this door, let no one enter in / who does not swear on his life / that Mary was conceived / without original sin.”
In a short space of time, the institutions dedicated to the Most Pure Virgin, the vows in defence of the dogma, the entities that took Our Lady as their Patroness under this invocation– including the Spanish nation itself in 1644 – and countless other initiatives multiplied in Spain. And this is where we find the origin of the symbols used by the Brotherhood of Silence.
In the midst of the polemics surrounding the Immaculata, in 1615 the Confraternity’s eldest member proposed that its adherents take a vow, apparently still unique to them, to “believe, confess and defend, to the point of laying down their life, the mystery of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.” In other words, to the mere declaration of faith was added the intention to carry it to the shedding of their own blood, if necessary.
Therefore, the candle represents the belief in the pristine conception of Mary certified by the vow, which is why each year it is painted with the image of Our Lady Most Pure, the symbol of the Confraternity, and the date of the vow, September 29, 1615, the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel. The sword denotes the determination to fight for this strict purpose, which is why it is carried with a noble cloth on the handle.
How evocative it is, for our times, to reflect that fervent lay Catholics – from a very different era! – committed themselves in this way to a doctrine that did not yet enjoy the definitive approval of the Church, imparted with its elevation to the category of a dogma of faith. The Holy Spirit was thus indicating to the legitimate pastors, through the voice of the faithful people, by means of the soundest sensus fidelium, the direction He wanted the Mystical Bride of Christ to take in this particular matter!◊
