Chocolate's week

Catalan | Spanish

Photo: Antonella Speranza. © All rights reserved.

It has been a whole week since Holy Week. Last monday, called here Dilluns de Pàsqua (Pasque Monday) any godfather will visit their godchildren to give them the Mona de Pàsqua (Pasque Monkey):
Type of cake with many shapes. Normaly decorated with some painted hard-boiled eggs or xocolat eggs. It's normally eaten in Pasqua Florida (Flowered Pasque, the first Monday after Holy Week)...
From Enciclopèdia Catalana - mona (in catalan)

We had our mona: a chocolate egg big as a rugby ball. Such a delicatessen that still survives after a whole week and, side by side with the morcilla that my parents gave us, will be quite valuated by my arteria. ;)

I must also say that there is no ONE Mona de Pàsqua, but a lot of different types. Just take a look on Wikipedia's article to check the difference with the other definition I showed before:
Wikipedia: Mona de Pascua (in spanish)


And, finally, I'll say that these agges on the monas must have something in common with easter eggs of these other countries:
Wikipedia: Easter Egg
 

Monastery of Montserrat

Where it all began.

Catalan | Spanish

Our Virgin of Montserrat at Montserrat (Monistrol de Montserrat, Catalonia, Spain) Photo Pablo César Pérez González.

The year 880 some shepherds saw a light at Montserrat mountain (so called because its shape, whose peaks seem to be cut with a saw). Searching the cause of this light they found a cave and an image of the Virgin Mary inside the cave.

The bishop wanted this image at Manresa. But once on the path, the convoy arrived to some place impossible to pass, as they couldn't move a single inch more. As everyone saw it as a Holy sign, this very same spot was the place to build a hermit, which in the years to come would be the abbey we currently know.

This is the legend. The proven truth is that since these days the people venerates there the Holy Virgin Mary. She is Catalonia's patron since year 1881. It's the place to go for thousands of pilgrims and tourists. It's a simbo of ours catalonian nation and a shelter for our culture ("Serra d'or", monastry's publishing house, was able to publish books in catalan even when Franco's regime madde it near to impossible).

And, finally, the year 1493 Christopher Columbus took a monk from Montserrat named Bernat de Boïl. So they carried the name of Montserrat to the other side of the ocean, all around the New World even to this place where, generations of colombians will go to venerate the "Cristo caído de Monserrate".


Mostra un mapa més gran

Links:
Montserrat Abbey
Cerro de Monserrate (in spanish)

Monserrate itself

About the reason to the name of this blog

Catalan | Spanish

Our Lady of Montserrat at Monserrate (Bogotá, Colombia) Picture from COLOMBIE : Bogota, Monserrate, Raquira, Villa de Leyva

Since the very days I started to flirt with my current wife I also started to hear about the "Fallen Crist of Monserrate". From this very first times I was sure that this certainly was no coincidence, its name couldn't be so similar to "Montserrat" with no reason.

But I couldn't check it until my first time to Colombia when, once acclimatized to the place and the height (I must admit that I'm used to live close to the sea) I got my family to Monserrate's peak and its sanctuary.

Once sitting at the center of the church, I looked to the left and there it was, into its own chapel. It as her, the "Moreneta" herself, spiritual icon of catalanity. I couldn't help but cry and sing the "Virolai" driven by my own devotion, nostalgia and patriotism.

The chapel's gate had a panel with the complete history about why and how there was such an exotic virign (exotic at least for colombian people): the year 1652 a copy of the "Morenta" is settled there in an hermitage, the mountain is known as "Cerro de Monserrate" since then.

Later, on year 1711, this "Moreneta" disappears and the "Fallen Crist" is settled there. And finally, on 1997, the monks of Montserrat (Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain) send to Colombia this new copy of the "Moreneta".

So, no coincidence at all: its just a mon(t)serratism big as a... cathedral.


Mostra un mapa més gran

Links:
Cerro de Monserrate
Montserrat Abbey

Glossary

• Mon(t)serratism: discovery of a bond between Catalonia and Colombia usualy hidden to untrained viewers.
  
  
• Morcillism: a link between Castile and Colombia that is still surprising between the multitude of connections available in the obvious relationship between both cultures.


• (ca): link to page written in catalan


• (es): link to page written in spanish


• Catalombia: merged concept between Catalonia and Colombia which identifies all people like me that feel linked to both fatherlands. It's an original idea from Mauricio, owner of "República de Catalombia"'s blog (es).

Mon(t)serratian manifesto

I'm catalan son of castilians, husband of a colombian girl and father of a colombian child who is also catalan. So, both nationalities, my most beloved homelands on Earth, live together on my daughter.

Both fatherlands which are much closer than it seems to any catalan or colombian, with ties like this "Cerro de Monserrate", with its "El Señor Caído"'s sanctuary on its peack and Bogota city at its feet. Also with its name, so similar to "Montserrat", cultural and spiritual shrine of Catalonia, home of the "Moreneta". The first one founded to honour the second brothering together true mon(t)serratians no matter from which side of the sea.