Our Lady of The Beneficent Sleep-In

With tears of joy streaming down my face and my soul quickening in profound rapture, I wholly embrace this - the 12th of October - as the first long weekend since I started work last month. Yes, today is Nuestra Señora del Pilar (Our Lady of the Pillar) when all of Madrid complacently sleeps in and pretty much doesn't give a rat's ass about virgins and pillars. But in other parts of Spain, where these things are taken more seriously, there will be much rejoicing and not just at the opportunity to sleep in.

Our Lady of the Pillar - not to be confused with Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, of Peace, of the Rosary, of Good Health, of the Missions, of Roses, of Sorrows, of the Swan, of Victories, of the Snows, of the Waterfall, of Light, of the Wind, of the Gate of Dawn, of the Annunciation, of the Immaculate Conception, of Remedies, of Consolation, of Good Help, of Prompt Succour, to name but a few - is the patron saint of Spain and of the Hispanic peoples.

One of my students advised me that Franco tried to convert the saint's day into an ersatz España Über Alles Day in which the supremacy of Iberian blood was lorded over the lower (i.e., non-Iberian) orders. My student glibly refers to Nuestra Señora del Pilar as Racism Day which prompts me to have gazpacho for lunch.

If it weren't for the fact that Señor Gato Gringo and I still have 43 grammar exercises to complete for today's Spanish class (callously not cancelled by our godless tutor) and watch a movie in Spanish for today's Spanish class (callously not cancelled by our godless tutor) and attend today's Spanish class (callously not cancelled by our godless tutor), we might have hopped on a train for Zaragoza (pronounced Thathahotha) where all this nonsense about virgins and pillars began one thousand, nine hundred and sixty-seven years ago. On January 2nd, to be exact.

We can thank the tortilla and sangria-loving Spanophile, James the Greater (opposed to James the Not As Important), whose remains floated in a boat from Jerusalem to northern Spain where they are still venerated at Santiago de Compostella, for much of this virgin-and-pillar brouhaha. For according to legend - rather than anything as tedious as extant historical records - James T.G. was experiencing evangelist's block in Caesaraugusta (modern Zaragoza [pronounced Thathahotha]) when suddenly - miraculously one might even say - the Virgin appeared to him in the flesh. Sitting demurely atop a pillar which was borne by angels, that Greedy Magpie the Mother of God asked him to build her a sanctuary. Another sanctuary. Like she didn't have enough already. The rest, as they say, is history.

Dear reader: that pillar - that very same pillar - was preserved and is venerated to this day by those who choose not to sleep in at a shrine in Zaragoza (pronounced Thathahotha), where - need I add - miraculous healings have been 'documented'. Because a 2,000 year old pillar which once bore the Mother of God's backside wasn't deemed sufficiently numinous and hallowed, in 1905 a crown was added to the virgin's statue valued, a century ago, at €27,000. Although I don't have a brain for those matters financial, I suspect that its value has gone up somewhat since then.

It would seem that this vision kick started James T.G.'s proselytizing career. Bully for him, I say. James T.G. has been good for Spanish tourism, what with his millennium-old pilgrimage, The Schlep to Santiago and, for those prone to corns and blisters, the less peripatetic feast of Nuestra Señora del Pilar. And for those who don't give a rat's ass about virgins and pillars, the opportunity to sleep in.