Préstito de Encontro: Nos caminhares da religiosidade popular

Abstract

Every year, on Good Friday, in the city of São Caetano de Odivelas, in the state of Pará, in the Brazilian Amazon, the "Procession of the Encounter", which consists of two processions, one with the image of Our Lord of Steps and the other with the image of Our Lady of Sorrows, takes place. The image of Jesus carrying the cross, in suffering, highlights the ritualistic drama held annually during Holy Week, the mythical narrative that brings human and "god" together, providing a "set of representations of the relationships of the world and humanity with invisible beings" (LABHURTE-TOLRA, 2010, p.204), now "visible" by myth, as a "rational ordination. He places man in his place in the universe thanks to a system of references within the cosmos" (idem). The feeling of religiosity ensures that each year, this Christian rite can be re-edited with broad participation of the community, ensuring the necessary balance for the "chaos" of life, updating the sacred "foundation" of the world cyclically: "the revelation of a sacred space allows one to obtain a "fixed point," enabling, therefore, guidance in chaotic homogeneity, the "foundation of the world," the living the real" (ELIADE, 1992, p.27). In the small chapel of Nsa. Mrs. Do Perpétuo Socorro, people from the community pray and sing litanies, before the beginning of the prelude. Along the way, we come across daily practices mixing with the extraordinary of the sacred represented in the procession. The musical band, composed by young people, performs religious songs, providing even more participation and passionate involvement with the religious ritual by voice. The closeness between the human and the sacred is evident when the image of Our Lord of the Steps is protected from the rain by a cloak, due to the end of the Amazonian winter, the rainy season, in a very significant act, since this attitude "humanizes" the image. The apex of the ritual takes place on the banks of the Mojuim River, when the images of Our Lady of Steps and Our Lady of Sorrows meet. In this act, physical effort, crying and contrition are manifested in the face of each participant in the community, in a catharsis that guarantees the perpetuation of this religious ritual in the city of São Caetano de Odivelas, at each harbinger of the Amazon summer.