Ash Wednesday procession

This was the name given to the procession held on Ash Wednesday, which in distant times set out from the Convent of St Francis (São Francisco), accompanied by friars who sang religious chants along the way. The procession always passed through the churches of the Convent of St Clare (Santa Clara) and the Mercês, where the nuns sang religious hymns as the processional litter (andor) bearing the image of St Francis embracing that of Christ entered the church.

At the head of the procession went the processional banner of the Third Order of St Francis, with its coat of arms exquisitely embroidered in gold, followed immediately by the so-called tree of penance, which bore a crucifix adorned with hawthorn branches, a rosary and a set of scourges. Behind came the brotherhood of penance, with four brethren walking beside the cross: one carried a tray with two crossed bones and a skull, another a glass urn holding ashes from palm and olive branches blessed on Palm Sunday, another an hourglass with two wings, and the fourth a lamp-stand with an extinguished lamp. Next came the cross of the Order and the litter of Christ Carrying the Cross (Senhor dos Passos), with its confraternity, and then the litters of St Francis carrying the cross on his back; of the Confirmation of the Rule, showing the same saint, Pope Innocent III and a cardinal; of St Anthony of Noto (black); of St Lucius and St Bona (the two siblings); of St Rose of Viterbo; of St Margaret of Cortona; of St Joan; of St Elizabeth, daughter of the Queen of Hungary; of St Elizabeth, Queen of Hungary; of St Roch; of St Elzéar and St Delphine (the happily married couple); of St Henry, King of Dacia; of St Louis, King of France; of St Ivo, doctor; and of St Elizabeth of Portugal, all these images being accompanied by their respective confraternities. The religious cortège was brought up by the board (mesa) of the Third Order, the litter of St Francis embracing Christ, the corporation of Chaplains, and the purple canopy, beneath which walked three clergymen in copes of the same colour, the one in the middle carrying a reliquary with the Holy Wood of the Cross; and finally the Bishop of the Diocese, in his cappa magna (the bishop's long ceremonial cape with train), the train of which was held by five seminarians.

After the church of St Francis disappeared, the images that had featured in the Ash Wednesday procession passed to the church of the College (Igreja do Colégio, the Jesuit college church), and in our own day it was from this church that the procession set out; it has not been held for about 25 years (1921). The capes (opas) worn in the procession were purple, and in olden times the professed brethren who joined it wore the habit. The place of the women penitents who accompanied the cortège was near the so-called tree of penance.

A foreign author writing in 1827 said the following about the Ash Wednesday procession: ‘The images are almost life-size and all wear religious habits, not excepting St Louis, King of France, and St Elizabeth of Portugal. One of them, representing Our Lord bowed beneath the weight of the cross, is a well-executed work which, through the expression of suffering it bears, makes an impression on those who behold it.’

The Ash Wednesday procession is still held today in the town (vila) of Câmara de Lobos (‘seals’ den’), where many people come from Funchal to see it.