Dí­a de la Santa Cruz at El Calvario, Antigua Guatemala

Rudy Giron: Antigua Guatemala &emdash; © Day of the Cross at El Calvario, Antigua Guatemala by Rudy Giron

On May 3 the Day of Construction Worker is observed as well as the Day of the Holy Cross because they are related to each other. The Day of the Holy Cross is known in La Antigua Guatemala as Dí­a de la Santa Cruz, thus one finds many albañiles (construction workers) placing an adorned cross at their current construction site. In Antigua Guatemala, the cross I often find with the most decorations is located at the atrium of Iglesia de El Calvario.

Here is a fragment of text explaining this celebration:

The legend has it that when they were unburying Jerusalem, they found three crosses, one of them larger than the other two. When some of the diggers touch the larger cross, their ailments healed and the cross were thought to be miraculous. The priests on site called a funeral passing by and the dead man’s hand was made to touch the cross and he resurrected and walked away. The cross was taken immediately to Rome, the Vatican to be precise, and a chapel was built for it. This chapel was built in record time and for this reason and for the fact that the man who resurrected was a construction worker who had died while at work a few days earlier, this date became the day of the construction worker. All of this as seen on tv, a few details more or less.

Rudy Giron: Antigua Guatemala &emdash; © Day of the Cross at El Calvario, Antigua Guatemala by Rudy Giron

© 2015 – 2020, Rudy Giron. All rights reserved.

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