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The sacred profaned in Santa Fe | page 1, 2
Santa Fe was once a haven for Spanish Catholicism. It boasts what is thought to be the oldest shrine in the U.S. dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe. The mountains surrounding the city are called "Sangre Cristo," Blood of Christ. "Santa Fe" itself means holy faith. But the City of Holy Faith now vibrates on different wavelengths, and even its Catholic legacy seems to be getting a face lift. On a tour of the city with my freshman seminar, I went to the Loretto Chapel. It houses one of Santa Fe's greatest treasures, a miraculous staircase. The staircase defies all laws of engineering. It has neither nails nor any other visible means of support. And it was built by a mysterious traveler who arrived after the sisters had prayed for a staircase and disappeared shortly after its completion. According to legend, the enigmatic carpenter was really St. Joseph, patron saint of carpentry. I bristled in mild distaste at paying to enter a church, tourist attraction though it may be. But the beauty of the chapel heightened my despair. The staircase was stunning. It twisted, like a corkscrew curl, and had a smooth underside, unmarred by any support mechanism. Looking at the pictures of Mary and angels, I realized I'd forgotten how touching it was to be in a church. I went into the confessional booth for a brief moment of solitude, and discovered a speaker system that periodically emitted the chapel's history in the monotone that all instructive recordings have. I forced a small, unsatisfying tear down my face and left. Bored, I wandered into the gift shop. Surrounding me were T-shirts, shot glasses and silver spoons with "Loretto Chapel" emblazoned on them. I examined the overpriced, laminated Guadalupe cards, a staple of any religious store, and the generic statues of Jesus and the saints. A sweet, bland Madonna stared down at me, her arms opened in a cloying embrace. Then our teaching assistant came into the shop and told me we were ready to leave. I sulked, wanting neither to stay nor leave. That night, I lay in bed as my roommate watched David Letterman. Watching Dave's nasty, adolescent humor in my misery was so ironic it made me laugh. Then tears came. They stayed stubbornly in my eyes, so I forced them out. A strange contentment came over me, not because I was happy, but because I had always felt this way.
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