Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel

Jardín Allende, San Miguel de Allende, Tuesday, 11 a.m. 

In the square we hear the sounds of the service from behind the shut doors of the old Catholic Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel. It's a multi-hour rite, evangelical in tone, the priest’s emphatic sermon calling for the coming of the Lord overlaying the continuous vocal drone of parishioners and the strumming of a miked guitar. The nave is closed to visitors. 

| Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel, photo by G. Enns |

We claim some iron benches in the shade of an Indian laurel tree. With black pen and notebook, I start sketching from the top cross, the black tip of the pen following Gutiérrez’s Neo-Gothic verticals, arches, more arches within arches, stone filigree, scrollwork. The sunshine brightens the church’s rose and salmon cantera facade and sets the copper bells deep in shadow. The drawing is rough, an outline, some shading, but it takes time because of the elaborate subject. An hour passes, the drone of the service continues.

We set off for dinner, find a taqueria on the Calle del Dr Ignacio Hernandez. We bide time with a meal, squeezing lime wedges onto pastor and chorizo and papas and drinking  jamaica margaritas and limonada negra. 

| Sketching the Parroquia, photo and drawing by G. Enns |

Then back to the Parroquia. The service concluded, parishioners spill out of the entrance and drift off. Mariachi bands wander the square, belting out tunes for pesos.

The doors are wide open. 

The only way to see a grand church is dar un paseo, without goal, walking slowly through the aisles, through the side chapels, the eyes following columns leading into vaulted ceilings, gazing at statues, at cloth-draped figures in dioramas—Jesus in the stations of the cross, San Isidro Labrador summoning water with his staff, the Virgen del Carmen holding the stars in her eyes. I wander down the left, then cross in front of the altar with the Virgin Mary and her baby Jesus with crown. I make my obligatory bow and claim the front pew, almost directly under the cavernous vault of the unpainted dome. My eyes trace its arc, the mortar lines between stones, the stones themselves curving toward the center. For a moment I try to recall how such a thing is built, then leave off the thought. Stillness, whispers, footsteps. A door slams in the sacristy, the priest setting off for home. I kneel on the red pad and say a prayer for everyone.