Holy Tuesday has become the day in which the children Vera show how the grand tradition of Passion Week is far from disappearing. Faith and devotion have no age.
The Infant and Junior Brotherhood of the Virgin of Forgiveness and Jesus of Hope is Vera town’s great source of religious fervour and the tradition of Easter Week. Each Holy Tuesday there is a station of penitence in the afternoon following months of dedication by the small but devoted bearers and carriers. In fact, the youngest of the brotherhoods also has among its penitents the locality’s youngest, which makes its processions the most anticipated and followed by the Verans.
The Brotherhood’s oldest image dates from the end of the 16th century, the Virgin of Solitude. It was donated by the Franciscan brothers and year after year is carried by children aged between eight and 12. The throne was made by the never forgotten Veran Alonso Cabezas in 1995.
The Jesus of Hope is a work by the Seville artist Juan Manuel Miñarro and dates from 1998, donated by the Brotherhood of the Virgin of Anguish after the earlier image was lost in a fire that year following the procession. It is carried by a total of 60 children aged 13 to 16 on a wooden throne made by Alonso Cabezas in 1995.
The image which completes the procession is the Virgin of Forgiveness, an image of the Holy Mary under a canopy, a work by Seville artist Salvador Madroñal from 1999. It is carried by a total of 20 bearers.
The Brotherhood was founded on the 9th June 1990 by a group of young people and now has 600 members aged under 21. They are not always bearers, but they are fervent messengers of a religious tradition of retreat which has been present in the town for centuries.
