Exploring Colonial Mexico©
Exploring Colonial Mexico©
Jewels of Jalisco
Located in the historic center of Guadalajara, three blocks north of the Cathedral plaza, the historic Augustinian nunnery of Santa Monica is justly celebrated for its ornate twin entry facades, opulently carved in the Jaliscan popular baroque style.
The church faces directly on to narrow Santa Monica street, a busy traffic artery often clogged with buses and choked with diesel fumes.
Precariously mounted in a high niche on the northeast corner of the building, the impressive statue of St. Christopher* is another well known local colonial monument. Possibly a survivor from an earlier building, the somewhat awkward, haloed figure of the saint stands on muscular legs in his traditional pose with rolled up pants, carrying the Christ Child on his shoulder.
The empty round socket in the breast of the young Jesus probably once contained a jade or obsidian disk - a pre-Columbian motif symbolizing the heart or "soul" of the image, a practice that was often carried over into Christian sculptures and crosses during the 16th century.
"El Cristobalón" or "Cristobalazo" as the gigantic statue is familiarly known, is a popular object of appeals by tapatías, the women of Guadalajara, for divine help not only in finding desirable new husbands but also in ridding themselves of the undesirable ones that they may already have.
* St. Christopher is the patron saint of travelers, porters and more recently, taxi drivers. Porters in Guadalajara have a special affinity for the powerful saint, whom they address in this traditional prayer:
Dichoso Cristobalazo, Santazo de cuerpo entero, Y no como otros santitos, Que ni se ven en el cielo
Hazme grueso y vigoroso, Hombrazo de cuerpo entero, Y no como estos tipitos, Que casi besan el suelo
Lucky St Christopher. Saint with a sturdy body, unlike many other saints in Heaven
Make me hale and hearty, a full bodied man, unlike others so stooped that they almost kiss the ground
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