Real Hermandad- Cofradía de Nuestro Padre Jesús del Gran Amor y María Santísima de la Esperanza Macarena

In 1977, Mr. José González Torres, a devotee of Nuestra Señora de la Esperanza Macarena of Seville, requested the sculptor Mr. Luis Álvarez Duarte to make a replica of the Virgin of Seville, which was delivered to him in the first days of March of the following year.

After the arrival of the sculpture, a group of friends, including Mr. José Salezán Calderón, Mr. Andrés Salezán López and Mr. José Manuel Baena González, met at the house of at Mr. José González Torres and encouraged him to allow this image to be publicly venerated in one of the parishes of the city.

An interview was held with the Archpriest Tobías Medina Cledón and the parish priest of San Bartolomé Apóstol, Ramón Vázquez Zambrano, and it was agreed to arrange a meeting of the parishioners to study the matter. Around two hundred people met and agreed to request the Bishopric of Badajoz to create the new Brotherhood of ‘Nuestro Padre Jesús de las Tres Caídas y la Virgen Macarena’.

The first statutes were drawn up in November 1978 and were approved, as well as the Confraternity Ad Experimentum for a period of three years, on 5th December 1978. The image was solemnly blessed on Palm Sunday 1979 by the distinguished Mr. Aquilino Camacho Macías, Vicar General of the Diocese of Badajoz.

The first statute was written by Mr. Francisco Redondo Guillén, a historian who lived in Seville and knowledgeable of Jerez de los Caballeros.

Due to the economic situation of the brotherhood, it was impossible to obtain the image of Nuestro Padre Jesús de las Tres Caídas, which was intended to be commissioned to the Sevillian sculptor D. Luis Álvarez Duarte. Thus, the governing board of this brotherhood met with that of the Hermandad Sacramental de Nazarenos de Nuestro Padre Jesús del Soberano Poder ante Caifás y Nuestra Señora de la Salud de Sevilla, to request the primitive image of the ‘Cristo del Soberano Poder’ which that brotherhood had deposited in the chapel of an nursing home in the city of Seville.

On 12th March 1979, the Archbishop of Seville authorized the cession of the image to the brotherhood of Jerez. Once this authorisation was received, the governing board went to collect the image and agreed to change its name to ‘Nuestro Padre Jesús del Gran Amor’.

On 1st December 1978, the president of the Brotherhood received a letter from the Royal House of His Majesty the King, accepting his appointment as ‘Hermano de Honor Perpetuo’.

The tunics, like those of Seville, with a white merino cassock and cape, green buttons and yellow cincture, , followed the tradition and were characterized by a green velvet conical headwear with an embroidered cross of the Order of Santiago on the chest. On the cape on the left shoulder, there is another coat of arms, formed by a cartouche with a column between flames above the patriarchal cross, all crowned by a cardinal´s hat, also in gold thread and coloured silk.

Titulars

Nuestro Padre Jesús del Gran Amor

This is the first Christ that went on procession in the Brotherhood of San Gonzalo (Seville) and was later ceded to the Brotherhood . Its authorship corresponds to the master sculptor D. José Luis Pires Azcárraga in 1945.

The author of the Romanesque statue is the work of Antonio Castillo Lastrucci and it was carried in the procession of Our Father Jesus of the Sentence, Brotherhood of the Macarena of Seville and was later ceded to the Brotherhood.

María Santísima de la Esperanza Macarena

It is a  work of the Sevillian sculptor Luis Álvarez Duarte, and an exact replica of the Esperanza Macarena of Seville, to whose brotherhood it is closely linked.

 This image is carried under a canopy carved in the Seco repair workshops in Seville, with 12 long poles and pedestals chiseled by Miguel de los Ríos. It was blessed by the Vicar General of the Diocese of Badajoz on Palm Sunday 1979, and finished the same year in the Convent of the Hermanas de la Cruz, who were her godmothers.

The Virgin was exhibited in the Basílica de la Macarena in Seville before being transferred to Jerez.

Events and celebrations.

It starts at the Church of San Bartolomé on Good Friday at 2:00 a.m. in the morning.

The Triduum is held every 18th December, the feast of Nuestra Señora de la Esperanza[1].

Brotherhood House

After several years of project, the Brotherhood House was blessed on 21 October 2011, and it is located in Sancho Street.

With its headquarters belonging to the Church of Saint Bartolomé, the ground floor has the canopy with which the Esperanza Macarena processions take place, as well as the Brotherhood’s script, the Senatus and the Conceptionist flag. On the walls there is a hand-painted ceramic painting of the face of the Esperanza Macarena and another of Santa Angela de la Cruz.

In the showcases in the upper room are displayed the most representative items of our Brotherhood. The guide cross is also on display, and on both sides are the ceremonial candle holders. On the column there is a ceramic tribute plaque commemorating the day of the blessing of the Brotherhood House. On one side of the column hangs the original canopy of the Esperanza Macarena.

As we enter into the Assembly Hall of the Brotherhood, we can see on the same wall as the tribune an exact replica in small size of the Esperanza Macarena, the work of the sculptor Luis Álvarez Duarte. The carving is made from a piece of pine wood from the Seville cemetery.

On both sides of the Virgin there are four corbels carved in wood and finished in fine gold, as well as a fifth one at the back. On the walls hang the primitive scrims of the Esperanza Macarena’s canopy roof. This room contains a large part of the trousseau of her titles.

[1] Our Lady of Hope