Semana Santa, also known as Holy Week, is a famous holiday celebrated in many Spanish-speaking countries. Guatemala, Mexico, Colombia and Spain are some examples. Each country celebrates this holiday in a unique way. This celebration usually lasts a week starting from Palm Sunday (Domingo de Ramos) until Easter Sunday (Pascua). During the week, there are daily masses in the Catholic Church. The seven main days are: Palm Sunday, Holy Monday, Holy Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday. “There are approximately 1.2 billion Catholics in the world; more than 40% live in Latin America.” Being Catholic, we believe in one God and his son, Jesus Christ. God sent his begotten son, who died on the cross so that all our sins may be forgiven. However, this happened hundreds of years ago. We also believe in the Holy Trinity where God is made up of three persons: the Father, the Son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit. We then make the sign of the cross. It involves taking your right hand and forming a cross, touching first your forehead, then your chest, your left shoulders and then your right. The sign of the cross is used especially during mass and during prayer. Nowadays we have many authorities of the Church, which are the pope, bishops, priests and lay people. There are many bishops, priests and lay people around the world, but there is only one Pope who is responsible for all the Roman Catholic Churches. The pope is the person God has chosen to speak to the people on his behalf. To choose the next pope, he is elected by all the cardinals, who are the main dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church. Whoever gets the most votes is elected the next pope. The most recent pope is Pope Francis, who was... middle of paper... day, this is the fortieth day. Catholics should not eat meat on Fridays during Lent. Why? Our Lord and Savior gave up his body, his flesh on a Friday hundreds of years ago. He reminds people of the day he sacrificed his life for the people. Since they cannot eat meat, most people replace it with fish and other seafood. In conclusion, Semana Santa is a very important and relevant topic to learn about while learning the Spanish language. It gives me some history and background that will probably benefit me more in this class. This topic isn't something I'll particularly learn about in class, but it's always good to learn something new. It is also very important to know if I want to go and visit some Hispanic country during the Holy Week period. However, if the topic came up in class, I would already know some pretty interesting facts about it.