"The Black Madonna belongs to everyone, whether religious or not."

Monistrol de Montserrat"The Black Madonna is something for everyone," she says, "whether religious or not." The rack railway carriage we're in, which is now moving to get to Montserrat before ten, is full of journalists. She, in fact, is Montserrat Esteve, the director of the religious program on 3Cat. Signs of the timesThis Montserrat (one of the few Montserrats that exist today) explains to us—to us, because everyone in the car, including the politician Jordi Turull, who sits in the back, already knows—what will happen today at the top of the mountain. "Today they're taking the Virgin out in procession, and it will be one of the three times she has been in procession, the first of the century." They'll take her out on a bayard, and she'll circle the square, near the devotees who've already reserved seats days ago. We arrive with the mountain covered in fog, only the spires visible.

The journalists will be at one of the viewpoints, surrounded by rosemary. We won't be able to move from there when the ceremony begins, and Pau, the ARA photographer, is thinking about how to get a historic image. "At ten o'clock there won't be fog," tells us Eduard Pladellorens, who is in charge of "the press" and knows the weather well. "When the sun comes out, the cloud comes down, it's normal."

And then he explains the "little staircase" of the act: "The abbot will take her out of the throne and give it to the parish priest, who will take her out of the dressing room. He will give it to the prior and the subprior, and they will take her down through the Angelic Portal. They will go down the stairs and place her in the mixed L'' baiard, and when they come on stage, those of the Hospitality of Our Lady of Lourdes, and then, four members of the Benedictine community...".

"I'm sick and don't let me pass!", a woman shouts. The security guard tries to explain that the seats are reserved. "Are you saying Salvador Illa is coming?" a woman asks us. "I don't know, yesterday he was in Seville with Barça," another asks. "Huh?" We turn around because Father Bernat Juliol is arriving to speak to us. "Can we ask for his name and position?" a girl asks, and I smile at the "position." The position—I point out—is commissioner of the Millennium, steward, and sub-prior. Catalanist in the midst of the dictatorship. "The politicians who made democracy were here," he adds: "We can't feel united without symbols." The Virgin on his shoulders to save her. "Tell me what medium it comes from," he also asks, "because the Virgin knows their names, but I don't." We ask him what he thinks is going to happen. We all think there will be emotion and tears. "Crying, that's enough," he tells us. Immediately after, the journalists from the state channels "For the Lord, a thousand years is a day, but for us, it is not...”, I feel he is saying.

"We're subscribers to the ARA," a woman tells me. "We've been at the Hotel Cisneros since yesterday. There was a concert by the Vallès Symphony Orchestra, beautiful, with movie music. And afterward, the drone show, spectacular." I ask where to buy the medals of the Virgin Mary, which the neighbors asked me for. "Downstairs in the shop, they have everything," they tell me. "And if you want them blessed, you know what you can do? When you visit the chapel, put them in the holy water and they're blessed." Suddenly, I remember that my grandmother, when saying "holy water," said "holy water." A man, this one from Sant Vicenç de Castellet, says to me: "Hey, watch out! You're holding your phone close!" He means I'm carrying it in my pocket and I'll drop it. A woman screams, in English, because she says they won't let her in to see the Virgin, who is Black like her, because of racism. I try to tell him it's because of the reservations, but I can't seem to. "Tomàs Molina came up with us," a woman tells me. "And we told him we were bringing sunscreen." The altar boys' hearts begin to rehearse. They sing—and pardon the joke—like angels. "If I make a big gesture with my hand, what do I mean?" the director reminds them, ignoring the fact that the microphone is open.The press comes before a sick woman! This isn't reasonable!", a lady yells, wanting to sit down. Religious tourism can be just as captivating as sports or concert tourism. All ladies, with the tablet, they take pictures of the flowers on the altar, on the platform in the plaza. With their fingers, they gracefully press the buttons, like someone ringing a doorbell. Every now and then, I hear "Montse!" or "Montserrat!" The largest gathering of Montserrats I've ever been so close to.

The ceremony begins, and, with relative surprise, I notice that the audience applauds each of the "steps." One of the religious, with an extraordinary voice, so deep and velvety, sings: "The Lord is greater, we never tire of praising him. His holy mountain is admirable, it is the joy of the whole world..." I pay attention to the lyrics: "A tremor has seized them, right there, like the woman's pain." Then, the mass begins, officiated by the Father Abbot.

I turn my head and see an old woman sitting at a window in the Hotel Cisneros, on the ground floor, right behind us. I go in and approach her. There are books on the windowsill. The gold rush, by Narcís Oller; What I know about vampires, by Francisco Casavella, and the Critical Dictionary of Contemporary Spanish Art. She smiles at me and asks if I want to sit down. Her name is Eulàlia Rocabert, she tells me, and she's 82 years old. The sunlight illuminates one of her cheeks. "I have a very beautiful story, if you'd like to hear it." I sit down in the armchair next to her. "My father, Jaume Rocabert, escaped the war because he didn't want to shoot, with another comrade. When he was passing by here, by Montserrat, he fell, and his leg gave him a believe, it broke. And he promised the Virgin Mary that if she let him get home, he'd go up there to see her every year." She shakes her head. "Is she in a hurry? Does she need to see the Virgin up close?" I pretend not to. "My father, so devoted to the Virgin, and I... I was born on the day of the Virgin of Montserrat! I should have told her: 'I'm sending you this girl to take care of you.'" Hearing her made me soften completely. The chard I'm undoubtedly wearing under my leather jacket has sprouted. I go outside, still moved.

"April rose, brunette of the mountains," this mountain sings. Let them tell the timpanist. "BK_SLT_LNA" "I know you!" says a woman. And I kept them for myself." She stares at me. "I'd like to go and record the Moreneta up close..." I slip her a press pass and we go down to the fence. The press officer smiles and looks away. The woman is crying. But there are many, people crying, there alone, sitting there in the sun. Loudly, outside, their emotion, which I'd like to hear, I look at the hotel window.