Manuel Soler Espí. Priest
If stones could talk, they would tell us songs of joy and murmurs of prayer.. And, by marvel of technique or grace of poetry, the voice of the bells was recovered, lost in distant airs, we would hear them in missions of angels through mountains and fields. And absorbed and on our knees the soul would feel the force of the winged word. The word of Saint George mixed in words of bells. And it would be difficult for us to distinguish which one touches our soul the most.. Because if one represents our ideal, love transformed into a person, the other tells us messages from institutions that are deep in our chest.
Parish and Saint George, two ideal goals of our people. It would be incomprehensible if someone insisted on undoing those two realities that are tied together in the same bundle.. They live from the same illusion, They are works of the same effort. And between these two loves the piety of our people is being formed..
Saint George, showing off his strong name, has been shaping the character of our people with a clean hammer blow. He knew what he had in his hands and how much this vein he had found was worth.. It will not disappoint you in your desire to reform it. He will dedicate himself with vigor to the hard and quiet work of giving character to this town he has won.. And he will achieve his goal because this entire town of Bañeres is here to prove it.. The ¡VIXCA SANT JORDI! It comes from within us because we are grateful people and because, although from afar we know how to correspond to this white word of purity, but sincere and hard as iron, that one day Saint George would plant in our town.
But new words are already perceived. We want to know if they will form the same melody with the old song. Young people from Bañeres: If by chance you hear words that do not carry the patina of old time, It is gold that is not legal and must be put in the fire. And if they are real words, your, In the purification of fire you will always find the seal of Saint George placed on them..
And perhaps the forge that tells you what your message is is in comparing it with the household items of this bell tower of yours.. And when hitting him on living stone, you hear they have the same accent, you can be sure that it is very yours.
Look at the bell tower and the tower of your castle and they will tell you about harshness because they were made of stone.; They will talk to you about heights because they always head to them without fatigue in vertical flight to the sky.; They will tell you about parents who preach, the voice to the wind, the love that they always have in you. Don't say you don't understand heights, because your ideals have already been leveled to the ground. Do not say that you do not understand the motherhood of your parish and the strength of your castle, because your character and temperament were forged in them.
Today I was pleasantly reminded of a verse from our Juan Ramón Jiménez:
This, the plow, in parallel
opened the dark beam, and the simple
open hand left the seed
in its guts honestly broken.
You have opened this furrow of your festivals throughout the year. You have honestly earned it. The work of the whole year is compensated by this overflowing and multicolored joy of the Moors and Christians festivals.. With the simple open hand you have dropped your enthusiasm in preparing them, and this land plowed with honesty of hope is going to open a new furrow to deposit in it the seed of honors to your Patron Saint George. And this open furrow and this flowery illusion, this noble endeavor to feel more like children of Saint George every day, has completely won our hearts. And now, as never before, We have felt the desire to create sublime verse with the poet.:
I thought I would rip out my heart and throw him out,
full of his high and deep feeling,
to the wide furrow of the tender land.
Manuel Soler Espí
Priest
