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After mass has been said by the resident American Catholic priest, in one of his limited appearances during Holy Week, the Christ is taken down from the cross and placed within the urna — a glass-sided coffin. Inside this has been placed a mattress and appropriate bedding for the sacred figure — each layer being enthusiastically sprayed with multiple cans of deodorant. This is a good example of the adaptability of the Atitecos and of their willingness, even enthusiasm, for putting to use modern accouterments which take their fancy. Ritual and ceremony are not set in the amber of a museum, and spray cans are probably more efficiently focused for propelling intense sanctification at a target than the old technology of swinging copal censers.

Hi-tech sanctification: Even traditionalists are open to new technology, engulfing the mattress on which Christ will lie with powerful-smelling deodorant spray — an application, presumably, not imagined by the manufacturers