Where Saints Still Speak

Spanish singer and songwriter Rosalía released her fourth studio album, Lux, last fall. Lux is an ambitious work on two fronts: its sweeping spiritual theme, and the task of carrying that theme—the stories of female saints from across the world—to a modern audience. 

The sound alone is astonishing, in the best sort of way. Known for fusing flamenco, pop, reggaeton and hip-hop, Rosalía adds “classical” to the mix, recording with the London Symphony Orchestra to ultimately stunning effect. The blending of classical music into her already singular sound serves the album’s central claim—that what many might consider archaic is still relevant today. “This is maximalism,” she says, a fitting description of an album that attempts an exploration of the totality of human experience vis-à-vis the divine. 

But the sound of Lux plays compliment to an even greater ambition: a beautiful, unique interweaving of the experiences of female saints that explores the human desire for God, God’s desire for us, and our creative work and vocation therein. 

...earthly love must sometimes be renounced in order to affirm an even greater love.

At first glance, one might be tempted to dismiss Lux as yet another celebrity irreverently cosplaying a nun. But this would be a mistake. Rosalía’s work is profound. Most striking is her commitment to letting these women speak for themselves without imposing herself on their stories. In an interview with Apple Music, Rosalía describes the album as “celebrating and giving love to the other, to the otherness, to understand their otherness better.” And yet, in devoting herself so fully to these “others,” pieces of her own self emerge in the music. By her own admission, Lux is the album that has demanded the most of her personally. In drawing out what is universal within their particular stories, Rosalía affirms that the saints are not relics of the past but still relevant to us today. 

Each of the album’s tracks draws on a particular saint or teases out an aspect of the broader theme. Rosalía weaves the language of each of her spiritual ingenues into her lyrics, writing in no fewer than fourteen different languages. The album is divided into four movements that seek to capture the individual mystical experience of the saint in a way that is accessible to all without compromising the particularity of its protagonists. Rosalia commits herself to this totality in every detail, even refraining from using loops, so that each piece belongs to the whole and remains fully human and unfragmented. 

“Sexo, Violencia y Llantas” opens the album by introducing its themes both compositionally and thematically. She presents the earthly and heavenly realms, asking, “Quién pudiera / venir de esta tierra / entrar en el Cielo / y volver a la tierra” (Who could come from the earth, enter Heaven and return back to the earth?). The answer, of course, is the saints who soon speak.“Reliquía,” inspired by St. Rose of Lima and her relics, details how the speaker is constituted by her journey of experiences, culminating in the recognition that her heart has never truly been hers; she has always given it away, begging the listener to keep it as a relic. She then offers an even more striking idea: “Soy tu reliquía / I am your relic”—that she herself is a sign of something beyond herself. 

“Divinize” explores the mystical experience of the soul in union with God, or as the Fathers of the Church would say, the divinization of the human person, which occurs as one is taken up in communion into the divine life of God. “Porcelana” continues this meditation on mystical experience and the way it hovers over the precipice of human fulfillment and ruin. This it does through the example of Japanese Buddhist nun Ryōnen Gensō, who mutilated her own face so that her beauty would not prevent her from entering monastic life. 

The first movement ends with the beautiful aria, “Mio Cristo Piange Diamanti,” based on St. Clare of Assisi and the letters she wrote to St. Francis, reflecting on how God can bring forth beauty from suffering.

The second movement explores darker elements of the human search for union with God. The astounding “Berghain,” featuring Bjork and Yves Tumor, is the standout of the album. Drawing inspiration from St. Hildegard of Bingen, Rosalía juxtaposes Hildegard’s journey—marked by dramatic experiences of divine intervention—with modern German rave culture. The shocking conclusion of the song underscores the violence of the human rejection of God with music drastically different yet within the orchestral framework of the song’s orchestral beginning. By this, the song suggests that the rebellion that resides in the human heart is a distortion of original goodness and is the risk of freedom. 

“La Perla” (with Yahritza y su Esencia) is Rosalía’s satisfying roast of an ex-lover. It revels in the disappointment that comes from a broken relationship and the sting of bitterness, while also pointing to the deeper truth that man alone inevitably disappoints. 

“Mundo Nuevo” demonstrates what logically follows from such disillusionment with oneself and others: the desire to renounce the world and enter a “new world” in the hope of finding a greater truth. This section ends with “De Madrugá,” inspired by St. Olga of Kiev, which explores the conflict between following Christ and our own desires. Playing with the narrative of St. Olga’s story, she pits Olga’s dedication to Christ against her desire to avenge the murder of her husband. Its evocation of the morning of Good Friday during Seville’s Semana Santa—evident in the flamenco style of the song and the title itself—intensifies the drama of the conflict. 

The third movement traces God’s constant pursuit of the human person despite her rebellion, culminating in the soul’s return to him. “Dios Es un Stalker” playfully considers God’s point of view in his pursuit for communion with the person, while “La Yugular,” which draws inspiration from Sufi mystic Rabia Al-Adawiya, contemplates the relationship between the universal and the particular, all within the singer’s longing to be engulfed by divine love. 

“Focu 'Ranni” takes for its subject Rosalía’s patron saint, St. Rosalia of Palermo, who abandoned her wedding to live as a hermit. The song echoes Rosalía’s own broken engagement while also reflecting on the theme that earthly love must sometimes be renounced in order to affirm an even greater love. “Sauvignon Blanc” follows St. Teresa of Avila’s own renunciation of earthly pleasures for divine love, while “Jeanne” captures the courage of St. Joan of Arc and her total surrender of worldly expectations in service to the divine call. 

As the listener is left resting in the soul’s surrender God, the fourth and final movement explores the concrete demands such surrender entails; namely, forgiveness and death. With Taoist priestess Sun Bu’er and the Old Testament’s Miriam in the background, “Novia Robot” considers how women are called to live not by the narrow measure of men’s expectations and desires, but by God’s measure.

“La Rumba del Perdón” (with Estrella Morente and Sílvia Pérez Cruz) contemplates the radical forgiveness that a soul given over to God must extend to others. “Memória” (with Carminho) reflects on the fleeting nature of memory and our sense of self, suggesting that the full recollection of who we are—past, present, and future—depends upon the embrace of the One who upholds us. Finally, “Magnolias” evokes the beauty of death, in which we return to God and our memory is left to those who remain on earth. 

In Lux, Rosalía succeeds in drawing out what is universally true about the human desire for God without overwriting the particularity of each saint and their relevance to today’s world. Through the integrity of her lyrical vision, storytelling, composition, and performance, Rosalía offers something genuinely unique and beautiful. At once daring and spiritually resonant, Lux speaks to both secular audiences and those religiously devout. It is a remarkable achievement, one worthy of celebration.

Carly Henderson is a wife and mother of three, a family photographer, and a sessional instructor at Catholic Pacific College in Langley, British Columbia. She received her Ph.D. from the Pontifical John Paul II Institute in 2019.