THE celebration of the Holy Week always brings in new and familiar sights to the faithful.
The start of the long holidays draws Christians to churches or other religious practices for the traditional commemoration of the Passion of Jesus Christ.
Meanwhile, the country’s airports, seaports and main thoroughfares are swarmed by hordes of people who are rushing to the provinces or abroad to spend the long weekend on vacation.
These contrasting ways of celebrating the Holy Week has raised questions on whether the Filipinos are slowly losing sight of its true meaning.
However, no less than Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas said otherwise.
In a published reflection, entitled “Should you blindly follow those Holy Week traditions?”, the former head of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) said the manner of celebrating Lent—at home or on vacation—is irrelevant as long as one does not forget its real meaning.
“Can we go to the beach during Holy Week? If it will help you love like Jesus, yes, you can. But if it will distract you from the story of His love, please don’t. The highest law is not silence but love. Silence speaks only if that silence is loving,” Villegas said.
“Holy Week practices evolve with time. For 2,000 years now, only one tradition has remained—the Christian tradition of love,” he added.
Josephine A. Placido, an assistant professor at the Department of Sociology at the University of Santo Tomas, agrees with Villegas.
She said that, while most Filipinos now tend to celebrate Holy Week in more nontraditional ways, it does not mean they become less faithful.
“Getting out of the busy streets of Manila may just mean practicing their religion outside, but not evading the tradition. Because in our hearts, we know it is Holy Week,” Placido told the BusinessMirror.
She said this is true even for “marginalized” Catholics, or those who tend to practice their faith as a form of obligation since religious practices are embedded in Filipino culture.
“It is the day of contemplation. So, even if they are on a beach or on another place, they would still look for a church…. Our conscience tells us we still need to venerate,” Placido said.
Living faith
For Fr. Reginald Malicdem, the 40-year-old rector of the Manila Cathedral, said changes in the celebration of Holy Week have even increased the religious fervor of many Filipinos.
He said compared in previous years, the number of people who are participating in the Holy Week activities of the Manila Cathedral in Intramuros, Manila, has increased by several folds, thanks to social media.
Malicdem added the social media has significantly helped the Manila Cathedral promote its activities, particularly to the youth.
“The number of our visitors during a regular Mass is only between 1,000 and 1,500. But during the Holy Week this grows to 2,000 to 2,500,” Malicdem noted.
Malicdem, also the concurrent secretary of Manila Archbishop Luis Cardinal Tagle, said most of the participants are from the youth.
“Usually in other countries like those in Europe, you would rarely see throngs of people walking for the Visita Inglesia. But here you could see it is being done by the youth. It shows that faith is still alive in the country,” Malicdem said. Visita Inglesia is the religious tradition of visiting several churches during Holy Week.
Malicdem said the youth also help bring in a more festive air in the church’s Holy Week activities, which he welcomes, compared to its traditional solemn celebration.
“Our stereotype of a holy person, someone who is always quiet and does not smile. But Jesus and holy persons would laugh and shout…. This is because holiness exudes from his person,” Malicdem said.
“I think being true to our humanity is an expression of our faith. I think God will appreciate the reality of who we are. Our honesty of being ourselves in worship,” he added.
Stick to the basics
While the changes is accepted by many members of the church, Fr. Jose William Araña, OSA, the 79-year-old prior of the San Agustine Church in Intramuros, Manila, said the faithful should still not forget the “basics” during the Holy Week.
“We still have to prepare ourselves for the Holy Week by first going through confessions, performing acts of piety and abstinence,” Araña said.
Araña said other traditional Lenten practices, like attending processions, serve to further cement the basic virtues in ones life.
“We do these so we can reawaken and relieve our faith every day… by reminding us about the sacrifice and death of our Lord before His resurrection,” Araña explained.
Malicdem echoed Araña’s message by recalling his experience during his first year as rector of the Manila Cathedral.
While they were practicing for one of their Lenten Masses, a boy approached the altar to talk to the life-sized Christ on the cross.
“That child in front of the crucified Jesus is the picture of the Holy Week for me. Because in the end, what matters most is we continue to talk with God,” Malicdem said.
Image credits: Roy Lagarde/CBCP