“ONLY THE SICK, the vain, and
the faddists still fast during the Holy Week.”
So the preacher-poet of Que Sio, Que Tal told me. And come to think of
it, he is right. Fasting, and abstinence too, are not the only Holy Week
practices that have gone to oblivion.
Less a mark of religiosity than a sign of (old) age is that feeling of
indignation at (mal)practices of not a few of the (un)faithful during these
supposed to be the holiest of days of the year.
The kids instantly scoff at every incantation of “No, we did not do those when
we were younger” when – aghast! – in-your-face with patently irreligious acts
passed off as sublime spirituality.
Maundy Thursday’s self-reflection induced by the soft, angelic Cant Gregoria
before the Blessed Sacrament in a dark corner of the village church is pierced
by the flash and whirr of digital cameras and myriad ringtones of mobiles toted
by the throngs doing their visita iglesia rounds.
The object of their faith: not the body of Christ exposed in the santissimo
sacramento but the monumento where the little golden ciborium is
mounted.
Last year, of the many paparazzi, I took note of two Saudi-looking wives, read:
jaundice-gold ornaments hanging all over them, prodding their little daughters
to move further back to the monumento to get a more panoramic view.
Beholding the photos, how papa would have drenched with tears the Arabian sands
at this saintliness of his little darling! Oh God!
Then, there was this gay-looking gaily dressed quartet – I have noticed them
for the past three Jueves Santos without fail – focused on the monumento
from different angles while furiously scribbling notes and sketching on small
notebooks like judges in some contest. Come now, have we a monumento
competition going on? The most nature-inspired, the most futuristic, the most,
err, gay?
Did those “visitors” ever come to pray if only for a minute? I very much doubt
it. They – like the many others who barely bended their knee – had to rush to
six or twelve other churches to complete their rounds of seven or 13. For the indulgencia
to be granted.
In the scheme of things currently practiced however, the seventh or thirteenth
church visited makes only the penultimate stop. The final – and longest – stop
for the faithful is always Jollibee or McDonald’s. There in their own santissima
cena, they feast on fries and burgers, spaghetti and chicken to stock on
physical strength in anticipation of the requisite Good Friday fasting and
abstinence.
Ah, how they fast and abstain from meat in the true (?) Catholic way – only one
full meal on the day of days – a lunch of crabs and lobsters, prawns and
oysters! Ah, Epicurus be praised!
Good Friday. My morning jog at the acacia-canopied village square has to take
detours through the grass as the lane gets swamped by a horde of shirtless
flagellants preparing for their penitential rite.
The plak-plak sound at the strike on the backs of penitents of the
bundled bamboo strips at the end of their abaca whips provided the cadence to
my jogging pace.
This struck me as a paradox of the faith: not a few of the Kristo wannabes
imbibing markang demonyo for strength to carry their assorted crosses,
or survive the bleeding under the burning summer sun. Yet a number puff on
cigarettes.
With their backs “bladed” literally, or scratched with wooden brushes having
broken glass for bristles, the magdarame start – to the rhythmic plak-plak
– a procession of blood, the cross bearers in front and a multitude of their
families, barriomates and usiseros bringing the rear.
Last year, being an election year, not a few of the flagellants sported arm
bands and headbands prominently displaying the names of candidates. “Penitential”
politics be damned!
Later in the day, after reverently hanging at the cathedral’s iron fence their
black veils and crowns of woven vines of cadena de amor, the
flagellants’ new spirituality gets further renewal with bouts of spirituous
devotion to San Miguel, not the archangel but the blue one called GSM. Truly, bilog
ang mundo. Maging sa penitensiya ng mga tao.
Black Saturday, the faithful flocking the churches for the Easter Vigil are
nowhere near in force and in determination with those at the cathedral of
compulsive consumption – SM, its two-day closure “in oneness with Christendom’s
observance of the holiest of days” only serving to further whet the shopping
appetite of its own hordes of fanatical believers.
From the abyss of the apostasy of my youth, I wrote a poem that ended thus:
“comic calvary,
a joker made of jessie.
pray, wail,
god is doomed
in the damp darkness
of nietzsche’s tomb.”
No. God is not dead, Zarathustra. Christians have only put other gods before
him.
(First published March 26, 2008)
