ONE THING that the major churches in my town did this Holy Week was to hold the procession of the carros after 6pm.
Anytime earlier would have killed the elderly, or caused massive cases of heat stroke.
***
At 6 p.m. sharp, the Roman Catholic Church Dumangas Parish moved out and started the procession.
At around 8 p.m., the Philippine Independent Church Dumangas Parish started theirs.
***
Since I was stationed at my ancestral home at PRIMA CT Building, I got the best view of the two processions.
And from where I was standing, they weren’t even 15 minutes apart.
***
I did not do any churchy thing this Holy Week.
Firstly, I got a bad case of gout.
Or sprain, or whatever it was that hurt my right foot.
Secondly, I’m still Covid afraid of big crowds.
Mostly interior crowds, but also outdoors where the human density is more than three people in one square meter.
***
Thirdly, I just decided to be either in solitude to pray, or in small groups to minister to others.
I’ve been in solitude for a while.
When I couldn’t walk with gout pain, I just read, pray, stay in bed.
I’d bike my way to coffee, but that’s that.
***
Having coffee, I have no problem sitting with a group of people.
People who want to listen to what I have to say about a lot of things.
In the end, we also talk about spirituality and the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth.
With my seminary training, I evangelize when I can.
***
Back to the procession.
I think that having the procession after sundown is a brilliant idea.
And with the contemporary afternoon heat in April and March as they are, the evening procession should be institutionalized.
With that in mind, the decorations of the carros, carrozas, or floats of the Holy Week Saints can now focus on the lights and lighting design instead of very expensive fresh flowers.
***
If I must say so, both churches made a grand showing this year.
Awesome in the light of post pandemic realities.
I think I saw at least 50 carros total in the almost four hours of processions.
***
If the Catholic procession wasn’t as big as people expected, I’ll blame the morning Via Cruzes for that.
On Good Friday morning, the Catholic faithful went for the Way of the Cross starting 2am!
It was at least an 8-km walk, one way.
***
I wanted to go along, but my foot was hurting.
And I felt it was disrespectful to go on my bike.
Even if the idea was to just pray at the stations.
***
The thing was, it rained in the early morning.
Like at 4am or 5.
And it rained heavily.
I was told they didn’t stop.
The Way of the Cross went on.
And, of course, the walking and the rain made some people sick.
Too sick to go with the procession 12 hours later.
***
But minus the rain, I like the idea of a predawn Via Cruzes.
Early morning walk before the rise of the scorching summer sun.
***
Black Saturday, I ministered to a woman who is always overwhelmed by the things going on around her.
Business, sense of family, the hardships of being a single mom, and that idea of mothering 30-year-olds, and 20-somethings.
My goal was to take her away from her daily cares.
To retreat from the world.
To reassess values and priorities.
***
We had coffee, three hours of coffee talk.
I bought her turo-turo breakfast.
And she invited me to halo-halo in one of those fancy coastal road restaurants.
We just ordered halo-halo.
She invited another friend who drives.
***
Without much to do, the friend said he was going to the city to buy some alkaline water for a sick grandma.
We ended up going along for a joy ride.
We went to the city for coffee.
Talked some more.
Until they pressured me to visit La Choza de Dom Pedro at my farm estate.
They liked it there, so we talked some more until sundown./PN
