Ecce Ego, Quia Vocasti Me

Undressing the Santo Nino

2012-01-23T14:32:00.000+08:00

The other great feast of January here in the Philippines is that of the Santo Nino de Cebu, which is held on the third Sunday of the month. According to legend, Fernao de Magalhaes-- otherwise known as Ferdinand Magellan-- gave to the newly-baptized queen of Cebu (who had received the name 'Juana') a small statue of the Child Jesus, who had been mesmerized by Magellan's tiny companion. The image was probably carved in Flanders, but sailed with Magellan's motley crew of Spaniards, Portuguese, and Italians-- and yes, even one boy from the Moluccas, Enrique. Magellan would later be killed, and the conquistadores went back to Spain, but the Nino endured, and was worshipped as a powerful rain god by the Cebuanos.

Forty four years later, in 1565, Miguel Lopez de Legaspi would return to Cebu, and there he would chance again upon Magellan's little Child, who by then had become the chief god of the Cebuanos. The natives could no longer remember a time when the Child wasn't theirs and insisted that it had been in Cebu for uncounted generations. The Nino would help bridge the conquerors and the conquered, and to this day, the Child still attracts the veneration of countless millions. The cult of the Santo Nino is probably the most diffused in the Philippines, with different 'avatars' (including at least three in Manila alone) sprouting up in practically every island in the Philippines.

Above is shown the ritual of the 'Hubo', when, after the great Sinulog feast has concluded, the image of the Santo Nino de Cebu would be ceremonially undressed and bathed. Up until recently (the 1960s), this ritual was witnessed only by a handful of people, the Nino's attendants coming mostly from the upper classes of Cebu. The statue would then receive a change of clothes, simpler this time than the elaborate garb it wore on the occasion of its feast. The priest and the congregation chant 'Christe, exaudi nos' as each item of clothing, starting with the Child's crown, is taken off, to the beating of drums. It is a ritual that recalls to mind the simplicity and humility of the Child Jesus, who hid himself as a pagan god in order that the Cebuanos, and subsequently the entire Philippine Islands, would be converted to the Faith.

Apologia for Fanaticism

2012-01-18T12:20:00.000+08:00

"The kiss glows in his heart, but the old man adheres to his idea."
- Ivan to Alyosha, closing the parable of the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov

The mammoth crowds have long since dispersed, and normalcy returned to the streets of Manila, but there can be no denying the sheer size and spectacle of the procession that snaked its way, inch by excruciating inch, along the city's mean streets on January 9th. This year's celebration of the Black Nazarene feast was the most riotous, the longest, and arguably the most well attended, in its entire history, with at least eight million choking the already arterial streets of Manila, and lasting a staggering twenty two hours from start to finish over a five kilometer distance.

Here is popular, populist Christianity at its finest:; the sheer number of people who attended this year's traslacion is only made more impressive by the fact that a terror threat was announced no less than by the Philippine president himself on the eve of the feast, which necessitated the placing of Metro Manila on heightened alert, and the deployment of nearly its entire police force-- around fifteen thousand strong-- to patrol Quiapo district, the cholesterol-choked beating heart of Old Manila. That the procession took place despite (in spite?) of the threat only serves as a testament to the unwavering, iron-clad faith of the Nazarene's devotees-- or, as some would have it, the deplorable, excessive, even idolatrous, fanaticism of the 'great Catholic uwashed.'

To the sanitized Christian observer, especially of the more Evangelical sort, it is easy to conclude that the Nazarene's devotees are sliding down the path of spiritual oblivion: such riotous, frenzied action to even just pull the ropes of the burnt statue's carriage, or better, to actually touch the charred face of the Christ, really does come across as akin to worshipping the Golden Calf. They are wild, desperate, and manic; they believe, perhaps wrongly or out of misplaced piety, that a single touch would wipe away a year's worth of soul-staining filth, transferring their guilt, responsibility, and accountability to the Man of Sorrows on the way to Calvary. At the same time, the venue also serves as a locus for their machismo to be ratified; by doing they manliest of devotions-- walking and kneeling barefoot, risking the possibility of being trampled under the weight of millions of wild-eyed and desperate souls-- they earn the mercy and beneficence of Heaven.

It can be said, then, that the devotion to the Black Nazarene has grown bigger, and definitely wilder, than the Church: it has entered the realm of popular culture and folklore, attracting crowds who otherwise might not give a damn about the institutional Church. Go to Quiapo in any Friday, and you will notice the many Muslim traders outside the church who sell calendars, statues, even CDs, related to the burnt Lord of Manila; and on the feast day itself, many of them would even act as marshals to secure the stupefyingly large crowd who come to the church in hope of a miracle, or even just to give thanks for all the benefits and blessings they have received in the course of their lives. The Nazarene is invoked by the pious and the superstitious, the orthodox and the heretic, and called upon by the shaman and the healer to hex, by the priest and the cofrades to bless.

I have stopped trying to rationalize this kind of faith long ago; in the words of the archbishop of Manila, Luis Antonio Tagle, it takes a certain kind of consciousness-- an affinity with problems of the poor and the suffering, whether socio-economic, psychological, or otherwise-- to truly understand how such muscular faith can be maintained over time. At the same time, it is also an effervescent faith, at least for some, as it does not really translate to metanoia. But perhaps this is the point of such devotion: for how can a whole lifetime of sin and alienation from institutional Christianity be overcome,without first playing to the immediate, spiritual needs of the people? "Feed men, and then ask of them virtue!", declares the Grand Inquisitor to a hostaged God-man in The Brothers Karamazov. This is cathartic faith-- purifying, cleansing, and populist-- which otherwise would have no place in official Christianity. It takes someone who has been mired in the muck of destitution, poverty, or sin to realize how badly in need he is of mercy. The Black Nazarene, as an icon, is one with whom many people of such a situation can relate: it is Christ, carrying the Cross, but at the same time serene, back straight with dignity, sorrowful face gazing heavenward, pleading with the Father. Our faith preaches a God who become man-- but not as a divine king, a conquering hero, or an infinitely wise and transcendent sage-- rather, as an ordinary man, the most ordinary and common of men, even: a carpenter.

Here is a god who is, in the words of that heinous song, 'just a slob like one of us.' The devotees of the Nazarene relate to Him easily because, more than their Creator and eventual Judge, He is also their fellow man. In light of such a profound truth, I would think that such prissy, sanitized concerns regarding 'idolatry' ought to shoved into the outer darkness, where it rightfully belongs: for who else but God Himself can rightfully be counted as the First Idolater? Isn't it also fanatical idolatry for God qua God, to actually become flesh and blood and suffer death? Here is the burning kiss of God to His people. There is no sense, no reason, no end to its contemplation, but the effects linger on, at once muscular and effervescent. And without it, perhaps there can be no freedom at all from that endless cycle of destitution.

Too Cute!

2011-12-31T13:27:00.004+08:00

This is just the cutest thing ever!

Most readers of this blog probably don't know that I absolutely adore children. I find their innocence and innate friendliness just heart-warming. The cute little guy in this vid reminds me so much of my own little cousins, whom I spoil silly whenever I see them. There's nothing really profound to be gleamed from this post, except, perhaps, for the most obvious thing: the simple joy and laughter that kids never fail to bring. I hope the little one is baptized! Ugh, I feel like such a parent.

1/02/2012 - Embedded

Notes on the New Translation and Matters of Worship

2011-12-23T01:23:00.001+08:00

In keeping with principle, I generally decline to comment about matters liturgical; however, I feel compelled to make a short post about this most august of subjects, especially in light of the fact that the new translation of the Roman Missal recently made its debut here in the noble Diocese of Novaliches-- whose Bishop, the Most Reverend Antonio Tobias, is a known stickler for 'correct liturgy.' Let me first state how much of an improvement it was over the monosyllabic monstrosity that was the ICEL translation, of the shelving of which I can only utter a hearty 'Good riddance.'

That said, however, while listening to the post-Mass chatter on the First Sunday of Advent, I failed to notice any sense of lingering excitement from the congregation. I myself was taken by surprise when the Celebrant for that day announced that, henceforth, our Diocese would now be using the new, more dignified translation (and off hand, I must say it is about time the Nicene Creed was recited here, and not just the Apostles' Creed!) of the Missal; but aside from a (slightly) more enthusiastic response from the congregation, I did not note any exclamations at how much more reverent and dignified it was. To be sure, the people have noticed; but the awareness that it was supposed to present Catholic teaching in greater clarity has, to some extent, been lost on the Mass-goers. This has been the case for some weeks now.

Earlier this year, I wrote that much of our liturgical consciousness today has largely been modified to accept the Mass as primarily a textual artifact: a thing read and listened to, in other words, an object that requires literacy to understand. Corollary to this, any sense of "participatio actuosa" would necessarily seem to lie along the lines of information: THIS is what is happening right now; THIS is what the priest is saying; THAT is what happens at this precise moment of the service; THAT is the point when we can leave. In some sense, it would be correct to say that the Missal (or rather, what is in the Missal) is the Mass, insofar as it contains the 'secrets that lie behind the veil', as it were-- only this time, they are printed in red ink and size 8 font between leather covers.

But of course, the Mass, in essence, is so much more than that. Of late I have been thinking that it was the High Mass that served as the great 'epic' of Christian Europe-- it certainly has a lot of the characteristics that make an epic, not limited to, among others, telling the story of a great Hero (Jesus Christ), sonorous and lengthy speeches (the Priest's parts), and surely the overall tone must count for something. Piety leads us to believe that every Mass is essentially the same event as Calvary itself: not a sui generis ceremony arbitrarily made up from disparate elements, but a 'mythical', nay, divine, return to that one event, by which all creation is restored and renewed in God. That the Mass used to be chanted and sung immediately calls to mind that epics, too, were chanted and sung; but that is not really the point of this post, so much as why it was done. I think the simplest answer to to this question was because it was the easiest way to tell the story of the Mass, and its Great Hero. To tell a story, in pre-literate societies, was more than a matter of delineating a sequence of events, and having done that, calling it a biography: rather, it was a more fictive process, in the sense that it also depended on how it was received by the audience. Song, dance, and theatricality in general were crucial ingredients in bringing the story alive, and this was not something lost on the opinion-makers who would later come to influence the development of Christian liturgy(ies).

Again, please bear in mind that I am only an amateur; as such, I should hope that my humble reader, if he spot anything that merits a correction, would notify me. The Protestant reformation and the technological revolutions that came therewith (and also the Counter-Reformation, I guess) essentially turned the liturgy into a battleground. Competing theologies would gradually try to wrest the form of the liturgy from centuries-old Tradition in order to conform it to the tenor of the times, the gradual re-assessment, or so they claim, of Christianity's internal logic. To make a long, complex, convoluted, and impossibly technical story short, the Catholic Counter-Reformation, via the Council of Trent, deigned to keep the liturgy from being 'weighed down' by the accumulated debris of popular piety and whimsy (which zealots argued alienated the faithful from the "True Christ") by redacting it to its simplest, most 'pristine' form: the so-called Tridentine Mass. Skipping ahead some four centuries later, we now have Vatican II, which, not content with the purgation of the Tridentine Mass, sought to further conform it to Apostolic principles, giving rise to the Novus Ordo.

My point in writing this brief excursus is not to theorize about the development of the liturgy, as there are others who write, and will write, about it much more impressively than I can. My point here, rather, is that such textualization of the liturgy represents, at least for this blogger, the closing, if not the collapse, of the Catholic imagination. Because it is a very self-conscious liturgy, it loses that factor which makes liturgy (at least in theory) so efficacious in the first place-- its ruse, its deceit, its identification with the 'founding event' of the religion. The Mass is Calvary, says the Catechism: the same Sacrifice, extended through time and space, albeit in a bloodless manner. The simple truth of the matter is that the success of the mission of Calvary depended on Christ's true nature being concealed from the powers of Hell; His ruse worked, and Hell eventually was harrowed, and made powerless forever by the Cross. In the same way, liturgy would not be able to nourish us if it did not believe what it taught itself to be; if it persisted in being "helpful" to the congregation; if it sought therapists, and not committed actors, to run the show.

A popular tradition usually observed in Good Fridays past in the Philippines was the ceremony of the Descendimento (Descent from the Cross), known as the Pagtanggal sa Krus in the vernacular. I believe I have blogged about it before; but what happens is essentially this: after the Adoration of the Cross has been finished, and the Crucifix-- usually a life-size one, as is traditional in the Philippines-- has been unveiled, the corpus would be taken down from the Cross for the procession of the Sto. Entierro. These statues of Christ usually have thick leather straps that attach the arms to the shoulders, allowing the arms to be held close, as the statue is eventually placed into a glass coffin. The ceremony itself is quite moving; usually, it is the men who take Christ down from the Cross and help secure the statue in the ceremonial casket. They dress in white; some are crowned with flowers, while others are garbed in black, their faces veiled, carrying the symbols of the Passion on long poles for all to see. The effect can be so startling, that such ceremonies have given rise to the false belief that Christ dies for the sins of man every Good Friday.

While that is deplorable, it is nevertheless the reaction that liturgy should inspire in the faithful. The greatest tragedy, I think, of the Catholic Counter Reformation is the suppression of the various rites that have developed in different parts of Europe, in favor of the streamlined, non-mythical Missal of 1570: as such, we have lost many moving para-liturgical ceremonies which have articulated so well the popular genius of the Catholic faithful. The procession of the Palmesel*, once so common and beloved in German Catholicism, is now almost extinct, reduced to a cultural relic that bears little to no resemblance to how the faith is actually lived there now.

Reverence, because it is a concept common to all cultures, is consequently one of those words which mean everything and nothing; which straddle both the Dionysiac and the Apollonian. The genius of the Catholic imagination, as I have said in the past, has always lain in its ability to synthesize elements of terror and grandeur into a cohesive, coherent whole. As such, there is space in our worship for the fantastic and the profound, the terrifying and the numinous; but never for the bland, dull, and boring. Recall that line about vomiting the lukewarm and whatnot. I believe that, if the Church truly wants to revitalize its worship, then it must cease trying to turn the Mass into something that has none of that: let it speak for itself, in all the fiery colors available at its disposal.

For what it's worth, though, I will sleep soundly tonight knowing that I do not have to see that ghastly translation of the Gloria again!

-----------------

*Curiously, this has a parallel in Philippine Catholicism, with the procession of the Humenta-- Christ seated on a donkey, being wheeled to the church by the faithful, while women lay their tapis (a sort of cloth attached to the skirt) on the ground as a royal carpet.

Veronica's Veil

2011-12-20T23:24:00.000+08:00

http://vimeo.com/2357416

Just for fun! I came across this video on YouTube by accident; although I've already seen it a couple of years back, it was entirely by chance that I stumbled upon it today. Fan Death is a Canadian Italo-disco duo who originally started out in New York, but who have been based in Vancouver since 2007; and that is really the extent of what I know about them. Who knew that popular Catholicism (or for that matter, Catholic tradition) could go so well with trippy beats and an even trippier video?

I think I can believe now
In the sin I've done
and that you can absolve me
And everyone
Will be rewarded for
their faith and belief
In the sharing of your word
From the cloth you lay beneath

True Faith!

2011-12-19T11:01:00.003+08:00

A friend shared this photo on Facebook earlier today. It is from a church in Cagayan de Oro, a province in the southern Philippines, which was recently devastated by typhoon Washi (local name Sendong). The storm has so far left almost six hundred dead. That such a tragedy could happen so close to Christmas is indeed deplorable. If one thinks about it, these people have every right to get angry with God; I know I probably would. Instead, what we see is a full church-- packed with people for the nine day Simbang Gabi (Dawn Masses held in honor of the Virgin) despite knee-deep waters. I can only stand back in awe at their faith. It is a quiet, confident trust in the Almighty that does need coddling or prodding, exaltation or ratification. It is simply beautiful to behold, even in the midst if heartbreakibg tragedy. I can only wish that my faith would reach that level someday. Res ipsa loquitur!

Rachmaninoff Cello Sonata Op. 19-3

2011-11-29T23:06:00.000+08:00

Nothing else needs to be said :)

El Beso de Judas

2011-11-29T22:27:00.000+08:00

I was eight years old or thereabouts when someone, probably a distant relative, perhaps a third or fourth cousin of my father, told me the story of Judas. The traitor, quoth the man, was possessed of a singularly evil mind, that gloried in betrayals and schemed cunningly and mercilessly to achieve its own ends. The former apostle, he added, was a pervert of unfathomable magnitude. In fact, he said, every year on Good Friday, in the little town where he hailed from, an effigy of Judas (usually of straw) would be paraded in town, for all the folk to jeer. Stuck to the straw man's waist was a long, dark, and terribly erect penis: a throbbing, nay, pulsing member that symbolized the glee he supposedly derived from his wickedness. Judas would then be hanged. Once, uh, hung, it would be revealed to all that the straw Judas had been strapped with firecrackers from the get go. These crackers are normally composed of packets of gunpowder attached to a very long string, known locally as sinturon ni Hudas (Judas' belt). Someone of great import in the town would then light up the crackers, setting off a huge noise and a tremendous explosion. The fire would consume the straw body of the failed apostle, leaving only behind its giant ebony member.

Interestingly, this small ceremony usually took place in the churchyard, after which someone would hand the wooden member to the priest, or else leave it in the church. Some say this was a relic of the pre-Christian past of the Philippines; still, others say that it was an act instigated by the Aglipayan church (Iglesia Filipina Independiente-- the nationalist Philippine church that was born in the Revolution against Spain) to spite the Roman Catholics, which has subsequently swallowed up the practice.

The title of this post-- "the kiss of Judas"-- comes from an old and pious belief that the treachery and villainy of Judas was of such unspeakable malice that it could not but leave a very physical wound on the cheek of Our Lord.

Virgen del Carmen

2011-10-31T23:19:00.002+08:00

A rather fitting image to contemplate for Novemeber, when the Church commemorates the souls of all the faithful-- and indeed, of all humanity. This painting, entitled La Virgen del Carmen Salvacion de las Almas en el Purgatorio, is by the Peruvian painter Diego Quispe Tito, one of the acknowledged leaders of the Cuzco School of Painting. At present it may be viewed at the Brooklyn Museum in New York.

Requiem aeternam

2011-10-31T22:53:00.002+08:00

It is All Hallows' Eve, and as is custom here, the last day of that month heralds the month of November, and with it, the commemoration of the dead. In olden times, many Filipinos would keep vigil by the tombs of their faithful departed from sunset of All Saints' Day until first light of All Souls' Day, passing the night in solitude and prayer, with nothing but the faint flicker of candlelight to provide warmth.

November is also the month when my paternal grandmother died, at the age of 81, in 2004. She died from a complication in her thyroid gland in addition to other heart ailments, only discovered after her death. I still can't believe that Saturday, the 19th of November, would already mark the seventh year of her passing. Still, I remember one story told to me by my aunt a few days after my grandmother died. In the Philippines, the mourning of loved ones is still an elaborate affair, with its own protocol, superstitions, and traditions. When a loved one dies, it is customary to offer a pasiyam, or nine days of continuous prayers for the soul of the departed. Generally, the Fortieth Day of the beloved's death also marks another series of intense prayers. It is believed that 40 days represents the soul's wandering in Purgatory, and that it was incumbent upon the deceased's relatives to pray for his release from temporal punishment. I'm told that for us Tagalogs, though, the Thirtieth Day of death is also commemorated, especially for females.

In older times, black, silk bands used to be tied at the arms of males to signify mourning, while females went on an extended period of wearing only sable. Nowadays, however, a simple black plaque pinned to the shirt is sufficient in conveying collective grief.

It happened that my then four year old cousin was sitting on my grandmother's bed, looking at some old photos of her in some photo albums that my grandpa had dug up. Having been married for some fifty six years, it was not easy for him at all to accept her passing so quickly; he sank into depression, and my aunt took it upon herself to let Francis sleep in his bed to take his mind away from her. It was a Sunday afternoon, I remember, and grandpa had fallen asleep, leaving Francis to look at the albums on his own.

My aunt was passing by the room to check on my grandpa, when suddenly she said she heard a voice; it was Francis, speaking with his grandfather about something. She shrugged it off, thinking the boy must have been his usual curious self. Still, grandpa needed his rest-- he had gone a full two days without sleep, and badly needed some shuteye. She opened the door and entered, and found Francis staring out the window.

"Francis, come with me for awhile. Lolo needs to rest, he hasn't slept in two days. Go play with your friends out there."

"But mama, I'm not bothering Lolo! He has been asleep for almost one hour now."

"Don't lie to me! If he has been sleeping all this time, then who were you talking to?"

"I don't know! I think our neighbor? But I never saw her before. She looked very happy and smiled at me a lot! She says I've grown up a lot and that I should be a good boy and do well in my studies. She was very sweet and she was dressed in a very long blue skirt."

"Ahh, that's probably Aling Maria. But isn't she still in Lipa? Did this lady introduce herself to you?"

"No, but she looked a lot like Lola! They were about the same height, too, and the same voice!"

My aunt stood there for awhile, not sure what to think. She hesitated for awhile, before speaking again, after some silence. "Siya, go get your rosary. It's almost dark and we haven't even prayed yet. Leave Lolo alone, then come back later when it's time for dinner."

Francis did as he was told, and left the room, but before that he turned one last time to the window, and waved happily at thin air. "Bye bye! It was really nice talking to you!"

Mother and son left my grandfather to sleep in his room; it was almost dark now, and dinner had yet to be cooked. They exited quietly from the master suite, passing by my grandparents' shared study-- my grandmother's, to one corner, stacked neatly with books and theses and newspaper clippings, while my grandfather's key chain collection caught the last few glints of the fading sun. They walked back into the living room, and passed by the piano, where all the photos of our clan had somehow been miraculously gathered. And she paused for a moment, and there in the back, spied an old photo of my grandmother, dressed in a long, blue skirt.

Busy

2011-10-30T23:21:00.001+08:00

I have been very busy lately, with work and some other personal matters. My shift starts in the afternoon and ends late in the evening, and I am still trying to adjust my body clock to these new changes in my routine. I would also like to ask for your prayers regarding some things that have been vexing me of late. It is already the start of the long All Souls' Day weekend here in Manila, so hopefully I will have some more time to update. Thanks.

Fecioara Maica Maria

2011-10-11T12:50:00.000+08:00

This hymn, also known as Agni Parthene in Greek, was composed by Saint Nectarios of Aegina, and is sometimes sung before Vespers. Fecioara Maica Maria is the Romanian version of the hymn.

O Virgin pure, immaculate/ O Lady Theotokos

O Virgin Mother, Queen of all/ and fleece which is all dewy

More radiant than the rays of sun/ and higher than the heavens

Delight of virgin choruses/ superior to Angels.

Much brighter than the firmament/ and purer than the sun's light

More holy than the multitude/ of all the heav'nly armies.

"Banal na Misa"

2011-09-30T23:36:00.001+08:00

There is a peculiar energy to the celebration of the Holy Mass here in the tropics; those who have been to Manila and attended any one of her Catholic churches on a Sunday can attest to the heady mixture of strange noises and even stranger scents: the cacophony of boisterous preaching on the one hand, and the ceaseless honking of horns and vendors hawking their wares on the other, especially in the bigger churches; and who could forget the smell of burnt wax and incense and the tide of bodies sweating in the the naves.

At times, when I was younger, I often found myself paying as much attention to the peripheral noise as I did to the priest's sermon. Here and there, the muffled crying of a baby; perhaps in one corner, an old lady sobbing for her sins; a toddler a few pews ahead is asking his nanny to accompany him to the bathroom. At the entrance of the church, not-very-religious make a quick stop on their knees to pray for luck; someone lights a candle to saint, or to one of the many titles of the Virgin. A bird or two might enter by the window and fly overhead, and on the ground, a cat rests its weary head on a forlorn kneeler.

Herein, perhaps, lies the staying power of religion: we are not so much born into a set of abstract propositions and vague, ivory tower politics as we are into a matrix-- a womb, even-- of sights, smells, and sounds. The religious man is born into a stage, complete with all its actors and props and mise en scene. Miraculously, strangely, luminously, religion somehow brings serenity and order into an otherwise jarring concoction of ill-fitting components. In it is found grace, which meanders from heaven to earth, sacred to profane, and the eternal to the miracle of the present. Only in the Mass, I've found, has the furious screaming of a toddler wanting its Kool Aid taken on a gentleness which could not but speak of God. Faith here is literally at a crossroads, with the church serving as a bridge, straddling the unfathomable chasm between the realm of the invisible and the holy, and the marred and tactile world of the profane. And it is that slow, steady trickling of divine grace from on high that seems to make it so worthwhile.

In the Mass heaven and earth are wed and become one. The screaming baby becomes a mighty, flaming seraph, crying 'Holy, holy, holy!', the worshippers become one with the great cloud of witnesses that sing the glory of God, and the sinner becomes like Dismas, who, in spite of his terrible crimes, was blessed enough to have died at the side of the Lord. What a delightful mystery it is,

To Jesus Crucified

2011-09-30T14:20:00.001+08:00

Lovely tears of lovely eyes--

Why dost thou me so woe?

Sorrowful tears of sorrowful eyes--

Thou breakest my heart in two.

Thou sighest sore;

Thy sorrow is more

Than man's tongue can tell;

Thou singest of sorrow,

Mankind to borrow

Out of the pit of hell.

I proud and keen,

Thou meek and clean

Without woe or wile;

Tho art dear for me,

And I live for thee,

So blessed be thy will.

Thou mother seeth

How thou woe beest,

Therefore she yearns apart;

To her thou speakest,

Her sorrow thou slakest--

Sweet prayer won they heart.

Thy heart is rent,

Thy body is bent

Upon the rood tree;

The tempest is spent,

The devil is schent,

Christ, by the might of thee.

Lovely tears of lovely eyes--

Why dost thou me so woe?

Sorrowful tears of sorrowful eyes--

Thou breakest my heart in two.

- Anonymous, 14th century; found in Bishop (Anglican) George Appleton's collection of prayers

I used to have a laminated copy of this prayer in my photo album. There was an illustration of a boy with a teddy bear kneeling by his bedside, while an angel looks invisibly to the side. I wonder what became of it.

Europe According to the Vatican

2011-09-19T23:48:00.001+08:00

Just a bit of fun-- I haven't turned into a vile, hedonistic, anticlerical , vegan, bohemian atheist, I assure you, dear readers. Still, I believe a little anticlerical (can it even be called that? perhaps more satirical than anything) humor every now and then can be quite good for Catholics. I must say, I found the description for Spain quite amusing; Germany, too :D .

Benedicta tu in mulieribus

2011-09-08T01:05:00.000+08:00

In honor of the birthday of the Mother of God, here is a video of one of my favorite pieces of music, Franz Biebl's Ave Maria, as sung by Chanticleer.

Tota pulchra es, Maria,
et macula originalis non est in te.
Vestimentum tuum candidum quasi nix, et facies tua sicut sol.
Tota pulchra es, Maria,
et macula originalis non est in te.
Tu gloria Jerusalem, tu laetitia Israel, tu honorificentia populi nostri.
Tota pulchra es, Maria.

An Epiphany on Christmas, in August

2011-08-31T23:13:00.000+08:00

Last night, whilst bored out of my wits and my head ringing with an infernal headache, I took to perusing the television, as usual, to catch something--anything-- that would help relieve my boredom. It was ten in the evening, and the storm that lashed over Manila had almost gone, a perfect foil to an otherwise very welcome four day weekend. Spongebob Squarepants was not due for another hour, the History Channel was airing some loony program about ancient aliens, and I had missed the replay of one of my guilty pleasures (don't ask; it's a show on E!).

Perhaps it's simply the monotony of modern life, but I have been feeling very anxious as of late, all the more irritating because I could not exactly pinpoint its root cause-- if there is even one at all. I have not been feeling very religious lately; going to church seems to have taken a rather unpleasant affect for me, and even my prayers seem to have lost their meaning. To top it all off, the last ten days have been excruciatingly bad-- emotionally, spiritually, mentally. It was in such a mood-- festering, as it were, in an unbearable restlessness-- that I plopped myself in front of the TV. And as I've already mentioned, channel after channel was airing the same old tripe, and not exactly the tripe I wanted to see.

I switched to the local channels, mindlessly flipping through them. I was about to switch the television off, when suddenly my ears were pricked by the sounds and words of a familiar song. Familiar, and still so very much out of season. "We Three Kings of Orient are/Bearing gifts we traverse afar/Field and fountain, moor and mountain/Following yonder Star!" Christmas songs in August! What an absurdity. The song was even accompanied by a montage of images whose very purpose were to recall a very White (as in WASP) Christmas: people in sweaters, burning logs, snow glimpsed through windows. I would have laughed if it weren't so strange.

But was it? In my toddler years, the run-up to December was always the most exciting part of the year for me. I was always fanatical about Christmas; I would slash away the dates on my calendar with a red marker and giggle excitedly and proclaim, with a voice sonorous as it was joyful, "Only 77 days to go till Christmas!" In my mind, the roughly one hundred and twenty days from the beginning of September to the end of December were golden, untouchable, and magical, and will always be: they represented the best of what humanity could offer, and hope in its pristine joyfulness. I sat for what seemed like half an hour just listening to the song, so familiar and yet thoroughly new as well, as if I were hearing it for the first time. And suddenly, I felt as if all will be all right. This darkness, too, shall pass-- as it always does, washed away by the warmth and joy of Christmas; by the hope that comes with the newborn babe, lying in the manger; by the cool December air, the taste of oatmeal raisin cookies, and yes, pretending to be WASPs for a day (or two) and dressing up in Ralph Lauren sweaters and putting red dots on our noses. The song finally ended, and all I could think of was how beautiful it was-- and how the days were going to be a little more exciting, now that September has come knocking on threshold.

It is the 31st of August, and yes, Christmas is coming. I feel it in the air, smell it in the kitchen, hear it in the malls, and taste it in my bones. The golden days are coming, and the muck of the past and all its mistakes and sins and secret lusts would be swept away. Tomorrow is the 1st of September; just one more sleep, and it will be Christmas again.

Cirio de Nazare

2011-08-25T02:37:00.002+08:00

Here's a video (in Portuguese) on one of Brazil's most popular religious festivals, the Cirio de Nazare. It is held annually on the second Sunday of October in the city of Belem, in the state of Para; it is a procession in honor of Our Lady, with close to two million participants. The story goes that, some three hundred years ago, a woodsman named Placido Jose de Souza found a small image of the Blessed Virgin floating in the Murucutu creek. Being a good Catholic, he fishes it out of the water and makes an altar for it in his humble home. But every night, as he went to sleep, the statue would disappear from his home and mysteriously reappear on the site where it was found. He interpreted this as a sign that the Virgin wanted a church built in her honor, and thus de Souza began construction on a small chapel.

Over the years, countless miracles have been attributed to the Virgin of Nazareth. In gratitude to her intercession, the people of Belem honor her with a great feast and procession, lasting several hours usually. The image of the Virgin is housed in a gilded carriage, attached to which are two immense lengths of rope (the cirio), which men compete to have the honor of pulling. They go barefoot as a sign of humility. Wikipedia has a full description of the ceremonies attached to the feast.

Ars Gratia Artis(ts)-- Brief Thoughts on the CCP Scandal

2011-08-17T18:34:00.000+08:00

Yes, I know the title is a really bad pun.

The talk of the town in Manila is, without doubt, the controversial 'Poleteismo' exhibit at the Cultural Center of the Philippines-- an exhibit that has gained particular notoriety, for its sacrilegious depictions of Our Lord. The artist responsible for the exhibit, one Mideo Cruz, has received no small amount of death threats and even a summons to a Senate inquiry; and just two weeks ago, some Catholics marched to the CCP and pulled down some of the more offensive pieces of 'art' and set them on fire. As I've said, the exhibit was considered extremely blasphemous: among some of the pieces are a crucifix with a giant, erect, wooden penis; an image of Our Lord with another wooden penis glued to its forehead; a statue of Christ the King with Mickey Mouse ears and cherry red lips; a crucifix draped with a used condom; and others too numerous to mention. The exhibit was closed on August 9th, but not without controversy, as many in the art community of Manila would like it restored, for the sake of "freedom of expression."

As much as I'd like to be fair and gave Mideo Cruz even a semblance of a benefit of the doubt, I really cannot. For what it's worth, the exhibit is profoundly mediocre (Mideo[cre], as his critics would say)-- Cruz says he wants to dissect religion and its gradual degradation in the context of a neoliberal economy, but fails considerably. What he gives the viewer, on the other hand, is nothing more than another tired attempt at being "shocking" and "edgy"; there is no substance in his art, in short, save for a poor attempt at finding an excuse for pissing off the Church. I have long concluded that much of modern art has really nothing to do with making something beautiful, but is really more concerned with creating a potential market for buyers. Art is now done for the sake of the artists-- the establishment of a cult personality, the perpetuation of his name, etc. These artists see themselves as twenty first century jesters-- fools who speak the truth-- but have neither the wit nor subtlety needed to do the job. If I am sounding a bit reactionary at this point, it is because this incident demonstrates the deep-rooted elitism inherent in the Philippine art scene. Cruz is not just poking mischief at the symbols of the Catholic religion, he is also ridiculing the many thousands of tortured souls who find strength, hope, and salvation in these symbols. The image of the Crucified is also the image, the archetype even, of the ordinary Filipino, languishing as he is in the muck of inexorable poverty. It is not just a matter of sacrilege, but can also be read as an attack on the very humanity of these people, who have entrusted everything to God.

At present it seems that Cruz and his followers are at the receiving end of a very strong backlash by militarized Catholics. But why should anyone be surprised? Too many artists today think that art consists in being crudely provocative, but run for cover at the first signs of criticism--or worse, public outrage. But hey, you reap what you sow. Perhaps it's a telling sign that they should focus more on creating art rather than persist in the delusion that they are modern day messiahs.

Still Busy

2011-08-15T12:44:00.001+08:00

Black Light Dinner Party "Older Together" from dreambear on Vimeo.

... Well, probably more uninspired, down in the dumps, and pessimistic than "busy". I also have a lot of books to read/finish reading, which are more immensely stirring than the internet, or so I'd like to believe. I am just so confused about a lot of things. Here is a nice little song to start the week with, though.

Apotheosis of Saint Ignatius

2011-07-31T21:52:00.000+08:00

We owe a lot of the movements of the Catholic Counter Reformation to the Jesuits, who seized the challenge of winning back Protestant heretics to God with much fervor and unmatched zeal. They harnessed the power of the emotions, playing up Baroque theatricality to overwhelm the senses, in an effort to convey, if only an impression, of the stupefying grandeur of God and of His Church. In a sense, the Jesuits, it seems, were the first modern order in the Catholic Church, in that it was they who almost single-handedly changed the way religion was done (a matter which, I think, rightfully deserves a post of its own-- but sometime in the future).

Today being the Feast of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, I thought I would feature Andrea Pozzo's magnificent Apotheosis of Saint Ignatius, a fresco of gigantic proportions which dominates the nave ceiling of the Chiesa San Ignazio in Roma. Pozzo, an Italian Jesuit brother, had a prodigious talent for harnessing the sheer, unmatched power of emotion, which he employs to a tremendous decree in this fresco. Throughout his life, Pozzo would decorate many churches built by the Jesuits, including Il Gesu, the 'Mother Church' of the Society, in addition to others in Austria, as well as painting the portrait of Cosimo de Medici.

Pozzo's Apotheosis draws much of its splendor in creating the illusion of the church's ceiling 'receding' into infinity, at the center of which is Christ Himself, shown greeting Saint Ignatius.

Busy

2011-07-31T07:58:00.000+08:00

My apologies to those who still follow this blog for the paucity of updates these past few days; I have been quite occupied with a lot of things, some more so than others. Chief amongst these concerns is my ongoing job hunt, which has taken on a snail's pace lately. I assure you that this is not chiefly my fault, as, for some unfortunate circumstance, the HR departments of the various firms to which I've applied have also exacerbated the process. Second, I am dealing with some personal issues-- nothing too serious, to be sure, mostly dealing with (it seems to me) a long delayed burnout with religious matters. Perhaps I've rebelled too late, as I've always done in the past; but I just can't focus on these things as much as before. Oh, and I am just really, really pissed off at too many things for my own good. The weather has been pretty drab in these parts ever since June came in, which might have something to do with it; but mostly, I find that I am angry at the overbearing monotony of this long wait, and the restlessness it has caused me. But as I've said-- these are not really matters to whine about.

On a totally unrelated note, here is a photo of the Holy Trinity as Three Persons depicted side by side; of obviously Latin American provenance, although this form of depicting the Godhead is not, was not, limited to that continent. It is the work of the Peruvian painter Gaspar Miguel de Berrio.

No me mueve, O Dios . . .

2011-07-21T01:00:00.001+08:00

Soneto a Cristo Crucificado (Sonnet to Christ Crucified)

No me mueve, mi Dios, para quererte
el cielo que me tienes prometido,
ni me mueve el infierno tan temido
para dejar por eso de ofenderte.

Tú me mueves, Señor, muéveme el verte
clavado en una cruz y escarnecido,
muéveme ver tu cuerpo tan herido,
muévenme tus afrentas y tu muerte.

Muéveme, en fin, tu amor, y en tal manera,
que aunque no hubiera cielo, yo te amara,
y aunque no hubiera infierno, te temiera.

No me tienes que dar porque te quiera,
pues aunque lo que espero no esperara,
lo mismo que te quiero te quisiera.

An English translation of this anonymous Spanish poem, by Jose Leo OS

I am not moved, my God, to love You
by the heaven that You have promised me
and I am not moved either by hell so feared
as the reason to stop offending You.

You move me, my Lord, it moves me to see You
nailed to a cross and your flesh destroyed,
what moves me is to see your body so injured,
what moves me is your suffering and your death.

What moves me, finally, is your love, and in such way,
that even if there was no heaven, I would love You,
and even if there was no hell, I would fear You.

You don't have to give me for me to love You,
so even if what I hope for I did not hope,
the same that I love You, I would love You.

The Thunder, Perfect Mind

2011-07-15T11:54:00.003+08:00

Found this on Tumblr earlier today. From the Nag Hammadi Library, and translated by George W. McRae. A buit long, but beautiful. It goes without saying that I don't view this as canon, nor do I hold to Gnostic beliefs; but in case such is needed, there you have it!

I was sent forth from the power,
and I have come to those who reflect upon me,
and I have been found among those who seek after me.
Look upon me, you who reflect upon me,
and you hearers, hear me.
You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves.
And do not banish me from your sight.
And do not make your voice hate me, nor your hearing.
Do not be ignorant of me anywhere or any time. Be on your guard!
Do not be ignorant of me.
For I am the first and the last.
I am the honored one and the scorned one.
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the wife and the virgin.
I am and the daughter.
I am the members of my mother.
I am the barren one
and many are her sons.
I am she whose wedding is great,
and I have not taken a husband.
I am the midwife and she who does not bear.
I am the solace of my labor pains.
I am the bride and the bridegroom,
and it is my husband who begot me.
I am the mother of my father
and the sister of my husband
and he is my offspring.
I am the slave of him who prepared me.
I am the ruler of my offspring.
But he is the one who begot me before the time on a birthday.
And he is my offspring in (due) time,
and my power is from him.
I am the staff of his power in his youth,
and he is the rod of my old age.
And whatever he wills happens to me.
I am the silence that is incomprehensible
and the idea whose remembrance is frequent.
I am the voice whose sound is manifold
and the word whose appearance is multiple.
I am the utterance of my name.
Why, you who hate me, do you love me,
and hate those who love me?
You who deny me, confess me,
and you who confess me, deny me.
You who tell the truth about me, lie about me,
and you who have lied about me, tell the truth about me.
You who know me, be ignorant of me,
and those who have not known me, let them know me.
For I am knowledge and ignorance.
I am shame and boldness.
I am shameless; I am ashamed.
I am strength and I am fear.
I am war and peace.
Give heed to me.
I am the one who is disgraced and the great one.
Give heed to my poverty and my wealth.
Do not be arrogant to me when I am cast out upon the earth,
and you will find me in those that are to come.
And do not look upon me on the dung-heap
nor go and leave me cast out,
and you will find me in the kingdoms.
And do not look upon me when I am cast out among those who
are disgraced and in the least places,
nor laugh at me.
And do not cast me out among those who are slain in violence.
But I, I am compassionate and I am cruel.
Be on your guard!
Do not hate my obedience
and do not love my self-control.
In my weakness, do not forsake me,
and do not be afraid of my power.
For why do you despise my fear
and curse my pride?
But I am she who exists in all fears
and strength in trembling.
I am she who is weak,
and I am well in a pleasant place.
I am senseless and I am wise.
Why have you hated me in your counsels?
For I shall be silent among those who are silent,
and I shall appear and speak,
Why then have you hated me, you Greeks?
Because I am a barbarian among the barbarians?
For I am the wisdom of the Greeks
and the knowledge of the barbarians.
I am the judgement of the Greeks and of the barbarians.
I am the one whose image is great in Egypt
and the one who has no image among the barbarians.
I am the one who has been hated everywhere
and who has been loved everywhere.
I am the one whom they call Life,
and you have called Death.
I am the one whom they call Law,
and you have called Lawlessness.
I am the one whom you have pursued,
and I am the one whom you have seized.
I am the one whom you have scattered,
and you have gathered me together.
I am the one before whom you have been ashamed,
and you have been shameless to me.
I am she who does not keep festival,
and I am she whose festivals are many.
I, I am godless,
and I am the one whose God is great.
I am the one whom you have reflected upon,
and you have scorned me.
I am unlearned,
and they learn from me.
I am the one that you have despised,
and you reflect upon me.
I am the one whom you have hidden from,
and you appear to me.
But whenever you hide yourselves,
I myself will appear.
For whenever you appear,
I myself will hide from you.
Those who have [...] to it [...] senselessly [...].
Take me [... understanding] from grief.
and take me to yourselves from understanding and grief.
And take me to yourselves from places that are ugly and in ruin,
and rob from those which are good even though in ugliness.
Out of shame, take me to yourselves shamelessly;
and out of shamelessness and shame,
upbraid my members in yourselves.
And come forward to me, you who know me
and you who know my members,
and establish the great ones among the small first creatures.
Come forward to childhood,
and do not despise it because it is small and it is little.
And do not turn away greatnesses in some parts from the smallnesses,
for the smallnesses are known from the greatnesses.
Why do you curse me and honor me?
You have wounded and you have had mercy.
Do not separate me from the first ones whom you have known.
And do not cast anyone out nor turn anyone away
[...] turn you away and [... know] him not.
[...].
What is mine [...].
I know the first ones and those after them know me.
But I am the mind of [...] and the rest of [...].
I am the knowledge of my inquiry,
and the finding of those who seek after me,
and the command of those who ask of me,
and the power of the powers in my knowledge
of the angels, who have been sent at my word,
and of gods in their seasons by my counsel,
and of spirits of every man who exists with me,
and of women who dwell within me.
I am the one who is honored, and who is praised,
and who is despised scornfully.
I am peace,
and war has come because of me.
And I am an alien and a citizen.
I am the substance and the one who has no substance.
Those who are without association with me are ignorant of me,
and those who are in my substance are the ones who know me.
Those who are close to me have been ignorant of me,
and those who are far away from me are the ones who have known me.
On the day when I am close to you, you are far away from me,
and on the day when I am far away from you, I am close to you.
[I am ...] within.
[I am ...] of the natures.
I am [...] of the creation of the spirits.
[...] request of the souls.
I am control and the uncontrollable.
I am the union and the dissolution.
I am the abiding and I am the dissolution.
I am the one below,
and they come up to me.
I am the judgment and the acquittal.
I, I am sinless,
and the root of sin derives from me.
I am lust in (outward) appearance,
and interior self-control exists within me.
I am the hearing which is attainable to everyone
and the speech which cannot be grasped.
I am a mute who does not speak,
and great is my multitude of words.
Hear me in gentleness, and learn of me in roughness.
I am she who cries out,
and I am cast forth upon the face of the earth.
I prepare the bread and my mind within.
I am the knowledge of my name.
I am the one who cries out,
and I listen.
I appear and [...] walk in [...] seal of my [...].
I am [...] the defense [...].
I am the one who is called Truth
and iniquity [...].
You honor me [...] and you whisper against me.
You who are vanquished, judge them (who vanquish you)
before they give judgment against you,
because the judge and partiality exist in you.
If you are condemned by this one, who will acquit you?
Or, if you are acquitted by him, who will be able to detain you?
For what is inside of you is what is outside of you,
and the one who fashions you on the outside
is the one who shaped the inside of you.
And what you see outside of you, you see inside of you;
it is visible and it is your garment.
Hear me, you hearers
and learn of my words, you who know me.
I am the hearing that is attainable to everything;
I am the speech that cannot be grasped.
I am the name of the sound
and the sound of the name.
I am the sign of the letter
and the designation of the division.
And I [...].
(3 lines missing)
[...] light [...].
[...] hearers [...] to you
[...] the great power.
And [...] will not move the name.
[...] to the one who created me.
And I will speak his name.
Look then at his words
and all the writings which have been completed.
Give heed then, you hearers
and you also, the angels and those who have been sent,
and you spirits who have arisen from the dead.
For I am the one who alone exists,
and I have no one who will judge me.
For many are the pleasant forms which exist in numerous sins,
and incontinencies,
and disgraceful passions,
and fleeting pleasures,
which (men) embrace until they become sober
and go up to their resting place.
And they will find me there,
and they will live,
and they will not die again.

Detail: The Deposition by Rogier van der Weyden

2011-06-30T23:36:00.002+08:00

God bless Google Earth and the staff of Madrid's Museo del Prado, for the tremendous undertaking of photographing some of that museum's most iconic art pieces in ultra high resolution. Rogier van der Weyden's Deposition has always fascinated me, and seeing it at such a close angle really impresses upon the viewer a sense of the master's superb artistry. Wikipedia Commons has made these photos available for public consumption; but be warned, some of them are nearly 100 MB in size.

Nostalgia, or something like it...

2011-06-27T01:41:00.001+08:00

(...but with emphasis on the "something like it" part)

A few weeks ago I found myself at Mass in a church I'd never been to. Well, not exactly--more like a church I had not been to in years, more than a decade in fact. Before the Mass started I noticed the choir was practicing some songs, mostly schmaltzy, poppish, sentimental tunes all too common in Catholic liturgies today. And lo, what should I hear, but that perennial favorite in Manila churches during the 1990s-- Don Moen's Give Thanks! I have to confess, most of the churches I attended in my childhood had (to be blunt) crappy liturgies-- girls dressed in green sacks with yellow tambourines dancing in the altar, homilies about "the bad old days", basically the works. But the Don Moen song was almost always sung in all of the churches we attended. So it was with a mixture of nostalgia, and a little indigestion, that I listened to it being sung in a Catholic church once more.

Off hand, though, I must say: doesn't it sound suspiciously like this song from the Pet Shop Boys?

Lost in Brussels

2011-06-23T11:26:00.002+08:00

Brussels, I was told, was a city one either loved or hated; the room for compromise was small, if not non-existent, and since there was nothing to see in there anyway (unlike Liege, Louvain, or Brugge), it was not really worth seeing. Still, I found the place charming, mixing the most splendid urban decrepitude with some of the most gorgeous architecture I've seen yet (I am quite partial to the Brabantine Gothic). When, on the second day of our brief stay in Brussels, it was clear that the rest of the family were more keen on sleeping and eating, I decided to tour the city-- or at least a section of it-- on foot. It should be easy; my hotel was right across the Bruxelles-Midi station anyway, but I didn't want to waste my money, so I took the more romantic option.

It was an aimless forty five minutes of walking that followed next; I passed through some predominantly Turkish neighborhoods, where hundreds of Muslim men congregated outside sidewalk cafes. There were very little women, I noticed, and they were all staring at me-- I was the only non-Turk walking the streets then, which must have struck them as odd. It wasn't long before the towering, magnificent spire of the Brussels Town Hall reared itself to my right-- a glimmering spike of pearl and silver it looked to me, crowned by a golden statue of St. Michael trampling the Devil underneath. Finally, I found myself in the middle of Brussels' spectacular Grand Place. When I got there, a function was about to begin at the Town Hall, evidenced by a large number of men and women dressed to the nines waiting outside the premises. The cops were also there to secure the place, as were the last wave of tourists for the day, taking photo after photo of every architectural detail imaginable.

Soon I found myself on the main road again. This time, a different landmark caught my eye-- it was the Rainbow Flag that now asserted itself, and I realized that I was in the middle (or perhaps the threshold?) of Brussels' gay district. Curiously, I spied a Catholic Church just ahead of me; and more curious, it stood within walking distance of a gay bar. I tried to enter the church, but it was almost half past nine by the time I got there, so it was already locked. Ah well, I thought. Then a priest of the Armenian Church passed by, accompanied by a family of four; or rather, he accompanied the family of four on the way to their nameless destination. They noticed me holding my camera, and the priest smiled at me-- which I naturally intuited as him saying "Yes, young man, I do not mind having my picture taken by a curious tourist such as yourself."

I felt a tap on my shoulder, and when I looked around, I saw a huge man, probably 6'2 or 6'3 and 250lbs, shod in the tightest of shirts I'd ever seen. Are you a photographer? he said. His voice was deep and gravelly and had a musical quality to it; like a pirate's, who sang opera in the shower. Yes, well not really, I like to take pictures, but I'm not a photographer. Oh? he said. Do you not have a license? I don't, I said, it's more of a hobby than anything. He gave me a grin, as if to say that he understood what I meant. But you are a Catholic? I mean, why are you taking photos of the church? Yes, I answered, I'm a Catholic, and I was just at the Cathedral earlier, I loved it, it was gorgeous, I took so many photos. Then the man's face twisted into an inscrutable smile. I'm a Catholic too he said. Well, I was, but I gave up that shit a long time ago. He stressed the word shit as if it were the key to understanding the universe, as if in it were sublimized all the wisdom, folly, and cosmic mystery of all the ages that have been and were yet to be. Come with me, you look tired! he said. Being the adventurous sort, and being in an especially adventurous mood that night, I acquiesced, and followed the rotund gentleman.

It didn't take long, since as I soon found out, he was seated at the gay bar near the church. Sensing my apprehension, he said, Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything. It's just food. We got to his table, where a bottle of red wine was waiting, a glass for himself, and some napkins neatly piled to one side. So, he said. Then a pause. Yes? So I'm trying to understand, what is a young man like you doing with the Church? I smiled sheepishly and fumbled for a semblance of an answer. Well you see... It's like this... And then... The overarching theme of my rambling answer was that: a) I am a product of history, and that history, as it stands, was largely shaped by the Church; b) I owe a lot of my education to the Church; c) the Church has always made sense to me (a crappy answer); and d) that, no matter how I tried, I can't escape the Church. The man licked his lips for a moment, trying to find an answer. Finally, he spoke: I was born in the southern Netherlands, he said, and in university I was part of the Student Catholic Action. I discerned a vocation to the priesthood and lasted two years in the seminary. Then, as if he realized it wasn't in chronological order, he added: When I was younger, my family would always visit the Black Christ of Maastricht in the summer. We also prayed the rosary every night as a family. My uncle was a priest, he said. You are a Pee-noy, right?

I replied: in our family, there are only a handful of priests, and they're all second or more distant cousins of our branch of the family. Yes, I am from the Philippines. From the glorious and dirty city of Manila. There is a Black Christ in the Netherlands too? In Manila, we have an image of Christ called the Black Nazarene. Every year, the procession attracts millions of the damned and the desperate. A nanosecond of a lull followed; then I asked him, what made you leave the Church? He heaved a huge sigh, and said, Why, the fact that I'm gay of course! He said it matter-of-factly and followed it with a huge, booming laugh. A pirate's laugh, who probably had a taste for Jacques Brel. I'm waiting for my boyfriend, he said. How old are you? I'm twenty two, I answered. You are? But my dear boy, you look like you just crawled out (he emphasized this) of your nineteenth year! Well thanks, I said. My boyfriend is nineteen! But he's taller than you! Then as if the cosmos conspired to prove to me that this gentleman did indeed have a boyfriend, his phone rang as he was saying all this. His ringtone was a Kylie Minogue song.

He's coming in a bit. Am I keeping you? You should meet him, just shake his hand, he's a Catholic too, an altar boy. Intriguing, I said, and no, you're not keeping me. I'm just enjoying the city by myself. Then I asked him: an altar boy? Really? Deep down, though, I really wanted to ask what he was doing with a barely legal piece of jailbait. The gentleman answered: indeed he is. He's Italian you see, French Italian to be precise. And where is he coming from? From Benediction, at another church, with his grandmother. A lull, then he asked me: What are you doing in Brussels, anyway? I answered that I was on a family vacation, but that they decided to stay in the hotel because they were too tired. I rarely travel with family, he said, because they never want to go to the places I want. They can be quite burdensome! he said with a chuckle. Like the Church? I said. A deep laugh, a slap on the table; Exactly like the Church! I said: "In the past we had the Church, which meant, we had each other." Oh? And where is that from? Is that the new SCA slogan? I answered that it was from a Martin Scorcese movie, The Departed. Scorcese is that bastard who never won an Oscar, right? That's right, but he finally won for that movie. Ah, that's good. They keep screwing with that guy. He's a lapsed Catholic too, I said, but he followed by saying that he was not so much as lapsed as "willfully removed." Puzzled, I asked him if he was an excommunicate; he said, Relax, no queen in a fancy dress can make me leave the Church if he wanted. I left on my own accord.

He drank some of the wine, offered some more to me (to which I declined), and then proceeded with his story. The Black Christ of Maastricht, he said, was from Palestine; a nobleman who had fought in the Crusades, realizing he had not brought a gift for his youngest daughter, gave her a nut that had fallen among his belongings in the Holy Land. The grateful daughter planted it in the ground, and it eventually blossomed into a strong, sturdy tree. Then one night, a storm came; a bolt of lightning flashed down from Heaven and struck the tree, much to her sadness. But when the dust had settled, the daughter revealed that she had seen, in the middle of the tree, an image of the Crucified Lord. That was how the devotion started, he said; my family had been devotees for three generations before me, he said. For seven hundred years, that image of Christ has been revered, he said. I sat there listening to him recount, like a wide eyed child, this fascinating story. Then his eyes shifted, and he exclaimed aloud. The boyfriend had arrived.

What a vision, he whispered to me. The young eromenos was the type of boy every gay in my school went gaga over; tall (but not as tall as the Dutch man, who would be of average height in the Netherlands), sturdily built, but not overly muscular, lithe, nimble, with a square jaw, a dark tan, a swimmer's ass and legs. Notice the package? He said, with a wink. I tried not to get too embarrassed by his comments. He stood up and greeted the boy with a peck on the cheek, and introduced me to him. He's a fucking crazy Catholic too! he said, and the boy smiled at me, and asked if I had been to the Vatican. I answered that it was not in our itinerary this time, but maybe next year we might visit. I've been to Mass at St. Peter's countless times. The Holy Father is such an inspiring figure! His accent, I noticed, had a slight, almost imperceptible Midwest twang to it. We talked for one more hour, before I realized it was getting late, and that I had to go somewhere with the family in the morning. We said our goodbyes, and the boyfriend took a picture of us. Goodbye, they said, it was nice meeting you. I bade them goodbye and turned around, but not before seeing the older gentleman stroke the younger one's chin before biting it.

By the time I got back to Bruxelles Midi it was already dark. A Ukranian man offered to cross the street with me. We crossed the street together, and parted at the other end. I came back to Park Inn, exhausted, gratified, and a little puzzled; I drank a beer-- the only time I drank alcohol in my entire stay in Europe, believe it or not, and fell asleep.

Original Sin(s)

2011-06-22T12:10:00.001+08:00

I was three years old in 1992, when my parents took me to the theme park for the first time. As a child, I remember being absolutely scared of loud noises and clowns and mascots, and so to assuage my fears, my mother would buy me either toys or candy. That night, I saw a Batman action figure being sold in one of the flea markets in the complex; it was one of those cheap, China-made knock offs, made of poorly cut PVC and with a bad paint job. It even came with a cape, albeit one that was poorly stitched. I looked longingly at the toy, but I realized I had no money; so I waited for the shopkeeper to turn around, before grabbing it and running towards my mom. "Mommy, Mommy, I want this!" I screamed loudly and ran as fast as I could; but when I reached her, she gave me such a slap on the cheeks. "Idiot! Do you want to be thought of as a thief? Go back there and return that thing now!" I did as I was told, but she still ended up buying it for me. Batman lasted a few nights before his legs snapped off and his neck bent permanently to one side, his cape torn off by too much play.

Around a year later, I was at the grocery with the family. Boy that I was, I was a natural nuisance to everyone, and as a result, received a rather severe scolding from my dad that day. No candies for you, he said, no trip to the toy store or visits to your cousin or bedtime stories with your aunt. You've been a bad boy and need to be punished. He said this just as I found a tube of Spearmint Mentos, and as I was about to put it in the shopping cart. In the early nineties, paying for one's groceries, especially in Manila, seemed to take forever; and for what seemed like an hour, we waited in line. And what should appear next to me but a whole shelf of Spearmint Mentos-- tubes and tubes of them? Again, I waited for their eyes to linger elsewhere; and at the age of four, I stole something for the first time. That was a Sunday night, and on Monday morning my parents would hie off to work, which meant I could eat my candies guilt, and punishment, free. Just after lunch, I asked our Yaya to fetch my jeans from yesterday; there was something I had to see, I said. When she returned, she was followed my by grandmother and at least two aunts. Why do you have candy in your pocket? I don't know! Maybe it fell? No one believed me, of course, thankfully. I was duly and dutifully hit with a wooden spatula.

It used to be the custom in our family for us children to take off our parents' shoes after returning home from work. My father had grown up with it, and being a stickler for tradition, decided to pass on the tradition to us. City life, however, had no room for such archaic manners. One time, instead of doing as I was told, I instead shouted at my dad to take off his own shoes. He did, but for some reason, I had the sudden urge to piss, and I ended up pissing in his shoes. As if that weren't enough, though, I ended up... hitting the soup on the table. Because of that, I ended up spending the night locked outside the house. It still puzzles me why I did that. Thankfully a drunk uncle had come home in the nick of time (i.e., half past twelve; we were living in a family compound then) and allowed me to sleep in his room.

In 1996, I was the most popular boy in my school. I skipped classes and was always at the playground, but still ended up getting good grades, much to the consternation of my teachers. One day I was with Joseph, Jordan, and Joven in the playground, and we were throwing sticks at each other. I think we were trying to see which of us was the strongest, which of us could throw it farthest; and so, we made a bet, whoever can throw the most number of sticks over the wall would win a prize. We did just that; and when it was my turn, I summoned all the power in my biceps and threw the damn stick well across the wall; there was a splash, a noise like falling kitchenware, and a shout. I was doing my victory dance when all of a sudden, a booming voice thundered overhead, launching into a stream of curses and expletives far too complex for me feeble seven year old mind to comprehend. "P----- I-- mong h-------k kang bata ka! Tinamaan mo anak ko sa mata, p-----a!" (More or less: "You m----rf-----g s--t of a child! You hit my child in the eye, you j--k off!") I ran off to my teacher and cried for the rest of the day.

Sometimes I wonder why these are the sins I remember the most. I still don't know why, but they just won't let me go.

Adios, Reina del Cielo!

2011-05-31T22:43:00.000+08:00

May is the month of Mary, and in the Philippines May is always a month of fervent activity and prayer. In Antipolo, pilgrims from all across the land make their way on foot, to venerate the image of Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage. The pilgrimage is an ancient one, attended by both pleb and patrician; it was, and still is, customary to walk all the way to that hallowed shrine, and during Holy Week the number of pilgrims can swell up to nearly a million, with hundreds of thousands arriving on Good Friday alone. The Santacruzan is another popular tradition, which is a pageant commemorating the finding of the True Cross by St. Helena; she is often escorted by a young boy in a faux ermine cape and crown, Constantine. This is a tradition is still observed religiously in every part of the country, though variations in local practice do occur, some more... "Creative" than others (prompting the Archbishop of Manila, HE Cardinal Rosales, to state outright that transvestites were not to play the role of St. Helena under any condition).

That being said, I most associate May with a hymn, sung in farewell to the Blessed Virgin. Since the month has already come to a close, I thought I would post this video. The "despedida" is a hymn common to practically all of the former colonies of the Spanish Empire, which speaks volumes of the depths of Marian devotion extant therein. MY favorite despedida is the one in honor of Nuestra Senora de la Santissimo Rosario de la Naval, which is posted above-- once called the "gran senora" of the Philippines, no doubt for the extravagance of her jewels and the great role she is said to have played in securing the Philippines from the Dutch and the British-- and therefore, keeping her Catholic to this day. From the video:

The Despedida a la Virgen, said Nick Joaquin, was probably the greatest religious song of Old Manila, and was composed by a certain P. Hernandez centuries ago.

Recently arranged by the late Maestro Lucio D. San Pedro, it was sung in the old days by the Tiples de Santo Domingo in public only for 10 consecutive days in a year, that is during the Novenario and the Fiesta of La Naval de Manila in October. Their rendition of this haunting song is unmatched to this very day...

One unique feature when the Despedida is sung, when the tiples come to the part "dame tu bendición, Madre del Salvador!" the entire congregation kneels as the main celebrant incenses the Virgin.. It brings to mind the practice in the old days when the Santo Rosario is triumphantly brought out in procession on the streets of Intramuros, the people would kneel down in homage to La Gran Señora de Filipinas and stand up only until her cortege has passed by them.

In the old days too, when the coro de tiple reaches the last lines "madre amorosa prenda de amor..." the heavy curtains on the central niche of the main retablo in the old Santo Domingo would roll down to cover the Santo Rosario from view until the next day.. Until recently, this practice was continued in the new Santo Domingo..

For the Dominican missionaries however, it was more than just a religious song for the novena in October. It was the song of farewell that they sing to the Virgin before they leave for the missions, of which a number of them are never to return alive or would die as martyrs for the Faith.

"permiteme que vuelva tus plantas a besar.." - the Despedida was a prayer of entrusting, a prayer of hope, and a prayer of love, a fervent wish to be able to return again to her throne and to kiss her feet..

So guys, especially those devoted to the Santo Rosario, learn to this song by heart or at least try to understand its meaning. So that when we sing it to her this October, whether from memory or holding and reading our copies, we can sing it with our heart. The Despedida a la Virgen is the most meaningful and sweetest song of La Naval tradition..

We are indeed lucky that the move then to have it translated and sung in Tagalog did not pushed through lest we lose the poetry and the lyrical quality that goes with the song which is not achieve when a translation of a song is made.. You may get the tune right but the original thought suffers in the process..

As Providence would have it, we are still singing the same song to the Santo Rosario in the same way that San Francisco Fernández de Capillas and his companion martyrs, San Lorenzo Ruiz de Manila and his companion mayrtrs, San Vicente Liem de la Paz and his companion martyrs sang it in front of the very same image, yes, in front of the Santo Rosario, inside the Church of Santo Domingo, then in Intramuros!

Real Flesh Indeed

2011-05-30T01:24:00.006+08:00

Recently I had the chance to visit the university town of Freiburg, in Badem-Wurrtemburg, Germany, where I visited its beautiful cathedral and walked for a bit in the same campus where Heidegger, Karl Rahner, and Husserl once brooded. It's a charming city, much nearer to Switzerland than I had anticipated (it's the next train stop after Basel), and the air was very fresh, and the weather, sunny. I was told beforehand that Freiburg was once-- and still is-- a bastion of Catholic conservatism. Indeed, at the Freiburg Hauptbanhof, what should I find, but a rather large poster promoting the devotion to the Divine Mercy? The cathedral portals were all also inscribed with the traditional Epiphany blessing (20+C+M+B+11), as were most of the shops in and around the main plaza.

A rather curious implement caught my eye whilst at the cathedral, pictured above. To the right of the sanctuary, in a little alcove near the northern portal, I saw an effigy of the Dead Christ, cast in stone, being mourned by His Mother and Saint John (or so I seem to remember-- I wasn't able to observe at length). Attached to the chest of the stone Christ was a latch, with a handle, which presumably opened up to a small hole. My step uncle Bernhard, who had been touring us that afternoon, and himself a lapsed Catholic, told us that, apparently, it was the practice long ago to repose the Blessed Sacrament inside the chest of the Dead Christ on Good Friday. However, before I continue, a disclaimer: I confess that my German is very poor and probably closer to non-existent, and Uncle Bernhard's English is also at the subsistence level. Be that as it may, I do remember him mentioning the word "sacrament" and gesturing, in pantomime, at the chest of the Dead Christ. This was for me, something totally new, and fascinating: for the symbolism of such an act seems to suggest, if very crudely, an identification of the Sacrament with the dead body of Christ.

As I have mentioned before in the past, I am no theologian, and I am content to leave all theological wrangling to theologians-- that is to say, the "real ones" who actually have a prayer life and are not just academic mercenaries. But permit me this small reflection, since it has been percolating in my head for quite some time now. In Catholic school I was always taught the basics about the Holy Eucharist-- that it is the Real Presence of Christ, that, in receiving Holy Communion, one received the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord in their fullness, undiminished and unmitigated by the deficiencies of the sacramental matter (that is to say, God condescends to transform bread and wine into His presence, no matter how unworthy they may seem). The great miracle of transubstantiation is also its greatest puzzle: that God would debase Himself to come under the guise of such insignificant material objects; and therefore, the Holy Eucharist was to be worthy of the highest adoration from the People of God.

I confess that, when I first heard of the word "transubstantiation", I was both utterly amazed, and a bit repulsed, by what it meant. In hindsight I realize now that this stemmed from an initial confoundment as to what the term "substance" really meant. My initial thought as a sixth grade student was that it pertained, first of all, to a stratum of chemical change: in the Mass, bread and wine become chemically composed of the divinity of Christ, and so sensate an understanding led me to think further of this chemical change as essentially a transmutation of the properties of the sacramental material into the very flesh of the God-Man. I reasoned that, since God was Almighty anyway, He had a way of "replenishing" His flesh whenever it was diminished in Holy Communion; and later, that no diminution can even take place, because God qua God simply cannot be diminished, on account of His being All-powerful. Any first year philosophy student can immediately tell you, though, that substance and flesh, or even the quality of "fleshliness", are not equivalent. But of course, in everyday parlance, the word substance loses a lot of its philosophical baggage; for substance is not so much a material, quantifiable (i.e., measurable, rationalizable) quality so much as a "definition" for lack of a better term. I always get a laugh when society papers in the Philippines uses the phrase woman or man "of substance" as a discreet euphemism for what is undoubtedly a portly society don or doyenne.

This, of course, seems to be lost on many Catholics: our popular pieties and theologies about the Holy Eucharist seem to be defined, primarily, by a very sensate understanding of it. The Miracle of Lanciano illustrates this perfectly: a priest whose faith in the Mystery of Faith is at an all-time low is flabbergasted, when, as he raises the Host after the Consecration, the bread he has previously held in his hands is suddenly changed into a bleeding piece of raw meat: Corpus et Sanguis Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, in the flesh. The flesh is myocardium, which is to say, of the heart, and the blood type AA-, which is to say, exceedingly rare, and kingly. For Protestants, this tradition of a very sensate, very tactile understanding of the Holy Eucharist seems to confirm their worst suspicions about Catholics, about how we are pagan God-eaters who would rather see their Savior stuck and bleeding on the Cross in every Mass.

The late scholar of comparative mythology, Joseph Campbell, once compared the occult to an underlying unity the persists, perdures, underneath the veil of time: that, beneath the seeming progression of history, there is an image of a sort of universal truth that exists in a mythological plane, wherein all the threads of time are seemingly held. Catholics, of course, traditionally believed that the Mass was not just a representation of Calvary: to be at Mass is literally to be at Calvary itself, at the foot of the Cross, weeping with the holy women of Jerusalem and all the angels in the celestial choirs. Thus, it would seem as if the logical conclusion of such an understanding of the Mass would naturally result in a conception of the Holy Eucharist as the very meat of the God-Man's flesh, and reception of it as the consumption of real meat indeed. Like an ancient Chieftain being readied for the ritual consumption of his tribe, I would venture to say that there might have been an understanding of the Crucifixion as some sort of elaborate "cooking ritual"-- to tenderize, as it were, the holy flesh.

I daresay that I am already venturing into unfamiliar territory here, but at this point I would also like to add that Ourd Lord's language in the Gospel of John doesn't help in the debate, either. Not for naught did He scandalize His Jewish audience when He said: "My flesh is meat indeed, My blood is drink indeed"-- for certainly the Jews would have immediately hearkened back to their strict dietary laws, and where I could only imagine that such a notion would have been so taboo and too insalubrious to contemplate, that even a mention of it warranted no attention. Again, I am no expert on the subject, but I do remember one priest saying at Mass once, that the Greek verb used for that section of the Johannine Gospel ("Unless you eat my flesh...") implied a blunt, chewing action-- not a merely spiritual consumption of the Word of God, but an actual rending and tearing of something physical-- something substantial, in other words.

While theophagia has been a feature of numberless mythologies in history, I am almost certain that Christianity was the first to have devoted so much time and energy in clarifying its teaching(s) on the Eucharist. We receive the fullness of God-- corpus, sanguis, animus, et divinitas-- under the appearance of bread and wine, and yet we also do not receive the infinity of His fullness (and therefore, not God per se, for God, being eternal and absolute, is simply inexhaustible)-- for God, after all, is eternal, all-powerful, and not diminishable: it is a corollary of His absolute simplicity that He is also irreducible. At the same time, we--our senses-- understand the bread and wine to be the symbol of His flesh, inasmuch as we recognize the presence of the divine under the purely sensate stratum. But to speak of the bread and wine post Consecration as still symbols would also be a mistake, as these are no longer bread and wine, despite what they taste, smell, or look like: the symbol has itself become its sense and reference. There is something almost asymptotic about the matter and form, wherein both tend towards the same point, but never really completely meet-- at least, in the infinite sense. The language of the Church, however, is adamant in equating what we receive in Holy Communion with Jesus Christ Himself, and it suffices for me to believe that; no point, after all, deciphering the mechanics of miracles.

I always like to thank that, as the priest raises the Host, and is it meets, eye to eye, as it were, with the image of the Crucified, a literal fusion of horizons occurs: the veil of time is rent, and the foundation of the world--its past, present, and future-- is revealed in the singular event of the killing of the God-Man by the hands of His own creation. Time is dissolved and subsumed in the age of mythology that Campbell describes. The bread becomes the image of the Crucified-- or rather, the fiction of bread and wine, as well as the walls and altars of the church-- are revealed to be "participants" in an age that has never ended-- but which, on the contrary, has always gone on, hidden, and untrammeled by profane reality. The bread has never been bread; and in the consecration, it is revealed to be what it has always been, what it is, and what it will always be: the Body of Christ, and the entirety of the Christ-event: from the Annunciation, to His Birth, right down to His Passion and Death-- and yes, the Resurrection, too. Mayhap one can even throw in the Ascension, for certainly, that event was a pledge of the glory that awaits man, and the Second Coming, where the triumph of goodness would reach its final, irrevocable completion-- and in our lives, this is understood as a total transformation into the image of Christ, Crucified and Risen-- and therefore Divine. If, perhaps, I am approaching ambiguity at this point, then I should smile, since, as everyone knows, confoundment is the beginning of wisdom (no doubt, one would be so confounded when faced with his Maker, or even the mysteries and wonders of his Maker).

As with any mystery pertaining to the holy, the Holy Eucharist is an especially perplexing one to ponder. But perhaps the proper attitude to the holy is not so much one of scrutiny, categorization, and codification. Rather, I am starting to believe that to "mingle" with the holy is to realize the utter falsehood of the sensate and the immediate: that the primary task of the servant of the gods is to sense what cannot be sensed, and to immerse themselves in it completely. It is to be subsumed in the world of gods and monsters, heroes and conquerors, where bread is bread, even though it has never really been bread, and there was never "bread" to begin with.

Blessed are they who believe but have not seen - John 20:29

Quick Update

2011-05-15T04:39:00.000+08:00

So I am in Luxembourg at the moment, on a totally unplanned leg of a long-delayed summer vacation. My aunt, who had been living in Germany for some years now, decided to surprise us with a trip here; and who were we to refuse? It is an enchanted place, mountainous, romantic, and yes, full of nuns who go out in public wearing veils. In many ways, I guess it represents the 'primordial' icon I've always had of Europe-- that of an almost rural tranquility colliding head on with the comforts of the modern world. As I type, I'm enjoying a pint of Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie (price is the same as in Manila, unfortunately) and listening to some German grandmothers argue about their next trek. And since this is a Youth Hostel, one can never be rid of the presence of half-drunk backpackers, who number less than they did in Zurich, at least.

A very strange realization hit me on the way to Luxembourg from Germany. I don't know why or how, but during the almost six hour train ride from Stuttgart to Luxembourg (with a few added delays, including a missed train), I came to the conclusion that life had become... too convenient. Perhaps "convenience" isn't even the right word, so much as "too friendly" or "too accessible." This is not to say, of course, that I am one to decry the various developments, technological or otherwise (but with special regard to the former), that have sprung up in the last few decades. Certainly, no one wants to come back to a time when traveling was limited to the very rich, or when intercontinental transportation cost more than an arm and a leg and took forever to accomplish; only that there has come to be a very "Cartesian" mentality that we now apply to everything. For better or worse, the world has lost much of its menace; one no longer fears to travel at night, in fear of the elemental terrors that lurk behind every shadow; and we are no longer so obliged to honor the coming of the day by worshipping at the crack of dawn (an innovation for which I am at once annoyed, and also extremely grateful).

I am not saying this to sound like some overzealous travel "purist"; nor am I saying it to purposefully come off as a grouchy, unsatisfiable lout. I think, though, that I have come onto a crossroads of sorts, marked by that staggering moment of realization that the world-- my world-- has inevitably changed. Again, I am not sure how or even why, but all I know is that with it comes an admission of the finality of these changes. It is almost as if I am finding myself saying, "This is you; deal with it." If I am being ambiguous at this point, then perhaps I am moving closer to what I want to say, which, to be honest, still appears to my imagination in fragments, and not as an easily manipulable whole. I will admit, though, that in the last couple of weeks, perhaps stretching even back to March, I've been struggling a lot with a certain personal issue that could fundamentally alter many things I've always come to hold dear. But now isn't really the time (yet) to talk about that. Perhaps in the future.

Anyway, this post was not really meant to be of special importance. It is really beautiful outside, even at this time, (which is why it took me almost three hours to type this!), and the people are all tall, blond, and gorgeous (a fact which my mom keeps reminding my sister-- "When you get married, get married to a German, so you'll have tall and beautiful and possibly blond kids and improve our race"-- I dunno what to think anymore). So I shall sign off, and hie away to socialize and maybe even flirt a little.

La Muerte!

2011-05-02T13:55:00.000+08:00

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten that it's already Easter. Rejoice! He is truly risen and has conquered death. But the following images were just too intriguing for me to let them pass unnoticed. Traditionally, the processions of Good Friday in the Philippines are heralded by a statue of Saint Peter. The reasoning for this is simple: since Saint Peter is the keeper of the Keys of Heaven, it follows that he, too, is in charge of unlocking the pearly gates in order for the celestial procession to "pass through" earth. With Saint Peter is his infamous cock, standing on a pillar, who heralds the ominous coming of the day when "God died." In some regions, though, it is Death that leads the procession. Nowhere does this practice seem to be more prevalent than in the Bicol region, one of the most Catholic provinces in the country.

Unlike Santa Muerte in Mexico, the image of Death isn't really known by any specific name. Some call him La Muerte, San La Muerte, or even simply as Kamatayan, the Filipino word for death. Kamatayan is male, unlike his female Mexican counterpart. He is dressed almost like a bishop, with a black mitre, a cope, and he even holds his scythe much like a bishop holds his crozier. Since Kamatayan is no saint, his carriage is very minimally decorated (at least ideally); in some cases, he is simply borne on the back of a flatbed truck or a similar vehicle. Kamatayan processes as part of the Good Friday rites to demonstrate the seeming invincibility of Christ's defeat, of the futility of His mission. Like a specter which haunts the damned and the guilty, he is a reminder of man's sinfulness and articulates, quite well, the terror of that day when Christ died. Most of the pictures I've selected are from the Bicol region, specifically from the province of Camarines Norte. By far the most spectacular one I've seen, though, is the one from Carcar in Cebu: its skill and hands and feet were all carved from ivory, and the statue is dressed much like a king, complete with a golden crown. You can read more about the Carcar Kamatayan here: Langyaw.com

Good Friday in Lucban, Quezon

2011-04-29T01:27:00.002+08:00

One of the most unique Good Friday rituals in the Philippines that I've yet come across is the procession of the Santo Entierro of Lucban, Quezon. Since part of my family hails from Lucban, I thought it would be a great opportunity to further research some of the traditions still prevalent there. Like the Quiapo Nazarene of Manila, Lucbanins believe that the image of the Dead Christ holds miraculous powers; it is processed around the streets of Lucban and accompanied mostly by men, who vie against one another to be able to touch its bier. The procession usually begins after the Adoration of the Cross has concluded, and almost always finishes just before midnight. The video above is one of the best, if not the best, documentations of this ritual yet. It starts in the morning, when the priest gives his blessing to the maroon-clad escorts of the Dead Christ. On their shoulders they carry the ropes with which they will pull the bier around the city. Then follows a procession of men in white, a carryover from the folkloric past of Lucban. There is a term for them that I cannot recall at the moment; it is their task to remove the Crucified from His Cross and lay Him in state. The ritual of the pagtanggal sa Krus was just one of the many elaborate and often dizzying Holy Week practices of the Philippines that were either willfully forgotten or suppressed in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council, casualties of "relevant" and "participatory" liturgy. While it has not disappeared completely, the number of parishes in which this ritual takes place has been vastly attenuated. Notable examples, aside from Lucban, are Pakil in Laguna, Baliuag in Bulacan, San Jose (home of the famous "bamboo organ") in Las Pinas, and some others which escape my memory. The procession of the bier is accompanied by the haunting sound of bamboo clappers, usually three feet long, and numbering in the dozens.

The devotion to the Senor del Santo Entierro is vastly more popular with men than it is with women; since women practically have the rest of the year to be pious and devoted, the men seize the disturbance of Good Friday as a sort of heightened opportunity to display their fortitude, strength, and determination. Men who rarely, if ever, go to church are most active on this day: whether they be out in the fields scarring and whipping their backs, or else risking the crush of tens of thousands of people in an effort to kiss or touch the image of dead God on His way to the grave.

Some Photos from Holy Week

2011-04-24T22:01:00.001+08:00

I thought I would share some photos from Holy Week here. Mostly since I am really quite bored at the moment, and because I think it would be nice to show a little glimpse of how Holy Week is done here-- aside from the usual fare of flagellants and people who want to be crucified.

This is a picture of the altar in my dad's cousin's house for the pabasa. By most standards, this is actually quite plain; but then again, this was taken a good ten minutes after it had ended, and most of the ornaments had already been removed. There was actually a pretty big image of the Santo Nino behind the crucifix, but it was needed elsewhere and had to be removed.

The high altar of the parish in Taysan, Batangas, where our pabasa was held. This was still very early in the day (around 10am) and when we got there the priest and his altar boys were still practicing for the Mass of the Last Supper. I was quite delighted when he suddenly launched into a 15 minute discourse on liturgical orthopraxy (!!!). It was also my first time to see a crotalus (wooden clapper) in any church in the Philippines. Here, the children are cleaning the sanctuary after the priest dismissed them.

Despite what you think, this station was actually playing a dramatized version of the Passion of Christ. It lasted almost three hours.

This lovely altar of repose is from the Shrine of Jesus the Way, the Truth, and the Life, which is a walking distance from the rather aptly named Mall of Asia. It was only my second time to visit this church on Maundy Thursday; my youngest cousin was baptized here in 2003, and ever since then I've always wanted to visit it (I was sick that day and wasn't able to attend).

Photos from Baclaran church. There was an area outside the church where petitioners can burn candles in the hopes of having their prayers answered. It was already 11.30 in the evening when we finished our vigil there, so we had to call it quits; the next church in our itinerary was simply too far away.

Notes on Holy Week

2011-04-24T14:39:00.000+08:00

In a traditionally Catholic country like the Philippines, one simply can't help but be absorbed in the rhythms of the life of the Church. Every Holy Week, the normally ear-splitting boroughs and streets of Manila grind to an astonishing silence: the streets become empty, neighborhoods are deserted, and a noonday silence hangs like a pall over all life. Come Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, all shops are closed: no malls, no supermarkets, no trains, no cinemas, and no rowdy nightlife. The old ways reassert themselves once more, and everyone takes on a somber demeanor: laughing, shouting, smiling, and even bathing is discouraged. The Lord has entered into His Passion; the mysteries of our faith are being established.

To many, such actions seem perhaps a little overdone. Many Filipinos, especially in the rural areas, seem to think of Lent as a time for spectacle: and thus, in a number of provinces, penitents line the streets, faces covered, whipping their backs in atonement for their sins. The flagellation reaches a fever pitch on Good Friday, where it is believed that blood must be shed; many of these men cut their backs with pieces of cut glass, which they then whip with bamboo flails, walking on their knees in the dust and falling flat upon their faces at the appointed times. As someone who went to Catholic school all my life, I was always taught that such actions were to be frowned upon rather than encouraged; Lent, after all, was an occasion for spiritual perfection moreso than such horrendous displays of piety-- if piety it can even be called. To be transformed into the very image of Christ, then, was essentially a spiritual process, born about by the mortification of the will, the mind, and the heart-- and not by making oneself resemble the gruesome, bloodied corpus affixed to the crucifix. In this light, I often had to ask myself if the various Lenten observances we have always observed as a family, then, were merely elaborately designed theater productions, all "sound and fury, signifying nothing"?

For me, the high point of Holy Week was always Maundy Thursday. In the mornings we would usually drive to Batangas, where my dad grew up, in order to attend the pabasa ng pasyon. The pasyon, basically, is the narrative of the Passion of Our Lord as told in verse; it is chanted, usually by a group who have undertaken a vow (panata) to do so, and usually lasts ten to twelve hours; my father tells me, though, that the pabasa lasted a lot longer in his youth, since the tones used were more elaborate. This year we left home at 4.30 in the morning, and after a two hour drive, we were surprised to learn that the passion was already more than halfway through.I met some cousins from Toronto I never knew I had, who were visiting for the summer; then, after the obligatory prayers had been said, it was time for lunch. My aunt, however, had taken a vow which she had made and kept since her teenage years, not to eat anything but bread and water for the entire duration of Holy Week; and while the oppressive heat and humidity were taking their toll on her, no one rebuked her for it.

In the afternoon, we drove back to Manila to fetch the rest of the family for the customary visita iglesia. This tradition involved visiting seven churches to keep vigil with the Lord in repose, a response to the challenge He poses in the Gospel: Non potuistis vigilare una hora Mecum? We were only able to visit six churches, but I would like to focus on just two: the Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene (Quiapo church), and the National Shrine of Our Mother of Perpetual Help (Baclaran church). There is hardly any Filipino who hasn't heard of either church: both have seemingly taken on mythic proportions, and have woven themselves firmly into the folklore of the people. Quiapo is the seat of the Black Nazarene, a miraculous, charred statue of Christ sent to the Philippines from Mexico in the 1600s, and is widely considered the premiere church in Asia. It is a mecca for mystics and sinners alike, orthodox and heretic, pagan and zealot. Baclaran, meanwhile, is home to the much revered icon of the Mother of Perpetual Help; it is likewise a refuge for the weak and the downtrodden, those people whom many would consider the dregs of society. A joke even goes that Baclaran is a haunt for prostitutes, who walk on bended knee to the icon of Our Lady in the hopes of snagging a good catch for the night.

I have already written about both churches in the past, but entering them for the first time that Maundy Thursday night was nothing short of a revelation for me. Quiapo and Baclaran, I think, are the only churches in the entire Philippines where a veiled hermana with arms spread crosswise can walk on her knees next to a transvestite in a little black dress, and not tear each other's hair apart.I say this not so much as to jest, but to state an honest observation. Entering the home of the Black Nazarene for the first time was an experience that I could honestly describe as nothing short of numinous, perhaps even cosmic. Seeing the much revered statue shrouded in violet cloth, while all around worshippers milled and thronged in devoutly cacophonous adoration, while in the background the melismatic tones of the pasyon were resounding, was like seeing the entirety of the Christ-event unfold before my very eyes. Here are the people of God, in all the searing nakedness of their sin, whom He has won with His blood. And in that moment, one understands, albeit as if in a flash of intuition, why He died, and why He had to die so horribly-- so as to blot out the equally horrendous accumulation of filth that we acquire through our sin. To be a priest in Quiapo is serious business: it is said that a bucket is a necessity in all of the confessionals, because the sins being confessed there have a very real, very nauseating effect. Likewise, Baclaran simply assaulted the senses with a barrage of sights and sensations seemingly so diametrically opposed, but which strangely complement each other so well. The sidewalks that led to the church were lined with dozens of homeless men-- even an entire family-- sleeping on the cold asphalt. Behind us was a group of kids, who were probably not yet out of high school, cursing loudly as they made their way to the church. "Let's find a whore after we visit the church", said one, much to the consternation of the more devout pilgrims.

I suppose this is what most people who do Lent "right" point to when they say that our Lenten observances are more concerned with the externalization of what is rightfully an internal process, or the erection of a stage or facade of piety. Then again, I am always suspicious of people who think of religion as a mere, albeit "magical" means to attaining respectability. In another post, I mentioned that a fundamental ingredient to conversion is the acceptance-- however unwillingly or painfully-- of the cosmos of religion. But this is not a cosmos devoid of creation, but one suffused with life, even a deafening and crushing surplus of it. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the universe of the religious man is one in which there is no differentiation of the spiritual and the material; hence, religion is a matter of "finding one's place" in the grand scheme of things. In Catholicism, awareness of one's sinfulness is the first step to redemption. There is something about the explicitly visceral nature of the flagellants' vow that conveys that awareness so much more effectively than any re-reading of the Catechism ever can, regardless of the motivations of the penitents. One can gripe about the seasonal or "put-on" nature of these people all he can, and point to the fact that there has been no fundamental change in the way one lives his life; but inconsistencies such as these have always been the norm for humanity, ever since Adam and Eve ate from the tree. It would be nothing short of delusional to think that the process of self-perfection can be reduced into a simple project, more akin to self-help than any metaphysical transformation in Christ.

Sometimes, it is necessary to be sinful in order to know just exactly what we are being saved from. I suppose this is a realization that has come too late, or one which I often conveniently forget in the place of a self-imposed, militantly rigoristic insistence on angelic perfection. Were all the history of the world an elaborately and meticulously designed stage by God, then perhaps we would be permitted to think that it is our place to "act" in such a way that would make the supreme and the only worthwhile Deus ex machina of Christ's Paschal Mystery shine out in all its dread majesty and splendor. The world is a stage; those who would seek to dismantle its artifices unwittingly also work to reduce the poetry and romance of His Passion into a simple matter of ethics and precepts. I can think of no sadder future for Christianity than one that delights in the cold, sterile light of merely respectable living.

The Rain in Spain...

2011-04-23T01:56:00.002+08:00

(I am out of town at the moment, but I thought I would share this news here on this blog, since I found it quite sad. My own Holy Week activities were also curtailed, though certainly not willfully. Ah well. Here's to next year's processions. I guess my suspicions were warranted when I couldn't find new videos of the Esperanza de Macarena the whole day on YouTube. From The Telegraph.)

Rain in Spain puts dampener on Easter parades
Seville's famous Good Friday processions were cancelled for the first time since the Spanish Civil War, bringing bitter disappointment to women allowed to participate in the religious event for the first time ever.
By Fiona Govan, Madrid 5:34PM BST 22 Apr 2011

Torrential rain meant it was the first time in almost 80 years that all of the six night-time processions – the highlight of Easter Week – were cancelled. The last time was due to political unrest in the lead up to the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War.
Known as "La Madruga", the processions running from midnight until dawn on Good Friday are organised by religious brotherhoods within the southwestern city and attract tens of thousands of onlookers who line the streets to watch the solemn parades.
Spanish state television showed scenes of people crying after the processions were cancelled at the very last minute. The heavy downpours had made the streets too treacherous, organisers said.
"The weather is getting worse. The weather front has hit us directly. There is more water on the way," said Adolfo Vela, the head of one of the brotherhoods.
The processions, which date back to medieval times, feature hooded penitents marching through the cobbled streets of the Andalusian capital bearing huge candles.

What's wrong with this?

2011-04-14T10:21:00.005+08:00

(In which I rant uncharacteristically about the Church)

Like anywhere else in the world, McDonald's in the Philippines serves really bad food-- their burgers are dry and usually bland, and the only thing I order from them is their fries. They usually come up with good commercials, though. The video I posted above is their latest TV commercial-- actually, the premise is not really exclusive to the Philippines, as I also found this Indian version on YouTube. At the start of the commercial, the girl asks the boy "Am I your girlfriend already?" To which he replies, more or less "No way! I'm not yet ready for that. And girlfriends are quite demanding; they like this, they like that, I don't know what they like." The girl answers "But all I want are McDonald's fries..." After which they head to the fast food to buy it. Anyway, the commercial was removed by McDonald's a few days ago because the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines somehow deemed it an attack on the traditional values of the country.

People say all the time that the institutional power of the Church in the Philippines is waning, and I didn't really believe that until now. To focus so much attention on this commercial, I think, was just abso-f-----g-lutely ridiculous and inane on the CBCP's part. There is nothing malicious at all about that commercial! It's two kids buying cheap french fries for crying out loud. Heck, if the CBCP intends to go on a commercial purge, they should also have McDonald's destroy every last trace of this commercial, which, if you ask me (though I won't really answer that), equates fast food with the age-old practice of Simbang Gabi. Instead of worrying about pop culture-- it has always been perverted in some sense, and will always be-- how about fussing over the Liturgy for once? Too many parishes in Metro Manila have priests who still have no idea it's Lent and still keep giving the cheesiest, most barf-inducing homilies day in and day out. Liturgical music is almost universally horrid, attendance at Sunday Masses are dwindling, children are being taught idiocy in Catholic schools, and to top it all off, the Church is losing members to the many sects that now crowd our religious landscape. Wake up, Excellencies; to say that, because the Church in this country has always been respected in the past, does NOT mean it will continue to be deferred to in the future. The youth of today are beyond your control and are not so obliged anymore to keep the Faith out of a sense of tradition. Secularism IS creeping in but to continue using old tactics against a demographic that have taken the postmodern to heart is, I think, a losing battle.

Whether the CBCP likes it or not, cafeteria Catholics will end up ruling the country one day. I am not really so surprised anymore though, since I believe that has always been the case. Heck, even in the 1700s Church and State in the Philippines always clashed, and more violently at that: a governor general once had the Archbishop of Manila imprisoned after an incredible stand off in his private chapel (where he held the Blessed Sacrament close to his heart, but, when fatigue had finally taken its course, dropped it on the ground), and on the flip side, a friar-instigated mob even assassinated the governor general Fernando Bustamante y Bustillo and his son. Nowadays though the primary weapon of the secularists is discourse; and if the leaders of the Church don't realize that soon enough, it will lose a lot more of the respect and the prestige it holds to.

John Paul II in Manila, 1981

2011-04-08T15:20:00.000+08:00

My dad was telling me about his experience of attending the Mass for the Beatification of San Lorenzo Ruiz, the first Filipino saint, in Manila last night. It was 1981 and Pope John Paul II was in Manila to meet with the youth of the country. On paper, Martial Law had already ended, but in practice, the Marcoses still lorded it over the country, their generals and cronies getting fat on their abuses of the people. It was the first beatification ceremony outside the Vatican; hence, the Mass was naturally packed with people.

"I was a senior at UST (University of Santo Tomas) then, which hosted the Pope during his visit. Since I knew some people who were part of the committee that dealt with the Pope's visit, I was able to get tickets for his final Mass quite early. I went with my four sisters who were all in Manila at the time.

There must have been a mix-up with the tickets, since when we came to our designated seats, we found that we were seated together with the religious! Directly in front of us were so many nuns and priests, and when we took our seats, we could hear some of them groaning. We were the only laypersons seated there, and one of my sisters even forget her veil. So there we were, being eyed by some grumpy nuns and all we could do was look down. I heard one of them say that "These must be one of those new groups who've taken up the Jesuit spirituality", etc. One of the nuns in front turned to face us. I think she was curious why we were seated there, so she asked, "What congregation do you belong to?" "Oh, Sister, we belong to the Congregacion del Hermanas de San Antonio (Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Anthony-- His name was Antonio); I am the priest assigned to them. I was wearing a barong, so they thought that I had chosen to wear plainclothes instead of clericals. Later, another nun, this time from behind us, asked what congregation my sisters were from. I answered that they belonged to the Hijas del Salvador (Daughters of the Savior; Salvador is my grandfather's name). Thankfully, after that, the questions stopped.

We also saw Imelda Marcos make her way near the altar, where she had requested a specially commissioned prie-dieu for her use. In true Imelda fashion, she had come attired all in black; she had a gigantic, diamond-studded peineta clipped to her head (a sort of comb that held the mantilla, popular in Spain), but which looked more like a tiara, covered with a gigantic black veil. I think the rumor went around that she asked her hairdresser to make her hair resemble more closely the hair of the Blessed Virgin. Anyway, she arrived escorted by a bemedalled general holding a golden umbrella to shield her from the sun; it was rumored she wanted to receive communion from the Pope, and was even practicing her kneeling and sobbing. But I think the Pope was too exhausted, so he just gave communion to the altar party."

It is interesting to note that His Holiness came to the Philippines, not at the invitation of the Government (and in fact, the Papal Nuncio at the time was said to have canceled a lot of planned activities with the Marcoses), but of the youth of the nation. I must say, Mrs. Marcos is one ostentatious hag, too.

Some Notes on Falling in Love

2011-04-07T00:02:00.001+08:00

While cleaning my room earlier, I found an old diary I kept in my freshman year at the university. It was an old moleskine, my first one, but only the first fourteen or so pages have any writing in them. Be kind; I was seventeen when I wrote this, so do expect it to sound a little emo-ey, as odious as it is.

6/21/06

I am keeping a diary for the first time in what seems like many years. Why? Well, since I am in college already I thought it would be nice to record my thoughts for once. Would be nice to reminisce on these first few days of independence after my graduation. I sat through my first classes yesterday-- two straight sessions of English. Well, I am quite excited about it: I've never seen so many people enthusiastic for class! Unlike High School, where everyone just slept. For literature yesterday, our homework was to write an essay about love--I know, right? So soon?-- to be submitted next Monday.

I keep thinking about the subject in my head, and as a result, I lost a bit of sleep over it: not good, since my first class starts at 7:30 a.m. The first time I really fell in love with someone was just a little over one year ago. It didn't end well. Not at all. I expected myself to cry, but didn't. Maybe because it was just an emotion? Then again, emotions... just play on our other emotions. Maybe I wasn't really in love? Maybe I just knew from the start that it was not meant to be? But what does it mean to fall in love, in the first place? One of the girls in my class who sits next to me told me that it was impossible to go through life without falling in love even once. I told her that I did, but also that I accepted it so quickly. She told me that I was still immature [but in a kind manner of course]. That I haven't felt how beautifully sad it was to have had and lost, and haven't had the courage yet to escape from myself. Or something like that.

I think I will attack my essay from that angle. I think, to have fallen in love, is in the end to be thankful to that someone-- for completing me, for giving me hope, and also, and most importantly I think, for destroying me. Thank you for building me up, and for tearing me down; I am now whole. I now know what it means to have everything, and lose it all in a blinding flash. I know, it doesn't really make sense. But who says falling in love even made sense in the first place? Someday, I hope I will be given by God the grace to understand all of these terribly confusing things.

* * *

Five years later, I think the line that resonates most with my present self is: "Thank you for destroying me", which I underlined above. Not the kind of brutal, industrial, even clinical destruction so prevalent in society today; but rather, more like the destruction of a beautiful glass sculpture, which cannot help but radiate, refract, and reflect the light which hits it.

First Mass in the Philippines

2011-04-03T00:45:00.001+08:00

On 31 March 1521, the very first Mass was celebrated in the Philippines. By a remarkable coincidence, I spent much of that day in Manila's old district, Intramuros, where the four hundred year old church of San Agustin, the sole survivor of four centuries of earthquakes, other natural disasters, and a most lamentable war (the Second World War reduced Manila to a pitiable cinder, the second most devastated city in all the theaters of that War). Although the exact place of the Mass is still hotly debated today, what is true, even after the gulf of four hundred and ninety years, is that it set the course for the almost ineluctable Christianization of these islands. The photo above is a detail of the main portal of the Manila Cathedral, rebuilt in 1958 after being destroyed in the war, along with many other great churches. I'll try to share some of the other photos I shot, soon.

A One Trick Pony

2011-03-27T07:50:00.000+08:00

I am writing this under an appreciable mental strain, brought about by a surplus of graduation-induced rejoicing; at the moment, it is 6.15 in the morning, and the sun has barely risen; outside, the cock crows have just started, and the birdsong is still light and cheerful. There is something very spiritual about the scene; the half-grey light slowly being overwhelmed by the sun's warm, golden rays, with naught but the witness of a few animals outside to hail the coming of the dawn. Inklings to the spiritual life tend, as of late, to manifest themselves to me in such silences; but there was a time, too, when I associated silence with the deathly cold of the tomb.

The environment I grew up in can best be described as apocalyptic. Though I was born and raised Catholic, the earliest memories I have of religion involved the conversion of the maternal side of my family into Born Again Protestantism. Weekly lunches would often be transformed into lengthy debates about Biblical things; I remember the word "Actually" being bandied about a lot, and henceforth, I would associate that word with a kind of blessed smugness-- as if he who used that word were already "in the know", as it were. There too was the image of an aunt, huddled and kneeling near her closet, eyes firmly shut in mystical contemplation of the hidden truths of God; she was fasting, she said. And lastly, there is the image of yet another aunt, falling down on the floor after being "slain in the Spirit" by a frenetic pastor, then afterwards bursting in tears, where in joy or as a result of a concussion, I do not know. By the time I was in first grade, almost all of my aunts on my mother's side had completed the transition to Protestantism; today, I often find it funny how their political convictions run the gamut from almost libertarian, to batshit crazy conspiracy theories; yet they still somehow insist that theirs is a "universal faith".

The first experience I could truly call "spiritual" happened just after my third birthday. One of the neighbors had given me a plastic bag full of "tex"-- trading cards, usually with images of anime characters or Marvel/DC superheroes, measuring some 3 by 2 inches. The game was simple: you placed a card on the thumb, and then you flick it to the ground. The one whose tex landed face up would win the other's cards. I received probably twenty five of them in total, all of them still crisp and not worn along the edges. Most of them had prints from the X-Men Animated Series (a wonderful cartoon, by the way) or Son Goku (of Dragonball Z fame) in Super Saiyajin Mode. After I had devoured my share of my cake, I took the tex to the living room, and proudly showed them off to family. But an aunt had seen the pagan images on the cards, and brought me to her room. She told me that these cards were tools of the Devil to draw me away from God.; that, if I were to truly love Him and serve Him, I would get rid of them at the soonest possible time. Moved, I promised to God and my aunt that I would not stray away from Him: and, under her watchful eye, I began to tear them up one by one. When I had finished the deed, I went back to the living room as if nothing had happened; I later proudly announced to the neighbor boy that I had gotten rid of his evil presents. I think that was the last time we had guests other than family come to one of my birthday parties.

While stories of extreme self-abnegation often figure in the classics of Christian spiritual literature, one characteristic which could be said of these stories is the presence of a delightful synergy between God and man. There was nothing forced or contrived in them, but on the contrary, were even born out of what one might call a supernaturally inspired spontaneity. In contrast, and in hindsight, I realize that much of the abnegation I experienced as a younger boy were often committed out of a hidden, but very real fear: it is the fear that one would not measure up to an idolized angelic standard. There was an almost masturbatory obsession and neurosis with how I was often expected to act. I was taught that having crushes on girls at a young age was sinful; that to dance the Macarena was sinful (I was in second grade!); that to even listen to love songs was sinful, because only God can be the object of love, and all other loves are depraved and polluting of oneself. Mortification thus became a way to assure oneself of his righteousness, the diametrical opposite of the word. I thus developed a "one trick pony" kind of spirituality, one that seemed to focus exclusively in reminding myself that I am nothing: that I was an incorrigible monster, and that all my actions would somehow ineluctably lead to failure if I failed to keep God in mind.

I readily admit that one of my worst vices is jealousy. I can easily harbor grudges against people whom I perceive to be better than me-- who excel more than I in academics, in piety, or indeed any and all other categories. There is that drive-- an almost aggressive desire for cold-blooded schadenfreude-- that has always lurked within me that waits to pounce at any opportunity it can latch itself onto. Most of the time it fails; but when it does succeed, when my ego has been succored sufficiently by the losses of my "enemies", I realize how much of a monster I can become. Like Cronus devouring his sons, my ambition and desire for recognition can get the better of me, leading me to choke and eventually vomit. But there is also a realization that this can only happen because I have made spiritual bulimia into an idol: a daunting, immutable, universal standard, wherein hatred of the self is deemed an exemplary virtue, and sin was almost looked upon as the natural state of man. Call it Jansenism or Puritanism if you want; I am not entirely sure if it can be called either. But I am now convinced that I once held sourness as the very odor of sanctity itself, and scornful rigorism, which masked itself as piety, ruled all my actions. To be sure, mortification is needed for the growth and maturity of one's spiritual life; but what must be remembered here, I think, is that one's spiritual life is not a thing divorced from his daily life; the former informs the latter, and the latter mirrors the former. To be bound and shackled to a sickening, depraved angelism-- to exalt the grotesqueness and corruption and boils and festering wounds of the body-- is to turn God into a titanic, cosmic asshole and sadist-- and such a thought can only bode badly for the future.

It may seem ironic coming from one who has always been fascinated with some of the (admittedly) darker aspects of faith; I have written so much about flagellation and other bloody forms of penitence in the past that it may already seem as if I thought of them as necessities. To be honest, not all who undergo such feats necessarily end up having deeper, spiritual roots. But I am always amazed at the remarkable freedom with which they choose to make their pledges. It is said that a panata-- the sacred vow between God and penitent-- must be honored for as long as the penitent has sworn to do so. Still, others (mostly their sons or next of kin) choose to continue the devotion in thanksgiving. Much like the Latin lex talionis, the Filipino word ganti can mean either to take vengeance, or to reward with a gift. The supernatural laws of obligation still remain inscrutable mysteries to me; but there is always that faint, discernible trace of freedom in them that makes the artificiality of this contrived angelism more evident, more incomprehensible.

This is something which I still need to deal with. For a very long time now, that gigantic chip has been burying itself so deeply into my shoulder that to excise it would cause a lot of pain. But such a warped view of the spiritual life is a malignant tumor which needs to be attended to before it metastasizes into something that can no longer be controlled, and I end up becoming a spiritual pervert-- for whom joyless sadomasochism is the very pinnacle of perfection.

Night Terrors

2011-03-24T13:03:00.000+08:00

Last night I had the most terrifying dream. Terrifying, not so much because it involved inconceivable cosmic horror or anything, but because it felt so real, so stark, so possible.

In the dream, I was driving my car up a dusty old dirt road that wound up a bare hill, save for some splotches of greenery and the occasional cluster of trees. The sky was dark and grey above, and the birdsong mournful. There was a contemplative silence that hung like doom over the entire hill. The trail led to an old church, its lawn weed-strewn and the the earthquake baroque architecture of it nearly obscured by vegetation. The church looked like it was at least 400 years old; it was enclosed by an iron gate, and there were leering stone eagles that perched atop the posts. I parked my car by the old church; the door was opened, and I stepped in. It was dark inside, the kind of darkness one associated with a coming storm. The altar was obscured by the gloom, but I could tell there was a huge crucifix on the retablo. There was a light that came from northern end of the church; I discovered its source to be door that opened up to a patch of land, an extension of the cemetery. I went there and looked at the names of the people buried; I found many Basque names, and here and there some headstones contained no names but only the carven faces of the cadavers buried underneath. There was a roaring sound, like waves smashing onto a cliff, and I discovered that the hill somehow jutted over the sea, black and foaming and turbulent.

Suddenly, I saw a figure to my left. It was a man, naked and tall, his back turned to me. He stood maybe fifty feet away from me, and I somehow knew that, despite his age and gravity, he was no more older than I was. I felt compelled to approach the unmoving stranger. Hesitantly, I approached; strangers in dreams are always bad omens, I thought. My footsteps were becoming increasingly louder, crunching twigs and dried leaves under my feet, but still the boy made no movement. Finally, I was just a foot behind the stranger, when I heard a voice. "You've been here before", he said, "In fact, you've never left. You were always here." Then suddenly, the stranger turned around; and as I beheld his countenance for the first time, a chill crept up my spine as I discovered that there was no countenance; the man's face was as blank as a fresh slate of tombstone, as silent, as deadly, and as brooding as the stone witnesses around me. Then it began to rain violently; the storm winds whipped up the rain into a frenzy, hitting my face with such power. But the naked stranger remained as immobile as ever; and somehow, I understood that he was crying, despite his lack of a face. He pointed some distance behind him, and motioned for me to follow him.

We came to the edge of the cliff, a point which somehow sloped upward and then ended abruptly. Directly below were some ships that seemed to have been magically transported there from vast gulfs of time and space. They looked as if they were Viking longboats, but instead of a dragon prow they had lion heads, and the ships were painted black and their sails were red. He then pointed to a pile of rocks I had noticed before. "Dig", he said. And somehow that voice became feminine and melancholy. I quickly distended the pile of rocks with surprising ease; I dug through the layer of soil freshly laid, and after some time, I discovered a coffin. I smashed the coffin with a hammer the stranger gave me; and as the wood splintered and eventually gave way, I saw what looked like a mannequin lying in it. A terribly hyperreal mannequin-- which, while plastic, had been given glass eyes, hair, and all manner of varying imperfections to make it seem as human as possible. The eyes of the mannequin were open in a sort of dumb expectation. I heard the stranger speak once again. "I told you; you have always been here. And I have never left, too."

I felt my blood boiling for some unknown reason. I screamed at the naked stranger, struggling to get out of the pit as quickly as possible. In rage, I dove at him with the hammer, with which I sought to bash his brains in. But no sooner had I thrown myself at him did I trip and fumble, as if I were felled by some invisible wire and now gotten myself entangled in it. Then I discovered the source: the wires were very real, and attached to the naked man, as if he were a gigantic marionette-- and that, indeed, he was. I turned him over, and discovered that he still had no face. The wind and the rain were howling then, and in no time, the pit began to fill with water. I felt like crying; and then I woke up.

Ite Ad Joseph

2011-03-19T23:06:00.001+08:00

"He has made him master of His house, and ruler of all His possessions"

March 19th, of course, is the Feast of St. Joseph. Incidentally, in a most remarkable case of serendipity, I also found out that I was baptized twenty two years ago today. Perhaps it is not too late to add "Jose" to my name; it would be a good way to honor this most noble of saints. Saint Joseph, pray for us! (Image source: Patrocinio de San Jose, by Gaspar Miguel del Berrio, 1706 - 1761).

Amulets

2011-03-17T13:26:00.000+08:00

The Church condemns the belief in anting-anting, or amulets, as superstition, but that has not stopped many Filipinos from putting their trust in them. A lot of folk Catholic myths and legends really have to do with anting-anting; among the many beliefs associated with it, it is believed that the power or efficacy of these amulets tends to wane over time, and therefore, must be recharged; Good Friday is thought to be a most propitious day for this. Various amulets are said to be able to grant different powers, from invisibility, protection from curses, invulnerability to bullets and knife-thrusts, and even a supercharged libido. The documentary above is really more about martial arts, but it shows how strongly these superstitions have been wedded with the culture.

Some Brief Ramblings on the Mass

2011-03-15T01:51:00.003+08:00

In general I have resolved not to write too much about liturgy or indeed matters liturgical, for several reasons. Firstly, and most importantly, I am not an expert on the liturgy, and to speak of it so inadequately and would only serve to embarrass me. Secondly, there are other bloggers and other sites who write of the liturgy far better than I could: the New Liturgical Movement immediately springs to mind. In addition, I think I am just fine being a sort of "spiritual tourist", as many of the laity actually are. I am not too sure if this is an attitude that gels well with the current (or ideal) Catholic zeitgeist, but it has helped me keep my sanity so far. This is not to say that I have an aliturgical attitude, or worse, that I am indifferent to it; but I find often that I have other, far more "earthly" things to worry about than what cut of chasuble Father Presider would be wearing in his next Mass (in short, I have a life, believe it or not). If I must crystallize my position about the liturgy, I will say, for the record, that I do think it is highly important; but try as I might, I simply do not have the energy anymore to obsess and lose sleep over it.

This hasn't stopped me from joining the local Latin liturgy association in school, though. Recently, our little group celebrated its first Latin Novus Ordo in campus, in what I can only surmise to have been a very long time, probably decades. Under the glare of incandescent lights and in the stifling heat of the tropical night, the chapel, the Holy Mass proceeded; prior to it, our motley crew had not even met, and so it also served as a sort of icebreaker for us worshippers. Perhaps it was the buoyant mood that came to me as a result of the Mass, but I have been thinking a lot about the Mass lately; I've even found my old sketchbooks (this blogger is a frustrated artist) where I drew some plans for a church altar or two several years ago, when I was still very much a triumphalist. This post, however, will make no attempt at any deep, spiritual reflection about the liturgy; rather, I will just try to give some semblance of shape to some thoughts that have been percolating in my head lately.

The main problem, I think, with the liturgical consciousness today is that there already seems to be a concession that the Mass exists primarily as a textual artifact. Indeed, much of liturgical discourse one comes across concern themselves with the proper wording, proper translation, and proper theology of the text of the Mass. The apotheosis of this kind of thinking is the conviction that the Mass is normative of theology; the fidelity of the texts to Tradition (i.e., patristic thinking, Scripture, etc.) is therefore a matter of life and death for Catholics. While I agree with this line of thought to an extent, I would sooner think that the laity of the past-- meaning those who actually lived in the era of so-called "Tridentine orthodoxy"-- didn't really care too much about the words of the Mass. They were conscious of the Mass, first of all, as "the priest's thing", something I used to hear a lot from my grandmother before she died. The Mass, for them, was first of all a series of actions and stylized gestures, a thing seen, heard, and smelled, but never really read. Additionally, concern for the textual integrity of the Mass seems to require a certain societal paradigm in order to work. I would say that such concern is only possible in a society with a very tangible "open source" mentality, meaning a flattened, non-stratified society where everyone is theoretically equal. This paradigm reads almost like a business model: the Church (or at least its hierarchy) are seen as the custodians of the investments of the laity (i.e., their obedience, and in a very real sense, their monetary contributions), much like how a CEO and his crew have a certain obligation to make returns on his investors' capital. This kind of paradigm works best in a necessarily transparent society.

The Church, however, hardly fits this paradigm. Even now, the most radical reduction of clerical obedience can be summarized as follows: the word of the Pope should be followed as if it were the word of God. It is, in short, a very monarchical model; and while, to be sure, the formulation I provided above is little short of barbaric, it does drive home the point that the Church is a society which places value on hierarchy. What are the clerical castes, after all, but assertions that not everyone is called to the same degree of perfection, or the same level of "nearness" to God. If conversion to Catholicism entails an acceptance of its cosmos, however undemocratic or merciless(and indeed, the Catholic cosmos is too often unforgiving) it may seem, one would also have to accept the fact that God chooses certain men to be directly responsible to him; and not just any Tom, Dick, and Harry, now matter how many letters he has after his name. Again, this is not to say that textual fidelity of the Mass to authentic Tradition is not important; only that it must also be capable of "telling the story".

Which brings me to my second point. The most opprobrious thing about the Novus Ordo (and by this I mean the NO that is celebrated in your average parish), in my opinion, is how little "narrative sense" it makes. I would say that the primary mark of good liturgy is if it is able to relay the story of our redemption. This is of course hardly the case with many a Novus Ordo, where the priest seems more concerned with running a life-coaching session than to provide edification and spiritual sustenance for the faithful. The lack of awareness of entering into the mystery of redemption, of coming face to face with the eternal, seems characteristic of the very self-conscious New Rite. My own opinion is that this quotidian consciousness, though, is far greater than the textual issues of the Mass. The various liturgical movements that have arisen in the last hundred or so years, and perhaps stretching all the way back to Trent, seem primarily preoccupied with making the Mass and the celebration thereof as rational and rationalizable as possible. Elaboration and sumptuousness seem to have been cast aside in order to accommodate uniformity-- both in form and theological points. The Low Mass is thus born, the simplest "reduction" or "condensation" (and not to mention the most easily exported) of Catholic worship.

I will not make any attempt to claim that the Low Mass is necessarily inferior than the High Mass or that it should be abolished; however, I will say that, in my experience, the heart of the Catholic is a baroque and ornate jewel: a gaudy, florid, and hopelessly ecstatic jewel that beats and longs for the gigantic, crowded vistas of light and shadow. Spanish Catholicism, with its Virgins caught up in mystical melodrama, its Christs pierced and dripping gore, its fiery devotions, mournful wailing, and triumphal processions, is probably the most lasting legacy of Spain to the Philippines; and even today, Catholicism for the Filipino is a colorful mix of the bizarre, the emotional, and the stupefying. Like the Spaniards, we embellish our Madonnas with gowns of gold thread and crown her with real gold and frame her face likewise; our Christs, following the Spanish-Mexican tradition, are all caught up in the grief of His Passion, the holy countenance burdened with the sins of the world. The baroque, it is said, is essentially the sacred made gaudy. Some months ago, I posted an image of the Santo Cristo de Jerusalen, an image of Christ venerated in a Mexican church, where the wounds of the Lord were made out in horrifying detail-- yet Whose hair remains as blond and as bouffant as ever.

But what is the point of this excursion into baroque aesthetic? It would seem to me that, as a phenomenon, the Mass was traditionally and primarily perceived through the eyes, ears, nose, and touch. But more than the ceremonial of it, what many people in this country seem to identify with the celebration of the Mass are the para-liturgical devotions, most of which were forgotten in the wake of Vatican II. Tenebrae, for example, used to be celebrated with a heightened sense of theater: at the appointed time, sacristans would climb to the roof of the church and pound it with hammers to simulate thunder, whilst outside, firecrackers would detonate, and more altar boys pound on the closed door. Candles were blown out and thrown to the floor, and in pitch perfect mise en scene, the woman of the church would groan and wail loudly, in fear and in trembling, sounding midway through a bad orgasm and labor pains. On Good Friday, the sanctuary would be draped in a rich, red curtain, with naught but the Crucified-- and on either side, His Mother and St. John-- visible for the Seven Last Words. Again, this devotion occasioned loud wailing from the women, many of whom would then get on their knees and extend their arms crosswise, as the Siete Palabras were timed so that they ended exactly at the hour of His death. The procession of the Dead Christ would follow, the image being hauled on an elaborate funeral casket attended to by the town elite, whilst the long, torturous procession would wind about the whole town, with nearly all the Catholics following it. Easter Sunday, on the other hand, started with the Salubong, where men would carry images of the Risen Christ and the Mater Dolorosa just before dawn, from different ends of the town, to meet at the parish square. At their meeting, an "angel" would descend from a platform and remove the veil of the Blessed Mother, after which she would intone the Regina Coeli.

While the above scenes are not, per se, part of the liturgy (except the Salubong), they are nevertheless the cues to which the average layman refers when asked about the importance of the liturgy. I sometimes get the sense that Tradition-- and orthodoxy-- for my grandparents was a matter of correct piety moreso than thinking like the Pope. Again this hearkens back to the notion that the Mass was the domain of the priest: it was his duty, his action, his responsibility. At the same time, however, these devotions seem to acquire a liturgical "sense" as well, however fleeting it may be. I say this because they have so ingrained themselves into that inscrutable, delightful, baroque, Catholic heart, which yearns not for any minimalist condensation of theological truths, but an experience of the eternal. Only a baroque heart would think of shielding Mary's eyes with a blaze of candlelight-- as is the practice in the procession of Nuestra Senora de Esperanza de la Macarena of Seville-- to prevent her from seeing the torment that her Son is to endure.

If there is any point to this reflection, it is to say that, if we are to recover any sense of the sacred from the detritus of Vatican II, the only way to do so would be to stop believing in the fiction that the Mass is primarily a pedagogic tool-- as if it were some sort of celestial booklet to be defended, amended, and edited at human convention like some poorly written college thesis. Perhaps I am already launching into a romanticism ignorant of the sorry state that both clerical and laical castes are in, but I do believe that the Mass teaches precisely because it also conceals so much from us. The sacred language, the eastward direction, even the silence of the Mass all adumbrate to a kind of teaching greater than to what any so-called expert can attest, and more illustrious than any information an open source mentality might produce. I mentioned above that the Catholic cosmos can be unforgiving: it is, after all, a cosmos which acknowledges the imperceptible nearness of Hell to the human condition. Such a paradigm seems largely lost now, but it does not take a genius to say that the Mass was seen more in its propitiatory, sacrificial lens then--as a means to placate the vengeance of God-- than anything. I have repeated, time and again, that our notions of God have largely been bifurcated of His menacing aspects. The baroque heart is configured along the lines of the chiaroscuro, of light and shadow intermingling to produce an intense vision of the spiritual realities of Catholicism. For us, then, it is necessary to always keep in mind the grotesqueness-- but ultimately the splendor-- of the divine mysteries. And perhaps that is what it means to have a sense of the sacred: to acknowledge the necessity of performing the sacrifice despite any and all distractions.

I think an anecdote I came across once of Archdale King's (at least I think so) books would be a propos to end with. A certain bishop was on his way to the cathedral to celebrate High Mass; on his way to the cathedral, he chanced upon two boys, both of whom were saying the Canon of the Mass very loudly. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning struck the earth, hitting both boys. The bishop alighted to check on the boys; both were surprisingly alright, despite the terrible ordeal. The bishop warned them that it was the anger of God, for profaning the holy words of the Sacrifice. At that, the bishop resumed his journey to the cathedral, while both boys knelt down in prayerful humility.

Cuaresma

2011-03-13T01:45:00.001+08:00

Ang uica'y matatalian,
Daracpin nang sandatahan,
Mumurahi't di igagalang,
Siya'y pagiiuan naman
Discipulong caibigan.

Totobonga't isosombong,
Daraiguin sa pagtotol,
Casinongalingan yaon
Doon nila ioolong
Cay Poncio Pilatong hocom

Ang manga hula pa't isip,
Ay hahampasing masaquit
Nang limang libong mahiguit,
At popotongan nang tinic
Ang Olo niyang mariquit.

At toloy susugatan dao
Yaong dibdib niyang mahal
Uala na niyon ang buhay,
Toloy ibabaon naman
Sa baonang hirang.

- Mahal na Passion ni Jesu Christong Panginoon Natin na Tola,
G. Aquino de Belen

Ngayong pagsapit ng Cuaresma ay tila yatang mas lalo pang tumitindi ang aking mga pagkukulang. Mainitin anf ulo ko; mayabang ako; makasarili ako; at hinding hindi ko maukha maging positibo sa maraming bagay. Imbes na maging malumanay, mas tumitingkad pa yata ang bagsik ng aking galit sa mundo, at maging mga magulang ko ay napapasuko na lamang dahil sa kawalan ko ng modo paminsan-minsan. Napakadaling mabinyagan at tawagin ang sarili bilang Kristiyano; iyan ay alam ng lahat ng kinagisnan ang pananampalataya ng Santa Cruz. Ngunit mas mahirap ang mabuhay bilang isang Kristiyano: ang kalimutan ang sarili, at unahin ang kapakanan ng iba; ang magmahal ng walang kondisyon, maliw, o hangganan. Kani-kanina lamang ay napasali na naman ako sa isang away, at dahil dito, sumabog na naman ang pilit na tinatagong kabagsikan, at nakapagwika ng masakit--tunay na masakit-- sa aking mga minamahal. Sa isang banda ay hindi na rin ako nabibigla; kilala ko na nang sapat ang aking sarili bilang isang taong kayang-kaya magwika ng nakasasakit noon pa man. Ngunit ang hindi ko inakala ay ang aking kabihasnan sa gawaing ito. Sabi nga ni Dostoevsky sa The Brothers Karamazov, tao lamang ang kayang gawing isang sining ang kasamaan. Ang tao lamang, sa lahat ng mga kinapal sa gumagapang o lumalangoy o lumilipad sa sangkalupaan, ang may kakayahan maging metikuloso at artistiko sa larangan ng pananakit sa kanyang kapwa. Natatakot ako na dumating na ako, at hindi na makaaalis, sa ganitong estasyon. Na nagagawa ko nang planuhin at pagisipang mabuti ang paggawa ng kasamaan sa mga minamahal ko na wala man lang takot sa paghihiganti ng Diyos, na hindi na ako nasisindak sa katotohanang pamilya ko na ang naapektuhan ng init ng ulo ko, ay nakalulungkot isipin. Marahil siguro ay tumatanda na nga ako, at unti-unti ko nang naaaninag, kahat bahagya pa lamang, na malayo pa ang tatahakin ko; at sa gayon, malayo pa rin ang hahantungan ng aking pagiging makasarili. Ayo kong isipin ang mga di-maaninag na dulo ng pagiging mabagsik ko.

Ang mga bersong sinipi ko sa taas ay nagpapakita, sa isang banda, ng mga sukdulan na kayang matamo ng kasamaan ng tao. Diyos mismong nagkatawan tao ang pinagbuntungan natin ng karumaldumal at 'di kapani-paniwalang kalupitan. Pinadugo natin siya at sinugatan ng ating inipong malisya: mula sa kanyang mukha, hanggang sa kanyang mga kamay at paa. Winasak ng tao ang mukha ng kanyang Tagapagligtas; at hindi na tayo nahiya. Hindi na tayo natakot. At hindi na tayo natuto. Ang kanyang pagmamahal ay sinalubong natin ng pangungutya at kamatayan. Sa mga ganitong oras, halos naaamoy ko na ang baho ng apoy at asupre ng Impiyerno, at ang bakal ng martilyo na nagbaon ng mga pako sa kanyang kasantu-santuhan niyang mga kamay. Ngunit kahit hindi ko man makuhang maluha sa ngayon sa aking mga pagkukulang, buong puso kong idinadalangin sa Kaniya na ako'y patawarin: dahil ako ay lubhang nagkasala, at dahil din sa ako'y lubhang magkakasala pa rin.

Cuaresma na naman ulit, at gaya ng dati at lagi, dadami at hahaba na naman ang mga pila para sa Confesion. Marahil ay naging taunang ritual na lamang ito sa karamihan, pampapogi, ika nga, sa harap ng Diyos.At kadalasan ay ganito rin ang nararamdaman ko; paulit-ulit na lamang ang mga kasalanan ko at parang hindi na naiiba o nasosolusyunan. Ngunit kapag kaharap mo na ang katawang iyan, na sinugatan at pinagpakasakit alang-alang sa iyo, sa atin, sa akin: hinding hindi mo maiiwasang hindi mapahiya. Dahil ang kaharap mo, natin, ko, ay sadyang inosente at walang bahid ng kasalanan. Napapasigaw na lamang ang kaluluwa ko, na tila bang nilalamon ng mga apoy ng Purgatorio: Panginoon, kaawaan at patawarin mo ako, alang-alang sa iyong pusong lubos na nagmahal at nagmamahal, ngunit hindi namin makuhang mahalin--at maunawaan-- nang lubusan.

Lord, forgive me, for I know exactly what I am doing.

Pater Noster

2011-03-06T22:53:00.001+08:00

I recall, with particular fondness, listening to this version of the Lord's Prayer during an especially turbulent period in my life almost three years ago. It would be an exercise in futility to count all the laurels of the Philippine Madrigal Singers, one of the most foremost, if not the foremost, choir in the country. I first heard this interpretation of John Pamintuan's Pater Noster, sung at the European Grand Prix 2007, in September of 2008; it was a time of severe trial, as I have mentioned, for a variety of reasons I am still uncomfortable talking about. It was in the dead of night, when the feeling of abandonment was at its most oppressive, that I first listened to it. And like a gentle rain falling down on parched, dead earth, I somehow felt the reassurance of hope blossom in me again. Like the sweeping tide of a calm but unconquerable sea, I remember it washing over me and drowning away the fears and sorrows which gnawed, with gluttonous delight, at the core of my being. It still puzzles me how hope, beauty and the like have always come to me in such fragile and delicate forms, and with such resounding force.

Learning and Unlearning

2011-02-16T12:47:00.003+08:00

Some of the most profound and most humbling experiences I've had happened in a small, cramped classroom in one of Manila's notorious garbage towns some three and a half years ago. I was one out of many tutors who visited the wasteland that is Payatas every weekend, for eight months, in order to teach basic literacy and English language skills to underprivileged, second grade kids. I was halfway through my eighteenth year, and after reading a snippet of Amartya Sen in one of my Economics classes, I was unduly fired by the thought that I could make a difference in some kid's life, however small a contribution it may be. So, instead of ROTC (which had become optional some years before, anyway), I decided to join the Literacy Training Service. In reality, the task was more difficult than I had anticipated: we had to teach what was basically an ESL curriculum to seven and eight year old children who could barely string enough letters to form a single word.

The school was a raggedy old structure, left half unpainted because the local education department had conveniently run out of funds. On Saturdays, the school doubled as a madrassah-- a Muslim religious school-- for some of the community who subscribed to the teachings of Islam. A narrow gutter, overflowing with foetid water, served as a mockery of a moat that guarded the building's entrance. The stench of the toilet wafted lazily in the air. It is a thing of supreme irony that Payatas is but a ten minute drive from our suburb, a fact which even the fiction of walls and gates could not erase. I was assigned two kids to mentor, Kobe and Jerry: but Jerry was a sickly child, and his parents would rather that he worked in the weekends to augment their already meager income. And so I was left with Kobe. From the start, I could tell he was already intimidated by me. He and I had come essentially from two different worlds: I, from a more or less comfortable background, and he from a life of hardship and severity. His father, he tells me, was without work, and what little money his mother made from washing clothes-- of rich kids like me, he says nonchalantly and without malice-- was barely enough to make ends meet. He was all of three and a half feet tall, with a tiny head with unruly, spiked hair, and he had brown eyes that sparkled with a keen light, despite the timidity they projected. The first time I met Kobe, he stood beside his desk the whole time, back straight, arms behind his back, as if he were face to face with a drill sergeant. His voice barely rose above the level of a whisper, and the more I came closer to him, the more he seemed to shrink. He was huddled all alone to one corner, sipping orange juice off a tetra pak, pretending not to hear his name when I called him. Despite the initial coldness, though, I found the boy to be affable and well-mannered, if a bit soft spoken. There was an eagerness in him that seemed to want to burst out of his prison at all times, but which he had learned to keep in check.

I introduced myself to him, and he to me, and I explained that we were there to help him and his other classmates to read. As per the standard procedure, we were required to administer a Dolch test to the kids. I gave Kobe a list of 100 words, which he had to say out loud in the span of (I thought) a very generous forty minutes. These were simple, monosyllabic to disyllabic words, the kind that even a boy of five could pronounce; I figured Kobe would be done in a fraction of that time, and we would be off to a roaring start. The end of that period, however, proved how wrong I was. He got 25 words at most, and some of them with some coaching from me. I remember pointing out words like 'black', 'brown', 'fox', and 'box' to him, but he could only see the individual letters that made up these words in isolation. Here was a 'b' followed by an 'l' (--Or is that an 'i'? he interjects), an 'a', and so on and so forth. What ambitions I nursed in my heart quickly evaporated, replaced with the sickening realization that this was going to be a lot harder than I thought.

Suddenly, it seemed to occur to me that I was teaching a borrowed tongue to someone who would probably never achieve any sophistication with it beyond the dictates of his grade requirements. Under the sweltering sun of that hot, July morning, the noonday devil seemed to have latched itself onto my heart with a vice-like grip, piercing me with a frustration born out of hopelessness. But there was something about the boy-- it was in the way his eyes shone when he would encounter a new letter or a new word for the first time, and in the way he struggled, so beautifully and so delicately, with his lessons. "This is a dog," I would say to him, pointing at a crude drawing of a dog that I had drawn on his worksheet. "How do you spell dog?" A long pause, before he starts: "D-O-G! Dog!" At that I gave a small sigh of relief, thankful that we had gotten through that word at least. But Kobe was jubilant, suddenly jumping up and down at his small achievement. Then, in a move that still beguiles me today, he offered me a sip of his orange juice. I declined, reasoning that he needed it more than I did.

There is something about such victories, Pyrrhic though they may be to us, that so thoroughly disarms me. Perhaps, I reasoned, I have forgotten how to find the beautiful in the small and the broken, the dull and the peripheral. Here was a child who, by all accounts, was a laggard in his class: but the joy and exuberance he showed, at that moment, disclosed not so much a shy and timid underachiever, but a hero redolent in his splendor, the laurel-crowned man of victory in his moment of supreme honor. And Kobe prayed, too. After lunch, he went to the front of the classroom, marching in goose step with his palms clasped together, eyes closed in seemingly mystical contemplation of the superessential darkness of God, as Dionysius put it. And suddenly it seemed as if he were one of the ordained clergy: the words of the prayer came out of his mouth with a hieratic force and dignity, with a relish and appreciation for their power that could only be described as liturgical. Bashfully, and giddily, he would reprimand his classmates who were distracted during the prayer, shushing them and then thrusting his finger upward, as if pointing to the God he could not see, but whom he knew was ever watching out for them.

It seemed to occur to me, at that moment, that it is in such things-- the fleeting, the broken, the ephemeral, and the faded that the Divine has always manifested Itself to me. Images of the Child sleeping on His manger, or else being carried by His Mother, or turning away in fright at the sight of the angels bearing the instruments of the Passion as in the icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help-- all of these point to a Christ just as human, just as fragile, and just as "finite" (however one may take it) as the rest of us. Each new word and its component letters and the many configurations, transpositions, or variations thereof, revealed to Kobe a world full of wonder and mystery, and perhaps even a little magic. Like an apprentice Kabbalist, his eyes glowed with barely concealed amazement as the inner logic and hidden secrets of the word was, literally, made flesh before his very eyes.And seeing that spark, for even the tiniest, most infinitesimal fraction of a second, was all it took to snap me out of that deplorable, restless angst. Although he may be far from gifted in his class, there shone in Kobe a wisdom that was wonderfully keen and bright, and imperceptibly delicate, so as to burn up all the negativity that had accrued in me in one swift gesture. Like broken glass, he radiated, refracted a light too variegated and subtle to behold, and I simply cannot thank this boy of six enough for it: it is like the sublimest rays of the golden sun manifesting themselves, for the first time, to someone who had awoken from a deep and seemingly endless slumber, resplendent in all its terrible beauty.

Three and a half years since I first met Kobe, I am still unaware of who was the real teacher and who was the pupil. I have learned many things since that time, but more importantly, I have also unlearned so many of them as well. It has been a year since I last visited Kobe's school, and by the grace of God, there have been many physical changes made, including the construction of two new buildings to accommodate the growing population of the Payatas shantytown. But I am still drawn to that little boy of six, who had done so much to change the way I thought. I pray to God that he is well; I will certainly remember him for a very long time.

The Humiliation of Saints

2011-02-13T15:36:00.002+08:00

"The Miracles of Saint Benedict at Fleury tell of a certain Adelard who persisted in mistreating peasants on monastic lands. Once he stole something from a woman, who then ran to the saint's church. There she threw back the altar cloths and began striking the altar, crying to the saint, "Benedict, you sluggard, you sloth, what are you doing? Why do you sleep? Why do you allow your servant to be treated so?"

Because the serfs of the monasteries were the servants of the saints to whose monasteries they belonged, they believed that the saints were obliged to protect them. Oppression was therefore the fault of the saints. The ritual by which they attempted to rectify the situation was an inversion of their usual relationship to the saint, just as the monks' ritual was an inversion of theirs... Likewise, the physical action against the saint was one most appropriate within a peasant culture and not a monastic one. Punishment in lay society comes not in the form of hair shirts, thorns, or prostration but in blows. Thus the peasants beat their saints, just as they would beat a reluctant beast of burden, to awaken him and force him to do his job."

- Patrick J. Geary, Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages

Stories of saints who bless and punish are familiar enough to us, but tales of "erring" saints who are on the receiving end of punishment are rarer. When the Spaniards returned to the Philippines in 1565, following a 44 year interlude, they found, in Cebu, a most curious phenomenon. The natives had turned the image of the Holy Child-- a gift from Ferdinand Magellan to the chieftains of the island-- into a powerful rain god, now chief and greatest of the native pantheon. The devotion was such that it had come to supplant the old gods, like the Child in Egypt who toppled the idols of the Egyptians upon their faces. The natives supposedly worshipped the new god with dance to petition for rain; but when that did not work, they carried him in procession to the sea, whereupon he would be stripped and submerged, head first, in the water. There he would remain until such time that rain would fall on the parched earth. The native Cebuanos claim that this ritual, like the St. Jude novena, "has never been known to fail."

When the revolution against Spain broke out in the twilight days of the 19th century, many an anti-clerical Filipino would lead the attack against frailocracy by supposedly chopping off the aquiline noses of the images of the saints. The lords have failed to protect the poor and downtrodden of the land, instead allying themselves with the oppressors; and now they receive their symbolic comeuppance, through the loss of their noses. In the Philippines, devotion to the saints often took the form of the utang na loob, or an internal debt of gratitude. Devotees vow to take on a special action (e.g., making a pilgrimage to an important shrine, joining a procession, attending Mass on special days in honor of the saint, crawling on one's hands and knees, etc.) to gain the favor of the saint, who would secure blessings and prosperity on the devotee and his kin-group. So long as the cycle remains balanced, the devotee continues to undertake his panata (his special vow), the obligation of which he may choose to hand down to his children or any other member of his family. The underlying, unspoken condition here is that the saint must naturally keep his end of the deal; if not, the devotee can theoretically choose to dissolve his bond of kinship with his divine patron, though such moves seem much rarer in real life.

The humiliation of saints, however, is not exclusively confined to the private sphere. Geary cites how the concept of humiliation would be apotheosized into a pseudo-rite in itself, performed in the context of the liturgy. He cites the example of the custom at Cluny, which the monks undertook whenever offense had come to the monastery.

"At Cluny... the officiating clergy open, on the floor before the altar, a piece of coarse cloth such as would be used for a hair shirt. On it they place the crucifix, the Gospel books, and the relics of the saints. All the religious then prostrate themselves on the floor and sing Psalm 73 sotto voce. Next, two bells are rung and the celebrant genuflects before the "newly consecrated body and blood of the Lord and before the aforementioned relics.

At Tours... the ministers place on the ground before the subdean's seat a silver crucifix and all of the reliquaries of the saints and put thorns on top of and all around the tomb of Saint Martin. In the center of the nave they place a wooden crucifix likewise covered with thorns, and they block with thorns all but one of the church doors."

The point of this humiliation of the saints, as expressed in the symbolic debasement of his relics, was to show their impotence and failure in living up to their reputation as the undisputed lords of the realm. In theory, of course, the monasteries were the closest thing to heaven on earth: it was the priests who served the divine cult, who secured the abundant beneficences of the Celestial Realm for the community. Being the custodians of the sacrificial cult, they served the community by praying for its health, deliverance, and prosperity, and also by cursing all those who would seek to subject it. The patron saint, being the master of the monasteries, was held to be the "supreme ruler" of the land. The monasteries were obstinate reminders of a world beyond worlds, of a power beyond powers; and in that respect, they were held to be practically sacrosanct. Of course, all of this is mere theory, and monasteries were frequently looted and plundered by more than one self-aggrandizing, impious wretch, whose arms would often prove to strike more decisively than the prayers of the religious. Such attacks on the sacred, however, were also seen as a reversal of the natural order: the proud have risen against the meek, and earthly rulers have assumed the power of the spiritual lords.

The patron saint of the land, newly rendered impotent, is thus seen to have failed his people, most especially his immediate and most powerful vassals, the monks. Thus, he is brought low from his pride (superbia); he is made to do penance and prostrate himself before the Lord, the one, true, Master of the Universe. It is doubtful if orthodox Catholicism has enough space to accommodate such a crude reading of the act of humiliation, and perhaps one even redolent of superstition. Under the rationality of orthodox Catholicism, the saints, being in heaven, cannot do any wrong; hence, any failure would be seen as having been brought about by an extrinsic factor, e.g., such as sin, but it is always in retaliation for something that has its origin in the thoroughly human. But it would seem, from the anecdote above, that popular understanding fully held the saints accountable for their inaction against those who would take advantage of the community. And, as such, they too were deserving of punishment. By taking on utter humiliation, the saint and his monks make an appeal to the unfathomable mercy of God, who humbles the proud and exalts the lowly. They testify to the malicious inversion that has happened with the (or any) attack against the Church, awaiting His swift and terrible justice against the oppressors of the weak and the downtrodden.

It is curious, but not really surprising, that the humiliation of the saints would die out in the years leading to, and immediately following, the Council of Trent. The Council, which developed a more efficient, more legalistic framework for Catholicism, I think, can rightly be called the first instance when the Church became "self-conscious" as Roman Catholicism-- Western European in mind, culture, and structure. Its move from what was essentially a sacrificial, ritual cult-- which dealt primarily with the invincible powers of Heaven-- into a bureaucratic, technocratic, clericalist system shifted the object of veneration from the saints to the priests themselves. Hierarchy, as in a military structure that flowed from the Pope down to the foot soldiers (ordinary priests), came to exclusively define the relationship between man and divine. Any naive beating of a saint's tomb, now, becomes a grossly political act that is seen as subversive of clerical power.

What is truly fascinating about these examples, I think, is how these stories show how strikingly "real" the communion of saints was for these Christians. Belief in it did not rest on mere acknowledgment, but rather, it was an inseparable feature of their daily lives. But if these stories tell us anything, it is that to live in a universe saturated with the presence of the sacred does not always mean these powers are ready to fight our battles for us. Disturbingly, it seems as if the saints were often viewed with a certain regard for the "mischief" they may sow, or the "arbitrariness" of their help. In that respect, we can see how they were probably more feared than Christ Himself. At the same time, they were indispensable to the life of the community, as the benefits they bring more than outweighs any arbitrariness that could be blamed on them. Again, it must be said that while I do not think of orthodoxy as merely an ecclesiastical fiction, one has to wonder if majority of Catholics-- the unschooled, unchurched bunch-- ever fully imbibed the Church's rationale on the matter.

Warrior Gods of the New Jerusalem

2011-02-07T01:30:00.004+08:00

In the still, sepulchral silence of the night of 20th May 1967, a motley crew of ragtag, disillusioned men would march to the seat of government in Manila, in an attempt to overthrow the Marcos government. These men were of a curious sort: crimson-cloaked they were, and they carried with them huge knives; no armor had they on except strips of paper, cut to look like fiddleback Roman chasubles, whereon were inscribed various symbols of pseudo-Catholic arcana: anting-anting, as they care called in the vernacular here. At their helm was a crusty old man by the name of Valentin de los Santos-- or Tatang Valentin, as he was known and revered by his followers. Valentin by then was already eighty six years of age. Some say he was a rogue Catholic priest who left his calling after a private revelation from God; he had also been a mechanic in the past, and even ran for president in the previous elections. He led a group of peasants sufficiently galvanized by their common poverty, and strengthened with a hope that could only be described as apocalyptic.

The call had gone out in the morning. Valentin de los Santos, blighted by what he saw as the continued oppression of the poor under the Marcos government, had decided to ask the strongman to step down from office, and promptly surrender to him and his group-- the aptly named Lapiang Malaya [Movement for Freedom]-- complete control of the government, including its armed forces. Marcos, of course, refused; and by that same evening, Tatang Valentin had marshaled his troops, who donned their magical uniforms which they claimed would protect them from the bullets of the enemy. It would prove to be the costliest mistake they would make. At thirty minutes past midnight, the constabulary opened fire, their bullets shredding through the paper vests of the brethren, to put it tautologically, like paper. Scores of the elderly brethren, bolos still in hand, fell in heaps as the bullets razed through their numbers, cutting them down life chaff. Finally, the massacre ended, and Valentin de los Santos surrendered to the constabulary, but not without significant losses to the Lapiang Malaya. He was found to be insane, and locked up with another violent schizophrenic.That would be the last the world would see of Tatang Valentin, as his cellmate would later maul him to death, bringing to an end the life of the man who saw himself as a new Christ.

The massacre of the Lapiang Malaya has been described as one of the worst political disasters in the history of the Philippines. But what is curious about it is the nature of the Lapiang Malaya: for it was, in fact, primarily a religious cult. Central to their belief system was the worship of the anting-anting, or the fetish. Traditionally, it was believed that the anting-anting was a talisman that gave its bearer certain powers that range from invisibility to invincibility, supreme knowledge and even unbeatable sexual prowess. But the anting-anting also grows 'weak', and therefore must be 'fed', in order to make its 'virtud' (i.e., its efficacy) stronger. Perhaps it would not even be too crazy to think that Tatang Valentin must have likened himself to a god, if he had not proclaimed it so outright. Valentin, however, was not the first prophet to rise out of the sands of these islands. The history of the Philippines is littered with various wandering vagabonds, self-styled 'sons of God' who claim they have been sent by heaven to bring peace to the nation, and more importantly, bring about a complete spiritual transformation, where there were neither rich nor poor, and where everyone lived in total equality without the need for government.

The last factor is especially interesting, I think. The more I read into history, the more I am convinced that 'freedom' has been understood differently by the different strata that comprise Philippine society. This is especially significant, considering the failed nature of the Philippine Revolution in 1898. My idea here is that there simply was not a meeting of minds that occurred amongst the various figureheads of the Revolution; at its core, it was, I think, an essentially middle to upper class revolution. You have the illustrados, the economic and social elite of the nineteenth century, who championed 'autonomia' (i.e., they championed self-rule but did not want to break away from the Spanish Empire; Rizal was one of them); the nationalists, who championed 'independencia' (complete independence from a foreign power); and finally, you have the common folk who simply wanted 'kalayaan' (freedom as commonly understood). Kalayaan, however, was not a tenable political concept; what it proposed was an egalitarian, utopian society, free from any sort of authority but love. In this respect, it may be said that the common folk (or at least those who heeded the call of historical consciousness) desired, simply, the New Jerusalem. And as it turned out, the only real way to do this was to literally go outside the political sphere of the colonists.

To facilitate this, many self-proclaimed Christs arose, and around them sprung up bands of apostles, disciples, holy women, and witnesses. These Christs pointed to the mountains, to the forests, to the dustbowls and to the caves; "There shall we build the New Jerusalem!", they cried, and they hied off to go ever deeper into the tight embrace of primordial nature. Men sold their properties and went barefoot, following their Christs(s), into the mountains and hills and caves, where the iron fist of Crown and Friar could not penetrate so easily. I remember reading an account of an old woman in the Visayas, known as 'La Santa de Leyte' (the Saint of Leyte) who predicted that a huge earthquake would swallow up the entire country, save for a 'sacred spot' to which she and her followers, which numbered 4,000 at its peak, migrated. There too was the Cofradia de San Jose, started by one Apolinario de la Cruz, who at one time desired to become a priest of the Dominican Order. But the Orders were closed to the indios then, which prompted him to start a religious order solely for native Filipinos. When the Spanish got wind of this, they tried to suppress it under the suspicion of heresy, whereupon 'Hermano Pule' (as de la Cruz was addressed by his comrades) fled to the mountains with his brotherhood. On 1 November 1841, the Cofradia was stamped out by Colonel Joaquin Huet, who supposedly did not spare even the old, the women, and the children from his violence. Hermano Pule would later on be executed by firing squad, and his head cut off and displayed on a pike.

There was also the Guardia de Honor of Pangasinan, which originally started out orthodox but went native, so to speak. The ‘Guard of Honor’ was so-called, because all of its members took an oath to say the rosary at certain times of the day, structured in such a way that it was always recited, on every hour of every day, by the different members of the Guard. But no sooner had this devotion been introduced than did its chief members claim to be gods themselves. They built their New Jerusalem in the forests of Pangasinan (literally ‘the salt lands’), and its singular honor was that, like the earthly Jerusalem, it, too, held the ‘grave of a god’ to borrow a phrase from Nick Joaquin, who wrote about the Guard. And there are still many more who would arise to claim they were gods, too many to list or even remember. They also brought with them a heady mixture of fear and hope: fear, at least to those who propped up the status quo, and hope to those in need of hope.

I had occasion to discuss some of these accounts with a friend, a history major, some time in the past. Like myself, he also had a keen interest in religion, although I would not really describe him as the church-going sort. What is striking about these accounts is how they demonstrate how dangerous the memory of the Christ is—not just the historical Jesus, but the divine Christ especially. If the goal of all history is to ‘collapse’ itself onto God, then the memory of Our Lord—what He said, what He did, whom He condemned and did not—seems as if it tends naturally to the concept of liberation. Historical exigences which usually 'demanded' the arrival of a Messiah figure were always situations of extreme unrest, as if a supernatural impulse impelled everyone to get it over with as soon as possible. In this case, the ever tightening grip of the Friars, and their growing tendency to equate Catolicismo with Spanish Imperial Power and vice versa, seemed to have prompted the incipience of a call to abandon these spiritual lords. Of course, such a conclusion was unsatisfactory to me, and I reasoned that the idea of the Christ cannot be compartmentalized into a simple corrective of history, as mere ethics.

The various Christs who sprung up all across the Philippine archipelago, half dazed and half mystified, were all possessed of the idea of an impending, imminent ‘renewal’, a rekindled ardor of the spirit, which would lead to the total and radical transformation of the people. In that sense, I suppose that the danger here lies in ‘being left behind’, for lack of a better phrase, and in failing to heed the prophetic signs of the new, impending social order. These Christs were sent from heaven to inaugurate a new history, a new social order, that of peace and total communism that went beyond purely materialistic considerations. Kalayaan, then, would be akin to a return to the ‘primal dawn’ of Genesis, where bliss reigned and the divine presence was actively perceived in everything. It is fitting, then, that these New Jerusalems would be built in sand or beach or crag or mountain or cave or hill, far away from the bloated (at least, from their point of view), stupored Church and Society (and in Spanish Colonial Philippines, it would be safe to assume that the Church represented Society itself).

It is said that Christianity was born in apocalypse, and rightly so, does it also find its fulfillment in apocalypse. Perhaps what I’m trying to say here is simply that there are various ‘textures’ into Catholicism, infinite weights of truth, even, that terms like ‘orthodoxy’ or even ‘folk Catholicism’ can never capture. The Church is wide, straddling the limits of several continents, and as it is vertically inclined, so too does it also have a lateral orientation. I am not saying that orthodoxy is meaningless (and here I must put my foot down on the matter), only that “the Catholic thing” does not lend itself to one simple stream of interpretations. Perhaps it may even come across as threatening; but that just means all is well, and that Christianity is simply being Christianity: the mind-boggling collision between the profane and the sacred.

I Laughed!

2011-02-04T07:44:00.000+08:00

Found this on Facebook:

Plugging the Gulf oil leak with the works of Ayn Rand.

The purpose of the group: "A modest proposal for finally putting to good use the writings of the intellectual patroness of wannabe dickheads, professional amateurs, miseducated autodidacts, soi-disant contrarians, aging arrested adolescents, and subliterate cognoscenti."

I remember finding a copy of 'The Fountainhead' lying about the house once, when I was sixteen; I tried reading it, but in all honesty could not finish it. That woman is as abstruse as she is obnoxious. In hindsight, I should have given myself a pat on the back for not finishing that book; God knows I'm too much of a pompous d--khead as it is, and I certainly do not need Ms. Rand's further encouragement of it!

Under the Shadow of God

2011-02-03T20:17:00.001+08:00

The Sto. Niño [de Tondo] image was reported missing on the morning of July 14, 1972, by the assistant parish priest, Fr. Lorenzo Egos, who suggested that the thieves hid in the church when the doors were bolted at 8 p.m. the night before. He suspected someone who had been attending Mass days before and described this character to the police.

Manila’s Finest engaged their informants and three days later a suspect was arrested. Reynio Rivera, 24 years old and jobless, named three companions in the theft. Parts of the image were recovered in separate houses on Balagtas Street, Tondo: the wooden body dumped in a canal near Rivera’s house, the left arm, a silver scepter, a golden cross, and a bronze crown.

On Aug. 2, 1972 the weather improved, the floods subsided and the Sto. Niño de Tondo (or most of its parts) was recovered, presented to President and Mrs. Marcos in Malacañang and brought in procession back to Tondo church.

A thanksgiving Mass was held in Malacañang, with President Marcos reading the Epistle in English and Tagalog, while 2,000 impatient devotees waited outside to escort their patron back to Tondo church. It was described as an an emotional moment. Many were moved to tears even as they were distracted by the beauty of Mrs. Marcos, who was described as a Norma Blancaflor look-a-like.

Source: Flooding and the Sto. Niño de Tondo

The story quoted above recounts the curious tale of the theft of the much revered image of the Santo Nino de Tondo, one of the most venerable icons of the Child in all the Philippines. According to legend, the theft of the sacred image brought about severe rains in the capital, which battered Manila for a biblical forty days and forty nights. The rains, claim the devotees of the Lord of Tondo, were said to have been the punishment of God for the sacrilege; the devotees of the Nino were adamant, too, that none but the return of the image could appease the divine wrath. The rains were so severe that even the Mayor of Manila, Ramon Bagatsing, called for the return of the much venerated image, and as was quoted above, the Marcoses themselves also joined in the fierce clamor. I have heard the story repeated numerous times, from wide-eyed, pious grandmothers and both veteran and novice devotees of the Child, to have gained the impression that they truly believed it was the Santo Nino who was directly responsible for those floods.

This belief in the seemingly wanton caprice of the numinous is something which seemed to have universally characterized the faith of many Catholics I know who were born before the 1980s. Even today, such belief in the 'arbitrariness' of the divine persists in many rituals and traditions in rural Philippines: I can only think, for example, of San Isidro Labrador, patron saint of farmers and who is feasted with magnificent pomp every year in Lucban, Quezon, where my paternal grandmother was born. According to pious belief, it was necessary to offer the best produce of the land to San Isidro; if this is not done, the saint would be more than capable of unleashing floods to destroy the crops, or on the extreme polar opposite, bring severe, implacable drought. Indeed, many of the legends associated with various icons of the Christ Child carry a hint of the menacing: the Nino of Cebu, for instance, does not like being shipped to different cities, and would always return to Its basilica in Cebu. In the 16th century, the Spanish Augustinians had to chop off the legs of the image because It wandered away too often. And here, of course, we have the tale of the Child who was more than willing to submerge one of the most densely populated areas (if it is not already the most densely populated) under severe rain for the theft of his statue.

Despite this, devotion to the Santo Nino de Tondo remains immeasurably popular in the country, even in his 'kingdom' of Tondo; and on the Feast of Holy Child, held every third of January in the Philippines, it is safe to say that up to a million worshippers would crowd the hourly Masses and devotions held in the venerable basilica. Perhaps, at this point, I should endeavor to say that, maybe, there is an inner fatalist in all of us. The fatalist cries, "To hell with it! It's in God's hands", or as we say in Tagalog, "Bahala na!" The fatalist is he who essentially lives under the shadow of God, ever under the threat of His immanence and what he might construe to be the caprice of the Deity. Perhaps it is not an overtly Catholic attitude to take, but then again, what is? If I remember my philosophy of religion classes, it was Gerardus van der Leeuw who said that our primary experience of the numinous is sheer, unbridled Power. And because such Power is inconceivable to himself, man's natural recourse is to prostrate himself before this plenipotent Other. I don't think orthodox Catholicism makes enough space to accommodate this so-called latent fear of the Holy, but it is most certainly evident in Folk Catholicism: in the penitential processions, its various feasts and rites and devotions, even in its capricious saints.

Perhaps the trick lies in the realization that the numinous can be capricious and at the same time remain benevolent. Of course, the real question left for us to answer now, is whether we can still return to such a paradigm sans a self-conscious, and ultimately ideologically-driven, isolation. The way I see it, our modern conceptions of God are wholly inadequate to survive the onslaught of meaninglessness that comes with life today; we have no more room for death, terror, and danger. Perhaps, it would be good to remember that God can still strike us dead.

La Naval de Manila, circa 1920s

2011-01-31T13:41:00.001+08:00

Video of the procession of the image of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary of the Navy, held in Intramuros, Manila shot during the 1920s. In the aftermath of the Second World War, virtually all of Spanish Manila would be destroyed, and the thoroughness and finality of its destruction would forever leave a scar in the memories of those who lived to see such a beautiful place, even unto its tragic end. The Dominican-run church of Santo Domingo, shown in the video, and repository to the venerated image of Our Lady (who was instrumental in keeping the Dutch away from these shores) and an ivory image of the Santo Entierro, would be among the first casualties of the war. It's said that the Dominicans purposefully chose to move out of Intramuros once they had started rebuilding the church, as the memory of their church's destruction was still too fresh a reality in their minds.

On Remembering

2011-01-23T01:04:00.005+08:00

[This is probably one of the most personal, if not the most personal, posts I will ever have on this blog. This was written in memory of our late housekeeper and family friend, Yaya Ines, who shepherded me and my siblings during our childhood. She died, at age 59, due to complications of her diabetes. Please say a brief prayer for the soul of this remarkable woman, who has been instrumental in my and my family’s growth for as long as I can remember.]

The memories I have of my childhood are almost always visual ones: the light angling into the boughs of the macopa tree, filtering down to my face as I lay in my hammock in the afternoons; the long trek to the store at the end of the street, with its brown gate and elderly grandmother proprietor; the sight of stray dogs lazing around by the roads, awaiting the arrival of the ice cream man and has pushcart, and in the evenings, the elderly blind man who sold ice buko and the other man, also elderly, who sold balut by the dozen. Nowadays, when I make the trip to the old neighborhood, I find that a lot has changed: there are new houses now, and old ones with new owners. The blind man no longer walks about by night selling ice buko, and even the stray dogs seem to have diminished in number. The sounds, too, have changed: whereas before a silence that could only be described as rural permeated the atmosphere, today, Lady Gaga, Kanye West, and the latest novelty songs compete for supremacy over an increasingly attenuated auditory space.

My constant companion during those innocent times was Yaya Ines, our housekeeper. She first came to Manila from the province in the 1970s—1972 to be precise—which almost coincided with the proclamation of Martial Law. She was a sprightly lass then who had come to the big city in search for a better chance at life. She worked as maid in a few other households before settling on ours, by way of her brother, who studied in the same university where my paternal grandmother taught, and who used to be a bedspacer at their home. I was the firstborn male of the new generation on either side of my family, much to the delight of both sides, and early on, it seems, I was already being groomed to be the breadwinner who would change the fortunes of the clan; we were not wealthy and possessed only a modest fortune (if, indeed, something to tiny and attenuated could even be considered such), a comfortable sum born out of the many years my maternal grandparents spent teaching in the public school system. My parents both worked nine hour shifts, and since my aunts also had their day jobs, the folks hired us a yaya—maid, in simpler terms, but in the Philippines the term can easily mean guardian, mentor, and even a confidant

She had come to us when I was barely a year old, and, according to my mother, I looked more like a girl than a boy. Indeed, when she first came to us and gave me my first bath, Yaya was surprised to find a penis dangling between my legs. It did not help that my mother frequently made me wear yellow, a color which still carried, then, a connotation of effeminacy. Yaya Ines came to us in 1990; she was a stout woman, who by then had weighed close to two hundred pounds, but that was perhaps what endeared me to her. She would often wake me up at the crack of dawn, whence we would go out for a stroll, and buy taho from the ambulant vendors. Life was simpler then; mine was a happy, idyllic life, which started with early morning cartoons (my favorites were TMNT, Conan the Adventurer, The Incredible Hulk, Popeye, and Superhuman Samurai Cybersquad—Power Rangers were still a few years away), followed by another stroll to the City Hall in the early afternoon (we lived right behind it), then dinner at six. I would already be fast asleep by eight. Simple, like clockwork, and uncomplicated a possible.

On Sundays, my father would drive us to Greenbelt Chapel (aka, Santo Nino de la Paz) in Makati, which was a considerable distance from our place. It was surrounded by a lush park filled with trees and shrubs, where I would often play hide and seek with Yaya when I became too bored at Mass. Today the park is gone, replaced by a glittering, high-end mall, but the chapel remains standing, right at the center. Mass usually ended at 12pm sharp, unless Fr. Anton Pascual was the celebrant, who was wont to be prolix with his homilies and who, if I remember correctly, was a fan of liturgical dance. After Mass, we would walk a few hundred meters and have lunch at Max’s and feast on their ineffably good chicken. We would be home by three, and by then, I would usually have fallen asleep at Yaya’s shoulder. My younger brother would sit in front with my mom, while I pestered Yaya in the backseat with my strange antics and occasional tantrums.

When I started school in 1993, Yaya would always accompany me on the way there in the tricycle. Imagine a motorcycle with a roofed sidecar attached and you have the rudimentary figure of a trike. She would usually sit behind the trike driver in his motorcycle, while I did my homework inside the sidecar. Sometimes, she would sit beside me, helping me fix my things which I just sloppily threw in my bag. But wherever she sat, she would always make sure to keep an eye on me, glancing back every few seconds and saying my name as if to assure me that she was right there all along. The school I went to was, in a word, small: it was scarcely bigger than a daycare, with a total population of sixty two students. She would wait until my first class was over, before going back home to cook and clean. One time, as we were running late for school, our rented tricycle bumped into a blue SUV. Our trike driver, Mang Rene, went down to confront the driver of the SUV; we had the right of way, but the car appeared out of nowhere, and the tricycle had screeched to a halt, scratching the side of the SUV. A burly man stepped out of the SUV; he was the biggest, meanest looking man I had ever seen. And he had a gun, which he pointed straight at Mang Rene (and this was just outside of the school, too). Yaya Ines told me to stay inside the trike no matter what happened, before she descended from the back seat to lend our driver a hand. Then, she took off her bakya (wooden clogs), and with one swift motion, hurled it at the face of our interlocutor. Angered, the man now trained the gun at her direction; but at this point, the neighbors had all gotten out, and came to our defense. The police soon arrived and thankfully, the asshole was carted off to the station.

I believe I came close—too close—to death that day, but it is only now that I realize how serious it was. Yaya was certainly ready to die; it was on her face, which by then looked as if it were on the verge of tears. I went to class as if nothing had happened, but Yaya made sure to linger an extra hour in the school premises to make sure there was no reprisal of the previous situation. She was panting and sweating, so my teachers gave her a glass of water to calm her down. At around ten, she left the school to go back home; later that afternoon when she came to fetch me, she brought a knife just to be safe. She had entrusted my brother to my aunts, but since he was asleep at least half the day, they had no trouble with him whatsoever.

That was almost two decades ago, and in that time, I had grown up a lot, both figuratively and literally. The soft, scrawny little boy would eventually grow to be not so scrawny and develop an outward façade that sought to radiate collectedness and toughness. Yaya would grow old, too; and in time I began to notice that she could no longer keep up with me when I ran around the mall, or that she began to be hard of hearing and cranky at times. In grade school, I began to grow more independent, perhaps in an early effort to establish an identity for myself. I would begin to deliberately outpace her when we went out as a family, so as not to appear too much like a mama’s boy. And when the car fetched me from school, I told her to wait inside and not bother to come and fetch me. I was big, brave, and did not want nor need to be coddled anymore. When I entered high school, I became increasingly lonely. Deep down I felt that no one understood me, and even in the conservative Catholic atmosphere of my new school, I was referred to as the “God boy”, who seemed perennially lost in the clouds and who could only talk about God.

Yaya would stay on with us till 2009, and watch me and both of my siblings graduate. But as early as 2001, I could tell she was no longer the invincible protector that I thought she had been; she had become sickly and moody, even fatalistic; she slept earlier and woke up later, and when she cooked, she could no longer taste anything unless it was smothered in a fistful of salt. In 2007, she was diagnosed with diabetes; I remember turning a blind eye when I would notice a long line of ants milling about the toilet every time she used it. I would pretend I did not see her eating the fat off the pork chops we'd eat for dinner, or when she could barely understand a word I was saying, even if I already had my voice raised. Finally, on June 26, 2009, she left our household and returned to the province. In the weeks prior, she would often tell me “Gusto ko na magpahinga” [I want to rest already], and “Ano man mangyari sa’kin, nasa Diyos na iyon” [Whatever happens to me, it is already up to God]. When she left, she looked as if she were on the verge of tears; I gave her some extra money in addition to the farewell gift my father had given her [Php 20,000] and told her to come and visit one of these days.

She departed the world on January 21, coincidentally the feast of St. Agnes—Santa Ines in Spanish—the saint for which she was named. She would have been sixty in April. Diabetes had taken its toll on her, ravaging her body; her left leg had already been amputated in July, and it was only a matter of time before, I’m told, she started going blind. I am told she thought of me and my siblings fondly in her last days; her passing certainly came as a surprise to me, but deep down, a part of me knew that her life was coming to a close. When I look back on those carefree days of my childhood, I can’t help but run through all the memories of the adventures I had with her. They are now irrevocably locked away in the dim but still luminous caverns of the past, shining unblemished, like stars radiant in the night sky, amidst the rancor and confusion of the present. And perhaps, I now realize, to an extent, why the reforms of Vatican II were welcomed so enthusiastically by the laity: it is because no one can comprehend even briefly the nature of eternity, and the hell that may be attached therewith, without despairing; we cannot bear the thought of our loved ones burning forever in the fires of hell, because they had been guilty of the crime of being born amongst the simple. Yaya Ines was not a regular churchgoer; she even had a slightly anticlerical streak to her. But she also told us, with eyes ablaze and heart convinced, that the Virgin once walked on the soil of their town; that the Holy Child had never ceased to be kind to her. And even when she was already sick, she would make the long commute to Quiapo every Sunday, dressed in the Nazarene’s scarlet, and there attend Mass at five thirty in the morning. And on Ash Wednesdays, she would always be the first to remind everyone that meat was absolutely forbidden, even if she seemed self-righteous at times (and God bless her for it).

And suddenly, I am that young, timid boy again. You realize that you are alone, that you are vulnerable, that you need warmth and protection in the face of the piercing cold all around you. You feel the infinite weight of your own finitude. But behind the gloom and the dark and the storms that rage all around, those memories of my childhood will always shine with a more piercing clarity than the cacophony dancing all around me. And for these, I can only say to our beloved yaya: Thank you. May you rest in God’s peace, and may the angels escort you into the heavenly courts. May God and all His saints embrace you and weave for you an everlasting crown of glory. May you be at peace, and may you find the rest that you have been looking for.

***

I end this post with a final and most blessed memory, untouched by the encroachment of disease or my burgeoning pride. It I 1995 again, and I am in first grade. Everyone still wanted to be a Backstreet Boy and the Power Rangers still commanded a legion of loyal viewers. The bell rings, and we are dismissed; we sing a farewell song to each other in class, and I fetch my brother, eager to return to the confines of our cozy home. The gate opens, and in comes Yaya Ines. She is smiling, and she has sandwiches for us behind her back, smothered in pimento Cheez Whiz and some Coke in plastic bags for us to drink. We exit the school and board the tricycle: my brother and I in the sidecar, and she behind Mang Rene, healthy and jovial as ever. Finally, he starts the engine, and we are heading home. All is well; it could not be any other way.

McChurch

2011-01-21T14:32:00.001+08:00

I was a sophomore in high school when this commercial was released. I'm re-posting this out of nostalgia more than anything, since I'll be 22 in less than a month. That, and I haven't eaten lunch, and I'm off to buy a cheeseburger there. I actually think it's kinda well done. A bit irreverent, true, but it does drive the point rather nicely. A translation of the captions: 0:38, "This Christmas, start each of your days here" [Ngayong Pasko, dito simulan ang bawat umaga]; 0:41 "Then..." [Pagkatapos...] 0:42 "See you there." [Kita-kits]. The church in the commercial is the cathedral of San Sebastian in Lipa.

Brief Notes on a Fiesta

2011-01-21T14:07:00.001+08:00

I attended the Fiesta of the Santo Nino in my father's province for the first time in years this past Sunday. Not a lot has changed, but then again, it may also be the case that I just did not pay enough attention to the rites in the past. Unfortunately we had missed the religious procession a week before; like many processions held in honor of the saints in the Philippines, the Santo Nino de Batangan, as the Nino of Batangas is officially called ("Batangan" meaning a place where timber was floated before being collected) was feasted with an elaborate, day-long, water-borne procession. This, of course, involved the use of a boat, which traced the "pilgrimage" of the image from the wharfs right to its present location today.

The Nino is black; some say he, like the Nazareno of Quiapo, was burned in a shipwreck; others claim the fire was caused by slave traders who raided the shores of Batangas then. I confess to being unfamiliar with the whole narrative, but suffice to say, the Nino came to Batangas by the sea. Others have said that it came to Batangas via Cebu, where Catholicism had its roots in the Philippines, and where the Nino has been venerated for more than four hundred years, since Magellan brought the image to its shores, and where it was subsequently worshipped as the highest and most powerful god of the Cebuano pantheon. When we got to the basilica to hear Mass, the image was placed just outside the adoration chapel, where a queue of people had lined up in order to venerate it. The Nino was clothed in a cape of beaten silver; when we arrived, it seemed as if it had just been placed outside, as the line numbered fewer than fifty then. Veneration in the Philippine context, of course, involves a plethora of actions that some might call 'touchy feely': the Nino was smothered by many a grubby hand, molested, even. Many brought handkerchiefs and towelettes to wipe the face and hands of the Child, in the hopes that some of its grasya and birtud would rub off on the cloths. These cloths are then rubbed on one's body, conferring its blessedness on the devotee.

The Mass was celebrated by H.E. Cardinal Rosales of Manila. As truly befits the occasion, the church was packed to the rafters; I estimated maybe ~800 people capable of fitting in the pews. But the side naves were fully packed, too, considering that it was already the third (?) Mass of the day (in many places in the Philippines, Masses usually begin at the crack of dawn, at 4.30 to 5am). The Mass itself was not very long, 80 minutes tops; liturgically, it was a run of the mill, insouciantly reverent pontifical Novus Ordo. Peculiar to me was the music; the Kyrie, Gloria, and Sanctus were all in Latin interspersed with Tagalog, but elegantly sung. Surprisingly there were ladies in the altar party, but all of these were dressed in white with skirts that extended past the knee, and all wore veils. Similarly, the usherettes all wore veils, and there was, in fact, a preponderance of old ladies wearing them. There was one old lady who knelt at the communion rail for the duration of the Mass, who prayed with her arms extended, like the cross.

Like any fiesta in the Philippines, the noise and pollution were overwhelming; as we were walking home to my grandfather's house, what would normally have been a ten minute walk more than doubled in length, due to the sheer number of vendors that crowded the street. Interestingly, a great number of these vendors were Muslims. They offered cheap knock-offs of Italian leather goods (I saw a bag marked "Poochie" [Pucci] and another marked "Frada"), pens that lit up, peanuts, pirated DVDs, karaoke machines, and mass produced estampitas (holy cards) and statues of the Child Jesus, the Holy Family, the Sacred Heart, and many others. Horror of horrors, I even saw a couple of laughing Christs on display.

We finally got home at 11.30; we had stopped by, briefly, at a covered court where a band was practicing (they were kids who were probably not much older than seven). They played a couple of odd ditties, novelty songs, and I think, one religious song, although I did not recognize it. There was a huge spread on the table in my grandfather's house, as per custom in fiestas here. The menu was idiosyncratic: there was Mexican, Chinese, American, and Filipino finger food all mashed together in one syncretic whole. Meanwhile, our family's image of the Nino, with its ivory face and purple robe, was put on a pedestal in the living room. Beside it were flowers, although if these were real or plastic, I was not able to observe.

Photo of the Day

2011-01-12T11:19:00.000+08:00

Still in connection with the recently concluded Feast of the Black Nazarene. The picture shows a typical scene during the procession: ambulant vendors sell silk screened shirts, hankies, and towelettes bearing the image of the Black Christ by the thousands, as multitudes o men dress up in the habit of the Nazarene, at once professing pious belief in its miraculous power while at the same time resorting to less conventional or orthodox means (i.e., the amulet [anting-anting] on his neck). In the background, the beachhead of a procession of a replica of the Nazarene has just entered into view. I think this photo says all that I've been trying to say better than I ever could. Image found online.

Nazareno 2011

2011-01-12T01:05:00.000+08:00

There is an intolerable stench that wafts over the streets of Manila every year on January 9^th. It is a highly oppressive smell, composed, it seems, at once partly of the smell of piss and unwashed bodies basking under the glare of tropical heat, mingling with vomit, decay, and seemingly all the grime and grit of the seed underbelly of the mean streets, to form a potent cocktail of truly alarming proportions. It is the kind of smell which seems to simmer in the air, quickened by an inner, smoldering fire, which then seeps into every pore of one’s body. The noise, too, is deafening, a veritable cacophony of shouting and cursing and police sirens and jingles from the ice cream caravan rising in concert with the pealing of church bells and the fervent singing of many hymns.

Such a confusion of various phenomena could only mean that the procession of the Black Nazarene, more properly known as the Nuestro Padre Jesus Nazareno de Quiapo, is once again underway. I have written about this procession before, many times in fact over the past few years. It is a wooden statue of Christ almost as old as the Philippines itself, sent to these islands from Mexico in the Year of Our Lord 1606. As the name suggests, this image of Our Lord is black; legends tell of how the ship carrying the Nazarene caught fire, burning all of its precious cargo but the holy image. Since that time, the image has been revered as miraculous; and over the course of four centuries, it would survive earthquakes, fires, wars, and bombings, most recently in the Second World War. Legends say that when Manila was razed to the ground, and the parish of San Juan Bautista—Quiapo church, where the Nazarene sits enthroned—was all but destroyed, it was the image of the Suffering Christ on the high altar and the tabernacle alone which survived. The devotion to the Nazarene is intense—highly intense. This year, an estimated seven to seven and a half million trooped to the ancient district of Quiapo to pay homage to the revered image. Such a number is nearly impossible to imagine: it is nearly twice the population of New Zealand, but jammed, shoulder to shoulder, back to back, in a mere stretch of road running all but five kilometers. Three million joined the procession while the rest either packed the streets to hail the Lord in his passing or heard Mass at the church, and as per tradition, the devotees were mostly male, who shoved, pushed, climbed, and clambered upon each other all in the hope of touching, even for a split second, the face of Christ.

They walk barefoot, following unshod the barefoot Christ, braving the filth of the streets of Manila, with all the dogshit, piss, refuse, trash and broken bottles that may line the way. The devotees come, either alone or with their families; the procession calls for extreme humility, and so many of the devotees come to Quiapo, that mystical navel, it seems, of all the Philippines, on their feet. Many of them walk for miles and miles, rising before the dawn and spending the whole day in the procession. This devotion to the Nazarene is as intense as it is humbling: upon reaching the church, majority of the devotees drop to their knees and crawl all the way to high altar, starting from the main plaza fronting the church, into the very heart of the temple itself. Their heads are bowed low and from behind, their feet are dark as soot, in imitation of the dark skin of the Lord to whom they devote themselves. When the Nazarene was exposed for public veneration the day before, the line of devotees stretched for hundreds of feet at a time; and indeed, it is not uncommon for such lines to run a kilometer or two in length. Baking under the oppressive heat of the sun, the devotees eventually venerate the image of Christ, bathed as they are in sweat, in contrast to the fragrant image of the Lord, which is bathed in rose water or wine depending on the occasion. Thirsty lips connect with the feet of the statue even as the next devotee, already toothless and half-senile, slobbers over it, and they do this by the tens of thousands for almost a full twenty four hours. But on the day of the procession itself, this devotion reaches its fullest splendor—or, according to some, its highest irrationality. For the procession of the Nazarene is a highly charged, highly violent (in the sense that it keeps a very frenetic pace, despite the slowness of the parade) event; it requires the steeling of one’s guts and a firm, unbreakable commitment, much like the same that Christ showed on the road to Golgotha.

In the Philippines, it has been said that devotion to God and the saints is seen through a very personalistic lens; the word that most closely approximates this personalism is the panata, or a private vow, which a devotee takes in order to secure blessings and prosperity for himself and for his kin-group. The panata can be any form of devotion, which may or may come after the granting of the blessing; it can be a private vow of making a pilgrimage to a shrine and walking on one’s knees to the high altar, or spreading the devotion to the saint by whom it was secured; it can be the wearing of a particular habit in the saint’s honor, or as in the case of the devotion to the Nazarene, attending the procession in his honor. But like the road to Golgotha, the procession is grueling and nearly impossible to comprehend. This year, the procession took an incredible seventeen hours to finish; it started at seven thirty in the morning and lasted all the way to half past midnight, but in every hour the crowds at Quiapo remained thick as ever. From being battered by heat in the morning to being soaked by the rain in the afternoon, right down to being blasted by the chill January air, the devotees stubbornly remained, determined to see the Lord back in his altar.

The procession is always an impressive sight; but at the same time, it also raises a lot of questions. In the few years that I’ve taken an active interest in the procession, I’ve noticed that it has become more and more anti-clerical. I mean this not in the sense that the devotees of the Nazarene actively participate in the stifling of the voice and influence of the clergy, but in the sense that it is now seen as something that is beyond the influence of the clerics. Many hold that even touching the statue is sufficient in wiping out one’s sins completely, which contradicts the need for sacramental confession. Thus, the Black Nazarene is venerated by thugs and murderers side by side with the desperate and the unlettered, all hoping for some proverbial ‘quick fix.’ That a great number of devotees walk on their knees to venerate the Black Christ, and that it is bathed, dressed, kissed, wiped, and genuflected to, also strikes the catechized as bordering too close to idolatry, and this criticism is often not unwarranted. Many of us middle class, catechized Catholics find such ideas abhorrent, if not downright heretical; but then again, all heresy, to paraphrase Brother William from The Name of the Rose, is but the banner of a reality. For the followers of the Black Nazarene, this is the reality of incomprehensible and inescapable poverty.

The heretic never really cares for the heresy; all he cares for is the hope and the promise that it delivers. In Manila, poverty can be of such intolerable level that one often finds families living under bridges or living in hovels that look (and are often appointed) more like dog houses. This is a kind of poverty that is totally alien to me: it is the kind of poverty that crushes one to barely discernible pulp, that dehumanizes one to previously unplumbed depths. I cannot help but imagine, though, that this kind of poverty approximates the reality of the Incarnation of Christ: from the highest heavens He wills to live amongst the squalor and wretchedness of human existence, with all its misery and sadness and imperfections. It is to us, mired as we are in the existence of sin, that Christ came; and we mobbed Him, followed Him, and pleaded with Him for a chance at a better life. In a sense, there really is nothing new in the procession of the Black Nazarene that has not happened already in the Gospels; like then as now, there are the doubters, who scoff at His miracles as mere parlor tricks, and there are those who remain blind to the love of God. They reason: all the money, time, and attention paid to this old and decrepit statue could better serve man if they were directed at his betterment. In a sense, this is true, and of that there can be no doubt: but, at the same time, I believe this line of reasoning fails to address the problem of dehumanization.

We can work and reconfigure the system all we like, but until the time that this reaching out can be on a ‘tangible’ level, there will always be problems. We can thus see why Christ was seen as a heretic by the religious authorities of His day: that He, a Jew, one of the chosen people of God, should mingle and reach out to the unclean and the impure, is simply an aberration unheard of. The righteous are safe in the confines of heaven, and they take pleasure at the fact that they have been numbered among the elect. And so the outsiders remain proud and arrogant, and they begin to conceive their pleasure in warring against the saints and the Kingdom of God. What Our Lord did was to extend His hand to the dregs of society, tolerating, as it were, their uncouth ways; in the procession of the Black Nazarene, He is once again the ‘heretic’, providing a glimmer of hope to a populace who believes with the sweat of his brow and the quaking of his guts, because he has no other choice but to do so. It is in this sense that I say that this procession is anti-clerical: because it offers immediate, ‘worldly’ hope distinct from the supernatural hope that the clerical Church offers. It gives the simple the bread they need, in order that they may believe more fully.

The Church, because it is also a human institution while at the same time divine, will always have to face the problems of human existence. If She is the Mystical Body of Christ, then She must prepare to undergo the Passion as well: and no greater proof of this are our own times, which have seen a massive curtailing of Her institutional presence all over the world. The flock is straying, and even in predominantly Catholic Philippines, where religion still carries a very strong emotional connection, many are abandoning the faith in droves. I have seen this in my friends and even some relatives who have become deaf, it seems, to the voice of the Church, because it has become too wide and too ‘big’ to pay attention to the cries of the simple. I guess I am lucky, in that I have never had to face these confusions; Church teaching has always been clear cut to me, and defendable, at least on an intellectual level. But as I have told myself repeatedly, I am thankful that I do not have the unfortunate distinction of having been born into a position in which I simply cannot choose whether to follow the Church or not. I suspect many of the devotees of the Black Nazarene would not desire to join such a massive crowd and risk death year after year if they had the option; but as it stands, it is their Calvary to accompany Him in His passion, even if just in simulacrum.

2011-01-04T12:15:00.000+08:00

I am not entirely sure if I have posted these pictures before; I probably have, but I like them so much that I thought I would post them again. The picture above was taken almost two years ago, in a rather deracinated cemetery in the middle of a populous, commercial district in Manila called Paco Park. The name 'Paco' was a diminutive form for 'Pancratius', the saint after whom the cemetery was named. The small chapel at the middle of the cemetery is flanked, on both sides, by graves; the arrangement of the cemetery was circular, so that the walls also held the niches, and perhaps owing to this fact (and also because Manila was a very earthquake prone city), the walls were built very thick, like a fortress.

I took the photo in a quiet little spot behind the chapel. It was the hour of mercy, three in the afternoon, when I came to find it, lost amidst blessed stillness and the faint din of insufferable traffic outside. According to a caretaker we saw, that spot was a burial ground for aborted babies and also those who died through miscarriage, and those who died without the grace of baptism. As such, he said, it was probably the saddest part in the entire cemetery. For some reason, I was reminded of the pantaruxada, or la santa compana in Castellano, a ghostly company in rural Galician myth which were said to wonder around the cities in procession at night, dressed in immaculate white, and tolling the death knell: all who see this procession are said to be irrevocably marked for death. I do not know why I was thinking of the pantaruxada at that moment; perhaps, because the unbaptized really have nowhere to go, and that maybe Limbo was a terror more terrestrial than supernatural; otherworldly, yes, but not of a different planet. I do not know.

Ironically, my own parents were married in the cemetery chapel in 1988. In fact, the very reason we went there was to celebrate their twenty first anniversary. I don't really know if either of my parents has a decidedly morbid sense of humor (they always chide me for wanting to buy a coffin bed with the words 'Here lies Arch' carved on it) but I'm pretty sure that they must still be wondering what impelled them to get married there in the first place. As for myself, I am still quite haunted by that abandoned section of the cemetery. The caretaker claims that, at night, he sometimes hears faint cries coming from the old, abandoned sections of Paco Park. He lights a candle to dispel the darkness, and says a brief prayer for the repose of the restless. And yes, those are apparently real skulls on the wall.

Nativitas Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Secundum Carnem

2010-12-26T21:13:00.000+08:00

The Kalends -- Christmas Proclamation from Rocco Palmo on Vimeo.

Fr. Horacio de la Costa SJ on Hell

2010-12-20T17:42:00.000+08:00

In life, Father Horacio de la Costa S.J. was one of the most eminent and celebrated of all Filipino Jesuits, a "gentle genius" who, it is said, once astounded his professors at Harvard with the elegance of his writing. Father de la Costa was counted among the graduates of what many call the most glittering era of the Ateneo de Manila; and not only that: for a story still circulated today goes that the young Horacio once climbed to the top of a flagpole, inebriated, whereupon he was duly reprimanded by his teachers (apparently, the only time it ever happened, too). He died in 1977 from cancer, but the memory of his titanic genius lives on, most significnantly, in the rare but pithy writings he left behind.

From a sermon:

"...It is a peculiar fire, the fire of Hell. Our Lord says that it is like salt. Salt is a preservative. So is Hell-fire. It does not consume what it tortures, it preserves it. Indefinitely. The damned soul is the charred corpse of Okinawa made eternal. But alive; and shrieking."

Joseph, Haunted by Angels

2010-12-19T13:14:00.000+08:00

(Note: I have been very busy with school work as of late and have found little to no time to update this blog. I have also just taken my entrance exams for law school, so please pray for me that I may pass. Thanks! Also, I found this poem on a literary folio I picked up in school, and I thought I would share it with my readers)

Just when things begin
To settle down, be comfortable
I hear wings flapping
Outside my window

I have seen too many flaming swords
Pointed at foreign directions
Far from my patiently chiseled dreams
And carpentered ideas
Of how life should be.

My life is no longer my own.
Each time I carry the Child
Across yet another desert
I wonder if the journey will lead me
Back to the vineyards of home.

But now I am a stranger
Even to myself.
At night I dream
I am deadwood burning
In a holocaust fanned by angels' wings

Yearning to be ashes
Yearning to be dust
The carpet of sand
That shields two tiny feet
On the road to Calvary.

- Christine Lao

Virgen de la Leche y Buen Parto

2010-12-05T18:29:00.002+08:00

Our Lady of the Milk and Good Delivery. This image is venerated in Las Pinas, in southern Metro Manila, Philippines. I also found this on a Facebook fan page dedicated to Our Lady under this title:

The image of the Blessed Virgin Mary breastfeeding the infant Jesus dates back to the 16th century in the Spanish city of Madrid where she is called Nuestra Señora de la Leche y Buen Parto (Our Lady of the Milk and Happy Delivery). In 1598, the image was rescued from irreverent hands and enthroned in the home of a married couple. The woman and her unborn child was bound to die and her husband prayed intently to our Lady of La Leche to grant his wife a safe delivery. Our Lady heard his prayer and thereupon, his dying pregnant wife and child were saved. Together, the couple spread the news to other families about our Lady’s power with God. Soon after, the devotion became famous throughout Spain. Becoming aware of our Lady’s intercession, King Philip III, who was the ruler during that time, personally undertook the erection of a shrine in honor of our Lady of La Leche.

More than twenty years later, the early Spanish settlers brought a replica to the United States and enshrined it at the Mission of Nombre de Dios in St. Augustine, Florida. It was the first shrine ever to be dedicated to the Blessed Mother in the United States and was established on the very spot where the first parish Mass was offered 55 years earlier. The original chapel, built around 1615, was destroyed by gunfire during the colonial days and later, by a hurricane. The present chapel now houses a replica of the original statue that was destroyed during the Spanish Civil War of March 13, 1936.

Incidentally, I also found this image of the miraculous lactation of St. Bernard of Clairvaux on the same fan page. Here is the story.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux was the son of Burgundy nobles who after joining the church became an auster cleric and author who forswear wealth and images, is closely associated with the Knights Templar regarded as the author of the Templars rules and was one of the principal forces instigating the Second Crusade.

St. Bernard is also curiously connected to the Madonna or Vierge . There are two existing legends concerning lactation of St. Bernard. The first version describes how Mary appeared in a prayer to St. Bernard, and sprinkled milk from her breast on Bernard's lips. With this gesture she showed him that she is his "mother" and that she is prepared to mediate for him with her son. The second version describes how Bernard falls asleep between a prayer. Mary appeared and put her breast into his mouth in order to receive the wisdom of God.

=======================================

The picture is founded in Bernard’s love for and devotion to the Blessed Virgin. It expresses the idea that Mary filled him with graces.

Bernard’s experience is supposed to have taken place while at prayer before a statue of the Madonna nurs...ing the Infant Jesus.

As Bernard prayed, “Monstra te esse Matrem” (“Show yourself a mother”), the statue came to life and Mary pressed her breast to nourish and wet the lips of Bernard, dry from singing her praises. The picture also illustrates the idea that Bernard’s preaching and eloquence were “sweet as milk.”

Holocausto de Corazones al Sagrado Corazon

2010-11-28T23:36:00.001+08:00

This painting is found at the Museo Soumaya in Mexico. Clockwise, from top: the Immaculate Heart of Mary; the transverberated heart of Santa Teresa; the charitable heart of San Lorenzo; the ardent heart of San Cayetano; the inflamed heart of San Ignacio; and the most chaste heart of San Jose. At the center, the King of all hearts, the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Image found online.

Confiteor

2010-11-19T00:53:00.000+08:00

One would think that the final stretch of the year would tend to bring in a little more peace to one's life, but instead, I find myself stressed--at times, needlessly so-- by too many things. In the three years since I have restarted this blog, I find that I have written a lot about my opinions on things, but not too much about me. Granted, most of these thoughts really spring from my own history, but at this point, I think a little more transparency from me is in order.

First, an admission: yours truly finds it increasingly difficult to practice his faith. This is not due to any intellectual rancor on my part with the Church's positions, but rather, a sense of these teachings being muddled, obscured, perhaps even made irrelevant, by own experiences. When I turned twenty one in February, I promised myself that I would be a more responsible student, a kinder brother, and a better son. Nine months later, I find it hard to believe that I have made any progress in these areas. I remain just as hot-headed, boorish, arrogant, and distrustful as ever. I am pretty much ruled by my loins nowadays, a disposition which I acquired in high school at the same time that I was learning how to chant the Salve Regina. When I finally confessed, after the longest time, last Friday, the normally smiling Jesuit told me that I obviously had a lot of issues in as grave a tone of voice he could muster. But the most agonizing thing, I think, is how numb I have become to these criticisms. Perhaps it comes with my age, but I find myself, lately, juggling a multitude of internal inconsistencies, trying to find a semblance of an equilibrium by which I could live my life and remain, at least in theory, a good Catholic.

I find, too, that my heart seems increasingly weighed down by an all-consuming, fiery bitterness. My greatest fault, say my parents, is that I say things too quickly without thinking about their effects on people. And I guess I have to concede that I am quite a hurtful person. There is much anger and malice festering in me that I just can't extricate from my system, as if it were almost a part of my physiology. My judgmental tendencies have grown stronger and more malicious with each passing year, and continue to do so, at a rapidly increasing pace (most significantly in the last few months). And finally, my perennial bane of lust has all but made a complete slave of me. I am subservient to the whims of my loins and have practically given up trying to rectify the situation.

Why am I saying these things?

I guess it has to do, primarily, with being honest. Anyone who has ever met me knows that I have a tendency to put up a facade: it is the clean-cut, intelligent, articulate, and fully, psycho-socially integrated me that I want to project. In reality, this facade is very thin, only slightly masking the raging turmoil inside. And ninety nine percent of the time, it is the Devil who wins, and not God. If honesty is the best policy, as the old adage goes, the first step I could do is to really face these problems. Creating a facade deflects the light from shining in on the rottenness of my internal processes, rendering it impossible to be diagnosed and rectified.

But the greater obligation here is not to me, but to Our Lord. I cannot beg him for graces I do not need for symptoms that I just make up, just as I could not beg him to give me a better body or a better family. It would simply be ludicrous. I guess one just has to realize, at one point in his life, what one is being saved from exactly. At 21, my heart is still clouded by so much confusion and noise; but how long before these things become the norm? How long before they define the rhythms of my heart and the determination of my will?

In 1997, I became a godfather. I was only eight, and my cousin, who had borne a son, was only 17. The news of course brought the entire clan together but also polarized it to a suffocating degree. On the one hand, the birth of the boy was welcomed with much delight, especially by my doting grandparents. But on the other, was the practical extirpation of my cousin from family life. Like a cursed vitendi, he was branded a black sheep, disinherited, and generally dismissed by my grandparents and other relatives for his irresponsibility. He would later on sire eight more children, from at least four different women. When my grandmother died in 2004, his sudden arrival at the wake again polarized the family. He was with a woman, one whom I hadn't seen before, and we all concluded that he had left No. 4 and had now moved on to No. 5. I never did get to know, with any certainty, if such indeed was the case; I was too embarrassed, too polite to talk to him ever since.

If my own family had known of my thoughts and struggles, would they treat me the same way? There is a rigidity in Filipino (and, I guess, SE Asian in general) family dynamics that, when fractured, seems almost impossible to piece together again. And yet Catholicism demands the humbling of my ego in order to attain forgiveness. As of yet, I don't think I can tell my family, especially my parents, the sheer extent of the struggles I am having. I am simply too embarrassed, too ashamed to do so. At the same time, I can't stomach living a double life and trying to keep up the illusion of my projected facade all the time. God knows my parents would go ballistic on me the moment they see how much porn I actually have stashed away. And yet there's simply no other alternative.

Please say a prayer for me. I could use one of them right now.

Det Sjunde Inseglet - A Brief Review

2010-11-16T23:14:00.002+08:00

I was able to watch last night, after the longest time, The Seventh Seal, no doubt one of the seminal classics of Swedish or Scandinavian cinema in general. Filmed in 1957 by Ingmar Bergman, the film tells the story of Antonius Block, a knight from Medieval Sweden, who had just returned to his native country after a stint in the Crusades. Upon his return, he finds the land ravaged by plague; worse, he is accosted by Death himself, who has come to claim him personally. Block proposes a game of chess with Death; as long as Block is able to hold his own, he will be allowed to wander freely. And if Block wins, Death would have to leave him alone, completely. The game begins, and Block sets out on a mission to Elsinore to attend the local saint's feast.

Much has been said about the anachronistic, existential angst-slash-agnosticism of the movie. Block is clearly a melancholy, tormented person from the start, and Max Von Sydow does an excellent job portraying the inner desolation raging inside his heart. One of the first things Block does upon his return to Sweden is to seek out a church for confession. That scene, in my estimation, is probably the profoundest, most sublime, most excruciatingly poetic scenes I have ever seen, and sums up the film quite well. In it, a tortured Block confesses his horror at the seeming silence of God in the face of so much suffering and soul-crushing despair scattered about the earth. From the killing fields of Jerusalem to the plague-haunted towns of Sweden, Block's movement is from that of death to death; whatever warm embrace he might have expected from the blessed shores of his homeland is quickly transformed into a futile exercise of avoiding death one last time, only to see it so hideously, powerfully, present in his own backyard. Block confesses that he desires to know, for sure, whether there is a God, and if so,why He remains silent, indifferent, aloof to the woes and cares of His people. The priest, who in reality is Death, answers that there is probably no God--no devils, no angels, no saints-- in the end, only the sepulchral stillness and silence of Death at the end of everything. "Then life would be an inconceivable horror", says Block.

Along the way, Block sees a girl chained outside the church, apparently a witch, to be burned the next day for 'having carnal knowledge of the Evil One' . Eventually, he comes to a village and there meets a local acting troupe, led by a man named Jof, an actor and family man who claims to have seen visions of the Blessed Virgin, among others. Jof's troupe is in town for the local feast; but their performance is suddenly interrupted by the ominous appearance of a penitential procession, apparently done to appease the vengeance of God and withdraw His terrible chastisement upon the land. The procession is a grotesque, macabre, assemblage of sinners from all walks of life; they carry with them skulls and dress in rags and whip each other raw and bloody, a terrible sight to behold, one to make the sinner quake in his boots. The procession seems to bring up two important questions. First, why has God allowed such terrible sufferings to ravage the lands? And second, why does God remain deaf and blind to the supplications of His people? Why does He tarry on, passive and uninterested, at the sight of His beloved children inflicting pain and misery upon each other? Is God glutted, aroused, by such miserable sights?

I will not spoil the rest of the film; Bergman's work really has to be seen and felt firsthand, to take in all the melancholy gravitas and nuances of his direction. Some observations: Bergman's film is almost catatonically silent, the kind of silence one associates with a brooding menace, or a specter of overbearing despair waiting to crawl out of some suffocating shadow to rest upon the souls of men. There is an uneasiness that comes with watching it that I have not felt in many movies. It must also be said that the film is beautifully shot: the cinematography is perhaps as close to perfect as I can think of, and the beauty and poetry of it contrast sublimely with the coldness and melancholia which otherwise infect the narrative of the film. It is well-known that Bergman was the son of a very strict Lutheran pastor, who would often lock him up in the closet for such minor offenses like wetting his bed. The young Bergman further confesses that he lost his faith at the age of eight, no doubt influenced by the trauma he suffered under his father. And indeed, much of his work wrestles with the idea of faith and its role in the human experience. What is probably most striking here is how The Seventh Seal construes God: He is not the benevolent, personal, and loving Creator of the Gospels, but almost blind and idiot, an impersonal, nigh-Lovecraftian terror Whose aloofness and distance from the created world presents itself as a living menace, and Whose monstrous appetite for power continuously roars and lusts for blind and total submission. I realize this may sound caricature-ish, and as the son of a pastor who frequently discussed matters of God and theology on the dinner table, I imagine Bergman might see his vision in a more nuanced light than I; certainly, it is quite a complex film and much of its genius really lies in its ambiguity.

In contrast to noble, doubt-ridden Block, actor Jof is an optimist, if rather naively so. He lives for his family, for his craft, and wants his son to be an acrobat just like him. Even in the face of terrifying mockery and ridicule (the scene at the inn with Jof is distressingly powerful; Nils Poppe, the actor who plays Jof, I think, did an incredible job), Jof could not but end up in high spirits. He claims to see visions of angels and of the Blessed Virgin, in spite of the unbelief of the people around him. In a way, Jof functions very much as the anti-Block: the former is carefree and naively ignorant of the specter of Death, while the latter is almost consumed by doubt and fear, and the possibility that all human life-- and especially the violence often done by man against his fellow man-- ultimately serves no purpose, no direction, not even to entertain the wicked caprices of God and the Devil. The inconceivable horror that Block mentions in the the confession scene is precisely this: that man is damned to be free, and he is powerless to overcome its terrifying vicissitudes, and, most poignantly, that he cannot help but be violent. There is no rationality, however capricious and self-serving it may be, that governs the universe, only Death.

But perhaps no one understands better these seemingly irrational movements of the Divine than the Divine Itself. When Christ hung upon the Cross and cried out, 'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani', He did so to confess His own absolute terror and abandonment before God. For Bergman though, the sacrifice of Our Lord seems to have little to no effect; we are, as we were, estranged, expelled, and barred from any conceivable sense of meaning or direction in life. On the contrary, it seems to confirm his idea of God as a bloodthirsty tyrant, Who scourges, flays, and nails His Son to a wooden cross 'out of love.'

As I have said, The Seventh Seal is a difficult film to master. Like a medieval tapestry it runs a veritable gamut of different physiognomies, and this is evidenced primarily in the faces of its characters. Von Sydow's Block is impassive, stoic, and tinged with a quiet but deep despair; Poppe's Jof is hopeful, expressive, even foolish-looking at times. Towards the end of the film, as Block and his squire Jons encounter the witch a second time, the latter asks (and I paraphrase), 'Who watches out for that girl? God? The Devil?' As the witch is slowly consumed by the flames, she looks in wide-eyed horror at Block and Jons, two sitting ducks powerless to divine the meaning of the act unfolding before their eyes. But Block's own refusal to give in too easily to Death suggests that he has yet a spark of hope in his heart, although it seems to have been all but extinguished absolutely. "Faith is a burden", says Block in the confession scene, which demands of the believer an almost blind assent-- a conviction, no matter how foolish--even in the midst of an almost oppressive, overpowering silence. Block's time with Jof and Mia, and their son Mikael, shows him at his most tender-- a smiling, laughing knight,a far cry from the guilt-wracked man who returns to Sweden. Still, Block eventually allows Death to win the game, apparently resigned to the infinite silence of God.

Perhaps the point here is that faith, like love, is meant to hurt-- but this hurt is not just an emotional hurt, but one which wounds the soul at a deeper, more fundamental level. To make a stand, to stake oneself for a single conviction, is to face the absoluteness of the terror of not knowing, and often this may just be a matter of plugging one's ears and shouting loudly at the top of one's lungs in an attempt to drown out the withering tide of doubt. In a world without meaning or truth, it seems that the only thing that can save it is madness, that of love. Block ends the confession scene by giving a monologue on his hand-- a hand that 'pulses with blood', which he nevertheless uses to play chess with Death. He laughs, with apparent irony, that such a thing pulsing with life is stuck in such a macabre position. Having danced with Death itself, Block still comes off unsure about God. In all honesty, I feel as if Antonius Block's questions could very well be my own. Block's tenderness with Jof's family leads us to think, albeit momentarily, that he has forgotten much of his wrangling with his questions. But Block ultimately refuses to budge, and the silence he feels all around him gets the better of him.

Family Matters

2010-11-13T08:55:00.000+08:00

I got an email from my uncle recently. Seven long years after completely disappearing from the face of the earth, he suddenly pops up on Facebook, to the delight of my mother and the rest of my extended family. In 2003, whilst studying for a doctorate in San Francisco, my uncle was robbed point blank by a gang of thieves, taking with them all his documentation-- passports, green card, and all-- thus leaving him, legally, without any identity.

I've never gotten to know my Uncle as well as I would have liked, even if all my aunts, even today, liken me to a spitting image of him. Walking into his room in my grandmother's house, where he stays wherever he's home, I would often scan his bookshelves for reading material. His bookshelves were really my first exposure to high culture and science. When I was younger and still planned on becoming a scientist or a doctor, I would leaf through his hundreds of volumes of 'Scientific American', 'Nature', and 'National Geographic' for fun. They sat, arranged according to date, at the bottom of a huge mahogany shelf in his room; the upper tiers were reserved for volumes on the arts and the humanities. I still vividly recall sifting through some of the most beautiful books I had ever seen in that room; he was a voracious reader who made me look like an inconceivably pretentious amateur. He had books on Greek and Latin grammar, Egyptology, philosophy, and a good selection of theology books, among others. I would be lying if I said I didn't have some of those books with me at the moment. His love for books was matched only by his love for music. He had a whole shelf built onto a wall, some 10ft tall by 12ft wide, full of records which he had collected from the 70s and the 80s. My mom tells me that he would often visit a local radio station that played only classical music, to ask for recommendations as well as buy any old records that the station was willing to sell.

At the same time, my uncle was probably one of the saddest people I've met, a fact which I've only come to realize recently. My late maternal grandfather was a strict disciplinarian who lived and suffered through the war. He was also a man, unfortunately, who was prone to violent acts, and who had a verbally abusive streak. I've always suspected my uncle might be gay; it was obvious from the way he walked and the way he talked that there was something different about him. My grandfather saw this as well, and he would often beat my uncle for this. My mother recalled to me one time, tears in her eyes, how my grandfather would throw ice cold water at my uncle every morning before dawn to get him to wake up. The abuse did not end there; he would also beat him black and blue at times, in front of my aunts and my other uncle. This cycle went on for years, even well into my uncle's college days, until he finally had enough, and moved in with a few friends.

It is always disheartening to hear of such anger and sadness in one's family. When I was younger, maybe 14 or 15 years old, I held my family sacred and blemish free. We might not be too wealthy but we made up for it by dint of moral superiority. But with age comes the destruction of naivete and the inevitable realization that one is stuck with drunkards, sycophants, the hopeless, the dreamless, the wayward, the agnostic, the irresponsible, the fiscally irresponsible, the arrogant, the belligerent, and, at times, just plain assholes. In the same way, the Church is also a collection of misfits with histories just as long and as scandalous at times. Maybe the family is still sacred, but not by dint of being a spotless image of Heaven above, but because it contains, at once, the familiar and the otherworldly. I can choose to love these misfits, my fellow sinners, and perhaps that is what makes the difference.

Twenty three years after my grandfather's death, I am reminded of the fact that it was my uncle-- the same who had been the object of his cruel maltreatment-- who, in the end, had him buried. Grandpa was laid out in a plot of land in one of Metro Manila's most beautiful cemeteries, all paid for by my uncle. Today, I realize that I still have a lot of unresolved issues; I am lustful, I am proud, but most of all, I have a tendency to despair. I can only pray that I would have the same strength and moral fortitude to love, forgive, and maybe even forget, everything wrong that has been done to me, at the very end.

The Santo Entierro

2010-11-11T21:00:00.003+08:00

It was close to midnight when we arrived at our parish.The light rain had just ceased, and the sepulchral silence of Good Friday hung about the night like an invisible cloak. Above, the moon glowed eerily behind the clouds, casting a corpse-like pallor on the earth below. The church was dark inside, but there were still people praying the rosary or just sitting contemplatively inside. I caught a boy I went to school with give his girlfriend a slight nuzzle on the cheek, while outside, in the church's small garden, where plaster statues of Our Lady of La Salette and several other saints were illuminated by candlelight people milled about. A few penitents meditated upon their serene faces.

"When you see the Lord, remember to kiss His wounds," my aunt whispered to my seven year old cousin. She gently put on a small lace veil on her head, the kind that covered just the crown of the head, and went forward, in silence, to the bier ahead. There, the image of the Dead Christ lay in repose. Locked inside an elaborate wooden box with glass panels all four sides, it was a life-size depiction of the Lord, His eyes half-closed, and whatever trace of the violence done to His sacred body hidden under a pall of violet silk embroidered with gold. On the Lord's breast lay a silver book, and on top, an effigy of a Lamb, also in silver, a cross tucked under its bent legs. A silver crown of thorns lay in front of the book, and within the crown, were three silver nails each the size of a paring knife. I gazed at the Dead Christ for awhile, feeling the weight of a tradition hundreds of years old sink into me, albeit in such a parish as suburban as ours. We missed the procession of the bier earlier in the day; such events always necessitated a marching band and the entirety of the Catholic community's participation. My grandfather thought it was bad luck to miss it at worst, and an impolite omission at best. "Mama, Jesus is inside the coffin, I can't kiss Him." My aunt shushed the boy, and, with a gesture, urged him to do as she did. She produced a white handkerchief from her pocket, a rather frilly, lacy thing, probably with her name stitched in a fancy cursive letters. She took the cloth, and dabbed one kind on her lips; it was a kiss. "Do this after me," she said to the boy. Gently, delicately, she wiped the handkerchief on the glass sides of the wooden bier, every now and then pausing to cross herself with the cloth; she did this for three minutes, before telling my cousin to pull up his shirt. Then, she took the handkerchief and rubbed it on his small, fat back, before ruffing his hair with it. "Francis, 'wag kang malikot!". She issued a stern warning to my little cousin to keep still; life any boy his age, I imagine he wanted to explore the darkened church in the hopes of finding some adventure, or an escape from the dreary silence.

My dad and I followed next, with my grandfather teaching Francis some last minute catechism. I think he was disappointed that the boy had started jumping around in church, and in front of the Dead Christ even, committing a grave faux pas which would have merited the belt in his days. My dad and I stood and silence in front of the image for awhile, but lacking the handkerchiefs to partake of the blessed contagion, we were content to simply kiss the glass sides of the bier. A strong wind blew inside the church, carrying with it the sweet smell of lagrimas, a fragrant flower in the Philippines often associated with funerals. I took note of the arrangement of the Dead Christ one last time, before noticing a purple band tied around His jaw. Such things were often used in the old days to keep the mouth of the deceased shut, although for what purpose, I still do not know (perhaps to keep the soul from being claimed by the Devil?). Our devotions done, we retired momentarily to the pew, to sit and meditate. Behind me, I could hear the lachrymose singing of at least two old ladies, singing, perhaps, a song of lament for the Lord.

It was decided that we would pray the Via Crucis, which I was to lead. I pulled out a copy of the prayerbook I had gotten from school. It was a neat little book which contained Latin and English prayers, and some reflections from the Opus Dei founder St. Josemaria Escriva. "We adore You, O Christ, and we bless You, because by Your holy cross You have redeemed the world." Forty minutes later, we ended our prayer; Francis was already asleep, my grandfather was irascible, and the church, by then, had already completely emptied. Only the night watchman remained, who sat in the back pew of the church, half-awake and half-asleep, but thankfully not snoring.

Inside the church, the candlelight still burned brightly before the bier of the Lord. We came forward again, as a family, to give Him our farewells. My aunt shook Francis from his sleep in order to impress upon him a final act of piety. We knelt for awhile, and for a moment, it looked as if she were banging her forehead on the base of the bier, as if the bier and its Contents were some sort of scapegoat, and that it was not too late to rush the absolution of her sins post factum the Crucifixion. Under the light of two, tacky incandescent bulbs inside the bier, I observed, for the first time, the hand of the Crucified, which the pall had not covered. The hand was locked as if in the early stages of rigor mortis, with a rather gruesome circular indentation at the center, where the nail was hammered into place, and later pulled out. The level of detail was, to say the least, almost fetishistic, and perhaps, most disturbingly, one could even discern a small, raised, ring of bloodied flesh that emanated from the center of the wound, simulating the disturbance of the divine flesh when the nails were pulled out. I pondered over this detail for a moment, lost in contemplation.

Then, my aunt moved to the foot of the bier, and saw that the glass had been unlocked, making it possible to kiss the feet of the Lord. Slowly, she bent her back forward, and pressed her lips on the wounds at the center of the feet, mimicking the same level of gory detail of the hand. This time she dipped the tip of the handkerchief into the wound, in imitation of soaking up real blood, and pressed it to her lips, before signing her forehead, lips, and breast. "By the sign of this holy cross, deliver us from our enemies, You, who are our God." And again, she smothered Francis with the cloth, who, by then, had already grown tired and sleepy. Finally, we left the church. I said goodbye to the boy from school, who had apparently noticed me on my way out and called me out. He gave me a wink, for what, I don't know. I turned to look back once more at the empty church, while the Dead Christ rested serenely inside His bier.

Taal Basilica

2010-11-08T23:27:00.001+08:00

I visited the majestic basilica of Taal, in my father's province of Batangas, six months ago. The town is old, rustic, and crammed full of history. Traditionally, Taal was known as the home of the aristocracy of Batangas; it was home to mestizos and Spaniards, the cream of the crop in the highly stratified Philippine society of the 19th century. Many old houses survived the ravages of the War and are still extant in the town, although signs of decay have taken root as well. Case in point: the plaza that fronted the basilica now has a rather ugly and ill-maintained basketball court. Still, the basilica remains noble and stoic, like a grand old dame crusted with age and yet still wielding an awful majesty. Not for naught was it once held as the biggest church in all of Asia.

We arrived in Taal fifteen minutes before five in the afternoon. Apparently, the anticipated Mass was due to start in a bit; we saw altar boys in burgundy cassocks and lace surplices hurrying back and forth to the sacristy, carrying with them the ciriales-- two silver torches and a venerable old processional crucifix. The crowd was very thin-- the basilica can probably hold a thousand people at least on any given day, but there were only fifty at most present at the Mass. I was later told that anticipated Masses were abhorrent to the generally conservative outlook of the Taalenos, who still preferred to worship at first light of dawn.

That done, we then proceeded to a smaller church, also in Taal, the Shrine of Nuestra Senora de Caysasay. Local legend holds that a fisherman once fished the image of Our Lady-- which was all of a foot tall-- from the sea and decided to bring it back to town to honor it. The Lady, however, was said to have disappeared; the locals still say that the Virgin of Caysasay likes to take walks in the town of Taal at night, mirroring many popular legends of miraculous images in the Philippines. By the time we had reached the shrine, though, it was already sunset, and I was not able to take enough pictures.

Rather curiously, the shrine of Our Lady is connected to the Basilica itself by a secret stair that descended from the grounds of the Basilica at the top, and wound itself along a hidden road, till at last it reached the little shrine below. Historically, this may be attributable to the fact that Taal was once divided between the town proper-- the area above, where the old money families lived-- and the so-called 'labac', the 'lowlands', where the common folk lived. Older Batanguenos still say that the old folk of Taal guarded their privileged status with a vengeance; they suffered none of the Chinese working class to enter the premises of the town proper, and any who did so almost always met certain death, by way of the balisong (Filipino fan knife).

It is said that the Virgin of Caysasay was once brought to the basilica; whereupon it escaped, and disappeared for some time. Years passed before two sisters discovered the image of the Virgin in a tree; and henceforth, it was decided that the Virgin would stay in the Labac. The locals eventually built a small shrine in honor of the equally small-statured Virgin. The old money families of Taal have long since fallen from their untouchable positions, and their fortunes gradually eclipsed by the industrious Chinese-Filipinos. But I am told that the Chinoys would still rather worship at the little shrine beneath the majestic basilica.

Some Brief Thoughts

2010-11-07T00:33:00.001+08:00

The remarkable thing about the Catholic imagination is, I think, its ability to rehabilitate and reconfigure symbols, ideas, and objects according to its own vision of the world. We see this quite clearly in the most popular expressions of Catholic doctrine; we revere the symbol of a crucified man on a cross, in addition to images of Him being scourged and almost flayed to the bone, as well as images of His infancy (and if you're familiar with Hispanic Catholicism, you may have come across the Santo Nino del Pasion-- the Child Jesus contemplating the very cross on which He is to die). The gruesome character of these images is right to disturb us; the fact that they are revered, blessed, and displayed in our homes might even smack of a bizarre neurosis to some people. Yet Catholicism not only esteems these depictions of its central tenets, but also holds them to be holy.

Perhaps it is a product of purely modern times that we have come to bifurcate the holy from the sacred, not always consciously, but at least in practice. While we may have an understanding of holiness as a kind of moral value par excellence, we fail to see its menace; the holy then, becomes more akin to a celestial ball of fluff than something to be revered, let alone worshipped. At the same time, Catholic doctrine can hardly be said to be 'nice'; Hell remains a metaphysical certainty despite the introduction of pastoral concerns into the present discourse, for example, and no amount of doctrinal wrangling can ever devalue it to the level of mere opinion. Perhaps this is one reason why I am fascinated with Folk Catholicism; it is in its imagination that the colors of the Catholic religious imagination remain most vivid, terrifying, and poetic. The image above is from the Good Friday procession of Procida, a small island to the south of Naples in Italy. It is particularly striking in its depiction of the sacred and the profane in the same tableaux. At the fore of the wagon sits the figure of Death riding a horse, seemingly riding through the desolate waste of a temple. Behind death are the figures of demons, ready to tempt and seduce man into perdition. And behind, the silent, muted, figure of the Dead Christ, ministered to by His angels and surrounded by a golden aureole.

I am honestly confused by the iconography here, but at the same time intrigued. In another float, shown below, we see the Pieta, and on the foreground of the image, a crucified skeleton. I imagine such a juxtaposition of the sacred and the monstrous would send many a finger wagging in disappointment, or else raring to pull the trigger of the flare gun of heresy. I myself am disturbed by it. Then again, I am reminded of the many stories I had heard from my parents and grandparents about Good Friday, and the various superstitions associated therewith. Come twelve noon up to three o'clock, all noise was discouraged under pain of sin. Jumping, smiling, laughing, and speaking were expressly forbidden; God was dead, and all creation ought to weep for His passing. Any sudden or quick movement was seen as an affront to the earth, which housed the body of the Lord; it was reasoned that jumping up and down, for example, caused the earth to press down upon the holy body of the Lord (apparently, He had been swallowed up by the earth), disturbing Him from His rest. These taboos also prescribed on Good Friday a double-faced reputation: on one hand, it is the holiest day in the universe, but at the same time, the most malevolent. Witches, sorcerers, demons and heretics were said to prowl about the world looking to sift the elect as wheat and throw them into everlasting fire. It was also thought to be a most propitious day to cast curses, since, with God dead, there would be no one to punish those who would commit such deeds.

This is probably one reason why the image of the Dead Christ-- the Senor del Santo Sepulcro-- was traditionally thought of as one of the most powerful "avatars" of Our Lord; it represents, simultaneously, the concreteness of man's salvation, the debt to sin having been paid in full by His perfect sacrifice, and at the same time, the powerlessness of man to parlay with the Divine. The destruction of Christ's human body reminds us of our own mortality, but also of the necessity of this destruction, leaving man, effectively, in a double bind: he abhors, and yet needs, perhaps more urgently, the wonderful virtue effected by the sacrifice, and as represented by that particular archetype.

And we have, too, the Anima Sola, the lonely soul of purgatory usually depicted as a beautiful woman, wrists bound by chains, her eyes gazing heavenward, looking for a respite from the burning flame which consumes her body. While we are certainly familiar with the idea of praying for the souls in purgatory, asking their intercession and protection seems alien. Perhaps, to the outside observer looking at this particular facet of Catholic devotion, it might almost look as if one were praying to a soul condemned to burn for all eternity in hellfire. Or worse, a devotee making a plea to some foul succubus to spare himself from damnation. Not just heretical, but also malevolent.

I have remarked before that our present age tends to see God and the celestial Hosts as a collective, cosmic Justice League-- a noble, bland, and thoroughly non-threatening assembly ready to fight our battles for us at the drop of a hat. While I certainly subscribe to the Church's teachings on the matter, one has to wonder if such a desensitized, de-fanged Catholicism would work well enough to save us. The genius of the pre-Vatican II Catholic imagination was how it incorporated all of human existence-- even the tragic and the terrifying-- to paint something coherent. The idea of Hell is admittedly quite terrifying, especially for me, sinner that I am. But, I would rather it be included in the Church's metaphysical horizon than letting me figure out, on my own, what Catholicism is; it is not so much a matter of distrusting my own God-given talents to figure things out, but a matter of realizing how woefully insignificant I am in the grand scheme of things. If we balk at the idea of our own insignificance, it would seem, at least to me, that we have forgotten how to be properly self-centered.

Anima Sola

2010-10-31T23:54:00.002+08:00

All Hallows' Eve, and it's raining outside. Nights like this, when I was a boy, always necessitated the telling of ghost stories, which I and me siblings readily devoured. We are much older now, though, and are admittedly harder to scare. But the tradition, thankfully, remains.

I remember one story my father told me some years back. It was 1982, eleven years into Martial Law, and the Marcoses were at the peak of their chicanery. Dad was a senior then, studying in one of Manila's oldest universities, and he was right smack in what is called, around these parts, the U-Belt-- short for 'University Belt', owing to the fact that the area was home to at least three universities. Today, U-Belt has the unfortunate distinction of being known more for its seedy underbelly rather than its education; Recto Street, for example, is quite near it, a street infamous among many for its single most popular ware: fake diplomas. There are stores in Recto, for example, which allow one to wait for the diploma, much like one of those photo studios in the mall that only seem to be there because of the demand for ID pictures. Despite the notorious traffic, however, Dad lived in an apartment well outside the U-Belt. He lived with his sister and a roommate, a rather naive provinciano named Joey, who, I'm told, had a peanut-shaped head.

It happened that, one chilly December night, Dad and Joey were heading back to their apartment from school. The semester almost halfway done, and Christmas break just looming a day away, it was only natural that excitement would get the better of them. And so my Dad, dorky Math major that he is, decided to go out and have a drink with Joey and the gang. The place was a seedy, dilapidated bar (of course, he would leave out this detail whenever he would tell us the story back then)where one could 'table' some girls for a paltry sum. It's one of those places where the dances are badly choreographed, and the music selection is tacky, at best, excruciating at worst. Being the son of my grandmother that he was, though, my dad opted not to partake of the carnality of it all; so he and Joey decided to leave early and head back to their apartment, where my aunt would be waiting.

The distance from U-Belt to West Avenue in Quezon City, where the small apartment was tucked away in some half-forgotten street, could scarcely be said to reach 10km, yet the time of the day (or night, rather) made it difficult to hop on a jeepney too easily. After about fifteen minutes, they found the right vehicle, and, stopping it in the middle of the street, hurried up to enter it. The ride took twenty minutes, and the windy Decemcontrolfreak214@hotmail.comber night carried the soft lilting of Christmas songs in the background as the faint, luscious smell of piping-hot bibingka wafted into the steel confines of the jeepney.

The ride ended, and Dad and Joey alighted from the vehicle. The light from the sole lamp post by the apartment complex was the only thing illuminating the street at that dead hour. And the light, dim as it was, suddenly revealed a figure that hid in the shadows, a tall, slender, and sleek figure. Joey's eyes were drawn to the right, as even then, he contemplated this sudden apparition that had hitherto lain in the dark; it was a woman, clad all in black, as if she were a widow fresh from her husband's funeral. Her sable clothes contrasted greatly with her pale skin; a pair of dark glasses-- at night!-- buried her eyes. Long, black hair, reaching almost to the back, fell on her shoulders. Lips, redder than strawberries-- or blood, if you wish-- were pursed tightly on her face. My Dad and Joey turned to her, despite being unnerved. Then the woman moved forward, and spoke in a velvety, yet hollow voice.

'May I ask if this is the residence of General Ito? Please help me, it is very important I see him.'

Either my Dad or Joey spoke next. 'I'm sorry, but there is no General Ito here. Maybe you're looking for Mr. Tansingco? He is Chinese but often gets mistaken for Japanese.'

The Lady remained still, mulling the words, until at last she spoke again. But this time, her voice betrayed an inner turmoil; and the Lady's voice was cracked and nervous, as if she were on the verge of tears. 'Please help me! I don't know what to do anymore. I really have to see the General, it is a matter of life and death!'

At this point, both men had already grown uneasy, and were resolved to call upon their landlord, an ancient gentleman who was probably at least eighty years old then, to help resolve the situation. 'Hold on a second miss, we'll call the landlord, he might be able to help you.' They fumbled with the key, trying to unlock the gate as quickly as possible, driven in part by fear, and by a sense of pity; whoever this woman was, she clearly needed to see this Ito fellow. And yet, there was no Ito resident in any of the apartments; and more, the Lady's clothes seemed too old-fashioned, as if they had been made, sold, and worn in another decade, one considerably older than the 1980s. The lock resolved, Joey turned around, renewing his effort to help the mysterious Lady.

The light, however, revealed the stranger's figure no longer; and in the span of a seconds that both of them fumbled with the lock, it seemed as if the Lady had disappeared all of a sudden. Eyes frantic and filled with fear scanned the streets looking for any sign of the sable-clad Lady, but no trace of her was to be found. Then, suddenly, from the corner of his eye, my Dad spied a curious movement in the middle of the street. The faint light revealed it to be a snake, slithering from one side of the street to the other; and in that faint, hazy light, the snake's black skin glistened. The chill wind blew once more, and it carried with it the howling of dogs, which masked the cries of many an anguished soul.

The Green Ribbon

2010-10-21T11:49:00.001+08:00

My elementary school days have long gone, but I still remember this story very well. I remember reading it in an anthology of horror stories for children aged 7 to 12, called 'In A Dark, Dark, Room'. But whereas the other stories were merely about preternatural mischief, 'The Green Ribbon' stood out, for me, for its particularly macabre content. Today, thirteen years after I was a student in third grade, it still sends a shiver running up my spine.

El Senor de Los Milagros

2010-10-12T19:13:00.001+08:00

October in Peru is known as 'mes morado'-- the purple month, on account of the fact that fair Lima's streets literally turn purple, as the hundreds of thousands of purple-clad devotees of El Senor de Los Milagros file in procession in honor of that icon. The celebration peaks on October 18th, but expect the streets of Lima to be cloaked in that royal color for the duration of the month. Today, the Peruvian diaspora has brought the devotion to the Lord of Miracles to such far-flung areas as New York City (where a procession is held on 51st Street), Madrid, Australia, and even Japan.

From the Kleph blog, a history of the devotion to the Senor:

According to tradition, in 1651 a slave who had converted toCatholicism painted the depiction of Christ on the cross on the wall ofa building in the outskirts of Lima where new devotees to the faithgathered to pray.

When a devastating earthquake struck thecity four years later the entire building collapsed except for the walladorned with the painting. Over the next several decades, the imagebecame associated with miraculous incidents. More and more people,particularly the descendents of slaves, began to worship at the site.

Thisconcerned both the church and Spanish authorities and, in 1671 theimage was ordered destroyed. According to legend, workers were not ableto do so. But, for whatever reason, officials eventually relented andbuilt a proper church on the site – the church of Las Nazarenas.

Whenanother huge earthquake struck Lima in 1687, the chapel was destroyedbut, once again, the wall adorned with the painting remained standing.This cemented the importance of the image to the faithful and churchleaders ordered a painting of the image to be taken out in processionthat October – the tradition that continues to this day

The Magnetic Fields - I Don't Believe in the Sun

2010-10-12T11:44:00.000+08:00

I'm only twenty one years old; I think I deserve to post the occasional angst-ridden, woe-is-me song every now and then.

Feast of Our Lady of Penafrancia

2010-09-30T23:44:00.000+08:00

The devotion to Our Lady of Penafrancia marked its tercentenary this year. The procession is one of the most well-attended in the Philippines, and in the province of Bicol, where this image is most fervently venerated and where she is known as 'Ina'-- Mother -- the celebrations take on an incredibly emotional character. It's said that a pagan Chinese sculptor once killed a dog and used its blood to stain the wood used to make the image; the sculptor then threw the carcass into the river. The Lady, probably incensed at the poor creature's death, brought it back to life; whereupon the dog was said to have immediately jumped out of the water, as if nothing had happened.

Iesus Mulierum Salvator

2010-09-23T21:43:00.000+08:00

I took this photo nine months ago, during a visit to our province of Batangas. My grandfather was due to receive an award from the Archdiocese, to be conferred immediately after the second Mass of the day, at 6.30 in the morning. This crucifix, I am told, has quite a bit of history; it was reportedly featured on national television in the Nineties, after some miraculous cures were attributed to it. A remarkable moment of serendipity was when the two women at the foreground entered the scene, just as I was about to take the photograph. The seeming nonchalance of the younger girl in the blue shirt contrasts well with the stoic piety of her grandmother. The church where this was taken, the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, was recently declared a pilgrimage site.

Good Friday in Corleone, Sicily

2010-09-20T22:57:00.000+08:00

Oracion para tumbar los trabajos negros

2010-09-20T11:51:00.001+08:00

Found on a rather questionable site. To be honest, it sounds a lot like the prayers my grandparents used to pray over me when I was but a child. My Spanish is a bit rusty, to please bear with the translation. That, and I lack sleep (thesis, ugh).

Enel nombre del Padre, del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo, por el poder de laSantísima Trinidad y por el poder del Creador, tenga por virtud y poderde desechar encantamientos, brujerías, hechicerías y todo mal, dado,tirado o tomado en cualquier maleficio.

Porel poder del Creador, por el poder de San Cipriano y el redentor, porel poder de la Santísima trinidad y de mi Angel Guardián, por el poderde todos los Santos, mis enemigos quedan derrotados, que el espírituSanto sea mi ayuda y me guarde de los malos espíritus. Señor haz quelas armas de mis enemigos o enemigas, fueran hombres o mujeres, grandeso pequeños, si traen armas no me lastimen, sus ojos no me vean, suslenguas desatadas no me ofendan, que ni diablos, brujos o brujas,polvos, velas, mala suerte, encantamientos, malos espíritus, seanreventados antes de llegar a mí. Que si soy perseguido los pasos de misperseguidores sean clavados con clavos y crucetas. Cárceles ycalabozos, candados y cadenas y grillos que encierran o aten mi cuerpo,revienten como reventaron los rayos y centellas, cuando Jesús expiro enla Cruz. Que mi cuerpo sea cubierto con el manto sagrado de laVerónica, para luego ver la redención del mundo. Amén.

---

In English:

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, by the power of the Most Holy Trinity, and by the power of the Creator, have I the virtue and power to dispose of enchantments, witchcraft, sorceries and every evil, given, cast, or taken in whatever curse.

By the power of the Creator, by the power of Saint Cyprian and of the Redeemer, by the power of the Most Holy Trinity and of my guardian angel, by the power of all the saints, may my enemies be defeated, and that the Holy Spirit be my help and my protector against evil spirits. Lord, grant that the weapons of my enemies, be they men or women, great or small, if they should bring weapons, that they do not harm me, that their eyes no not see me, that their loose tongues do not offend me, that neither devils, witches and sorcerers, powder, candles, bad luck and enchantments, evil spirits, are loosed before reaching me. That if I pursued the footsteps of my pursuers they may be bound my nails and crosspieces. May prisons and jail cells, locks and chains and shackles that bind or fix my body, burst like thunder and lightning as thunder did burst when Jesus expired on the Cross. That my body be covered by the holy mantle of Veronica, then to see the redemption of the world.

Holy Terror

2010-08-31T23:33:00.000+08:00

I have probably posted this video before, but a sudden thought just occurred to me. In many cultures, the sacred takes on a decidedly double-faced characteristic. The sacred, because it is numinous and otherworldly, escapes the grasp of human reason, and because of this, it can be said that the sacred technically fits neither category of benevolence or malevolence. What the sacred is, however, is terror--sheer, impalpable, creature-ing terror.Remember that sacred ultimately means being set apart-- but whether that is a good or bad thing for us remains to be seen. Perhaps the reason, then, why the practice of making vows to the saints perdures in the Philippines is because it is never wise to cross that which is not human. The sacred is untamed, wild, irrepressible and contagious. Maybe, just maybe, these vows are made, not just to bargain with the divine, but also to keep it out of the sphere of life as much as possible. After all, who wants to seek death by displeasing the Madonna, or St. Isidore the Laborer? Of course, I am just toying around in my head; but the idea that God, His Holy Mother, the nine choirs of angels and His saints constitute some sort of cosmic Justice League is ludicrous, maybe even dangerous.

In the video are penitents called 'magsasalibatbat', who crawl around town on their hands and knees dressed like the Nazarene. Upon reaching a shrine or visita in honor of the town's patron saint, they prostrate themselves upon the dust, while a cross is tied down to their backs. The remainder of the penitent act is spent with the cross bearing down on them.

And All The Angels and Saints

2010-08-31T21:22:00.000+08:00

My current predicament (nothing serious, to be sure) is almost sure to prolong my absence from regular blogging. In the meantime, I thought I'd draw the reader's attention to a new blog I came across. Mr. Alex Castro runs 'And All the Angels and Saints', a blog dedicated to the art and craft of the santero-- saint-makers, literally, men who carve images of the saints for use in processions and in churches. As well, it offers interesting trivia and history on some of the more celebrated santos in the Philippines, including an image of the Dead Christ that was supposedly 'kidnapped'. Do check it out, it is quite a fun read.

On the Weather

2010-08-31T16:17:00.000+08:00

One day last week, as I was taking the train to meet a friend, rainclouds suddenly blocked out the sun, and rain started to pour. In another instant the rainclouds were gone, and the sun was shining down again, but the rain perdured, now strong, now weak, drizzling, pouring, all this under a clear blue sky. I was suddenly reminded of an old superstition; whenever rain started to pour while the sun was up, they said, it was a sure sign that two tikbalang were about to be married. Having the body of a man and the head of a horse, the tikbalang is one of the more famous creatures of Philippine mythology; it has a taste for human flesh, they said, and when two of them were to be married, it's said, humans better watch out.

And sure as day, I saw a little old lady of about sixty, no doubt a grandmother, suddenly grab her grandson and give her a medallion of St. Benedict. She pressed it to his foreheard, lips, and heart, before finally crossing the child with the medallion. 'Crux sacra sit mihi lux, nunquam draco sit mihi dux.' Meanwhile, the child played gleefully with his PSP, as even then, the old lady resumed reading her tabloids, no doubt chewing up the latest gossip about her favorite stars' love lives.

Requiem Mass for President Ramon Magsaysay at the Brompton Oratory, 1957

2010-08-03T22:24:00.000+08:00

The late Leon Ma. Guerrero, of the prominent Guerrero clan of Manila was probably one of the most interesting figures to have served his nation. A dyed in the wool aristocrat (he spoke with an impeccable Oxford accent, to the delight of the British where he served as ambassador for seven years), it has been said of his family (to paraphrase Nick Joaquin) that they were at once marked by the most intense Catholicism and by the most intense nationalism; at once the fiercest defenders of tradition, while also fostering revolution on the other.

Mr. Guerrero served under the government of Ramon Magsaysay, who is, perhaps, one of the most beloved Presidents the Philippines has ever had. Magsaysay was as populist as they came, serving as a mechanic for a time and inviting the poor to come into the halls of Malacanang Palace where he would wine and dine with them. There too, is a story told that Magsaysay was able to bring about the surrender of communist rebels by circulating tales of aswangs -- blood-sucking, flesh-eating vampires-- loose in the mountains. President Magsaysay, sadly, died in a plane crash, and his body was never found.

The photo above shows the catafalque of President Magsaysay draped in the Philippine flag. Please excuse the somewhat poor quality of the photo, as I had no means to properly scan the book in which I found it. Rather, I just used my phone to snap a photo of said photo.

Here now is an excerpt from The Diplomatist about the Requiem Mass in honor of the fallen president, held in the London Oratory at Brompton in March of 1957.

... at the Brompton Oratory at 11 o'clock on the morning of Friday, 22 March the Earl of Scarborough, the Lord Chamberlain, representing H.M. the Queen at the Solemn Requiem Mass sung on the occasion of the funeral in Manila of the late President of the Philippines, Ramon Magsaysay. Her Majesty's Ambassador in the Philippines, Mr. G.L. Clutton, represented Her Majesty at the funeral. The Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop Gerald O'Hara, presided, Father P. Bushell was the celebrant, assisted by Father Mark Taylor and Father D. Wood, and the Archbishop of Westminster was represented by the Right Rev. Msgr. Morrough Bernard. Among the large congregation were diplomatic representatives of 67 countries including 25 ambassadors. Attending with the Philippine Ambassador and Mrs. Guerrero were members of the staff of the Embassy and others of the Filipino community in the United Kingdom, and members of the Philippine Society of London.

And finally, some choice words from Mr. Guerrero about his fallen commander in chief.

Yet none was closer to the ordinary Filipino than President Magsaysay. Perhaps it was because he never made his fortune, because he rose to power so quickly and so soon. Or perhaps the common people always took him as their own because he made them feel important, because he knew he would worry as much about an artesian well for their mountain village as about a new oil refinery, or about a poor postman's promotion as a change in the Cabinet.

Que arrogante caudillo osara en su furor?

2010-07-31T23:35:00.001+08:00

In honor of the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, here is now the Marcha de San Ignacio, otherwise known as the hymn of the Society of Jesus. They still teach it in grade schools of the Jesuit-run institutions here, although the words are different (it seems that each country has its own version of the song-- the one familiar to me, and most prevalent in the Philippines, may be found here)

Fundador / sois, Ignacio y General /
De la Compañía real /
Que Jesús / con su nombre distinguió. /
La legión de Loyola / con fiel corazón, /
Sin temor enarbola / la cruz por pendón: /
¡Lance, lance a la lid fiero Luzbel /A sus monstruos en tropel! //
De Luzbel las legiones /
Se ven ya marchar /
Y sus negros pendones /
El sol enlutar, /
¡Compañía de Jesús / corre a la la lid, /
A la lid! /
Del infierno la gente /
No apague tu ardor, /
Que ilumina tu frente /
De Ignacio el valor. /
Ya voces escúchanse /
De trompas bélicas. /
Y el santo ejército /
Sin tregua bátase, /
Y alza sus lábaros /
En la batalla campal. /
Fiel presagio / del lauro bélico y de la paz. /
Del lauro y de la paz

El Patrocinio de San Jose

2010-07-28T22:55:00.000+08:00

The work of the Peruvian painter Gaspar Miguel del Berrio, 18th century.

Very Important Prayer Request

2010-07-18T12:43:00.000+08:00

Of your charity please pray for a certain lady, who could very well be considered a part of our family. Our old housekeeper Ines left to retire in June of last year, after 20 years of being with us. She is diabetic and is currently based in one of the more remote provinces of the Philippines, where easy access to hospitals is not common. A few weeks ago she injured her leg, and apparently it is now festering and there is a chance she may have to get the gangrenous leg amputated. This is just heartbreaking news for all of us, and especially for me. Please pray that it does not get worse, and if possible, to avert the possibility of the amputation. Thanks.

Sobriety

2010-07-18T11:14:00.000+08:00

1.30 am on a Saturday morning, and the road is pitch black, the only consolation coming from a few street dim street lamps and the occasional headlights. No one uses this road much, not as much as some other thoroughfares at least. There is something about driving home in the ungodly hours that somehow makes it easier for your priorities to reach convergence. The radio had been playing crap for a few minutes now, so off it went, and I had to put on one of my dad's CDs to fill in the void.

Three things I saw that night that made me shake my head in absurdity. The first: a thick bundle of tattered black and gray firmly planted on an island in the middle of the road. I shone my headlights at the curious bundle, and discovered a few beer bottles next to it. The bundle shone, the material reflecting my lights to a degree. It looked like a massive but curiously splayed trash bag. I followed the length of the shiny black material until it came to an end-- and from that end protruded a pair of darkly tanned mounds of flesh terminating in calloused, bruised feet. It was a man inside the trash bag, apparently, and judging from the almost imperceptible movement in the trash bag, I could tell, thankfully, that he was alive.

The second instance occurred a little over half an hour after that. A rickety box-like thing was crossing the middle of the highway. It was a kariton, a wooden cart on wheels which, depending on its usage, was either a very poor man's version of a garbage truck, or in some cases, a mobile home, a few items of clothing and shelter, and sometimes even a pet dog for protection, finishing it. Behind it, a tiny old woman, bent and skinny and heaving, was pushing it, oblivious to the oncoming rush of cars at that ungodly hour.

Finally, I entered home stretch, that is to say, the last ten minutes of my drive home. For some strange reason, my stomach was churning, rebelling against the food I had earlier deposited there. It is now ten minutes after two in the morning, and what better way to cap off a minor spasm of hunger than with pan de sal, that ubiquitous Filipino breakfast bread. I parked the car next to the bakery, got off, bought my bread, when my shirt was accosted by an unseen force. A child, probably no more than 7, dressed in tatters, his face muddy, but you could see the hopefulness in it. He offered me sampaguita. 10 pesos for a strand. I bought one strand, handed him 10 pesos -- two brass coins just slightly bigger than my thumb. And he walked off, running to his friend in the dark who I presumed was probably around his age as well.

If you ever want to get rid of even the most insignificant hangover, I suggest a drive through the streets of Manila. There's horror and poetry there to do just that.

Trinidad Trifacial

2010-06-30T23:54:00.000+08:00

I have blogged about the renegade icon of the Trinidad Trifacial before, but it's always nice to find an image of it that looks so... pagan. The Church of course has never really liked this depiction of the Blessed Trinity in that it seems to blur the distinctness of the Three Divine Persons. In Peru, the Trifacial, it seems, is quite popular (there is also another depiction, this time of the Holy Trinity as three Jesuses, although the Peruvian example I saw had all Personae dressed in papal robes); the image above, however, comes from the parish of Santos Justo y Pastor in Cuenca de Campos in the Spanish province of Valladolid. It is the work of an anonymous artist and probably dates back to the end of the 16th century.

I have heard Protestants say that the God of Catholicism is a very 'sensual' God; Spanish Catholicism and its many incarnations throughout its colonies, in particular, have a way of showing this sensuality that seems almost bizarre to our modern sensibilities. Should we be uneasy? To be honest, I really don't know. My conception of God has largely been molded more on abstract principles-- proper, decent, hyper-Roman, Roman Catholicism-- to be comfortable with such an image. But at the same time, it makes 'sense'-- the kind that only Catholics schooled in the logic and riotous horizons of imagination of Catholicism since birth can appreciate-- to think of God as a three faced man. In truth, it doesn't really have to make sense, I think. It just has to be feasible. More or less.

And besides, it is certainly better than thinking of God as a robed figure with a glowing light bulb for a head. I'm looking at you, Jack Chick.

Apu Iro

2010-06-29T23:58:00.000+08:00

In honor of the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, here is a post on Apu Iro-- 'Chief Iro', to use an approximate English equivalent, patron saint of Apalit in the province of Pampanga. The image of St. Peter is dressed in full papal regalia, complete with papal tiara and the fabled triple-bar cross. His face and hands are ivory, and his stockinged feet are encased in solid silver. These rest upon a finely worked cushion, while the saint is seated on a portable throne of solid silver. The saint's right hand, too, rests on a cushion, heavy with the burden of keeping the keys to the kingdom of heaven. A jeweled emerald ring shines brightly on the ivory finger of the saint. Like the Pope, the image is carried on the shoulders of men-- in this case, a myriad devotees who compete for the saint's attention. An ombrellino is held by a senior devotee over the saint's head, as a gesture of reverence as well as in keeping with established papal protocol. He is carried amidst mad festivity from his chapel in Sulipan to the town church of Apalit.

The next day, the saint is returned, again with magnificent pomp and ceremony, to his chapel, there to repose until next year's festivities. He is carried to a sumptuously appointed barge-- which the locals call a pagoda-- by the yellow-clad Knights of St. Peter, traversing the river to cries of 'Viva' and the mad flinging of rice and foodstuffs. In heathen days these were said to have been offerings to the crocodiles which resided in the river, for peace and safety. Devotees, meanwhile, engage in a riotous splashing of water, whilst more Knights swim in the river, pulling the ropes attached to the barge in an act of penance and 'sucking up' to the Divine. Finally, their sacred deed done, the men return to their homes, to feast and glut themselves, in honor of Apung Iro.

El Gran Poder Attacked

2010-06-28T22:43:00.001+08:00

One of the most popular images of Our Lord in Spain, Jesus del Gran Poder, aptly called the Lord of Seville, was physically attacked -- kicked off its pedestal, stomped, and having its right arm almost ripped off in the process by its deranged attacker. Supposedly, the man shouted 'I am the Son of God' when he assaulted the image of the Lord. My Spanish is not the best in the world, but you may read the pertinent articles here:

El Gran Poder atacado con violencia
El agresor del Gran Poder, al psiquiatrico por creerse <>

The image of El Gran Poder is four hundred years old, having been sculpted in the 17th century by the sculptor Juan de Mesa. It is perhaps the most venerated image of Our Lord in Seville and figures prominently in the processions of Good Friday. This execrable act of sacrilege has outraged Sevillanos, and in response, the Hermandad del Gram Poder organized, on Friday, an "extraordinario besamanos"-- an act of devotion common in Hispanic countries, wherein devotees line up to kiss the precious hands of Our Lord. Youtube has some videos of this event, where the line of devotees stretched well outside the church's grounds. Everyone, young and old, participated in the penitential act.

Alive

2010-06-28T22:01:00.000+08:00

Apologies for the long lull in posting. The new school year has just started here and I am busy with school; in addition, personal baggage has largely taken away much of my free time of late. For now, I would like to request the few people still reading this blog (are there any? lol) to pray for some intentions of mine. First, for Mark, a friend of mine, that he stop wasting his life and that he may abandon his lifestyle of constant fornication and sodomy. I also request prayers for my grandmother, who had an accident this morning. She is turning 85 tomorrow, and though she is still in otherwise admirable health, she had to be confined at the hospital for a period of 24 hours. And lastly, for me, that I may be able to keep my focus and quit procrastinating. That is all.

La Sanch, Perpignan

2010-06-10T14:16:00.006+08:00

Not in Spain, or Portugal, or Italy, but in the south of France. If I'm correct, Perpignan is quite close to Barcelona. The procession of black, hooded penitents is led by a nazareno (for lack of a better term) in a red capirote, to the solemn ringing of a bell, whilst the rest of the company beat drums. Religious images are borne on the shoulders of devotees and borne around town for the veneration of the faithful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfwE93GvnDY
Here is a link to a photoset on Flickr: Procession de la Sanch