Some Photos from Holy Week

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

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...

(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?

 

(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

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

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

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

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

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

 

"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

 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

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

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

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

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

"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

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!

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

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

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.