Mary's Month of May

The month of May is a very special month in our family. It is the birthday month of five of my siblings.

May 9, 11, 12, 14 and 23. One niece also celebrates hers on the 12th. The Fiesta of our town in Nueva Ecija also falls on May 12th, so does the Fiesta in Santa Ana, Manila (Feast of St. Anne), where I spent my childhood years.

May is the merriest month in the Philippines. That's because it is summertime; so most town fiestas occur on this month. The annual Santa Cruzan is also held on this month, which is a Catholic tradition of commemorating the journey to find the crucifix of Jesus by King Constantine and her mother, Queen Helena.

According to historical accounts, Constantine, the emperor of Rome some thousand years ago, dreamt that he should go to the battle field to fight in the name of the Holy Cross. He conquered his enemy and that victory led to his conversion to Christianity. He became the first Christian emperor in history. His mother, Queen Helena, was inspired by all these experiences and in the year 326 A.D., she went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to seek the Holy Cross, the wooden cross on which Christ was supposed to have been nailed. She successfully found the Holy Cross, complete with its inscription `INRI` on its top.

Thus, the religious Santa Cruzan procession is a re-enactment of the finding of the Holy Cross by Reyna Elena.

Of course, May is the month of the Blessed Virgin Mary. So, in Catholic churches worldwide, there would be a twelve-day novena and floral offerings to Mother Mary, and which would culminate in the Flores de Mayo in the Philippines, the official May procession held by Philippine catholic parishes.

Corollary to this Catholic tradition is the neighbourhood procession called Lutrina. Originally, the Lutrina was meant to be festivities and rituals related to the the planting season which occurs in May.

The alay originally came from the very ancient past when young girls, always the symbol of purity and renewal, went to the sacred caves to offer garlands of flowers to the anito or the spirits of the forefathers. Then, it was reconfigured into the Christian tradition, and alay became the offering of the young for the Holy Virgin, then the offerings were replaced by flowers.

The lutrina, or the prayers were originally uttered by farmers as they walked through barren fields, were pleadings for the first rain. These days, the 12-day lutrina would culminate into the Santa Cruzan, where neighbourhood beauties - young girls and dalagitas - become sagalas. The last of the sagalas is always the Emperatris or Reyna Elena with her little constantino.

Nowadays, in many small nooks of Santa Ana and Mandaluyong, countless lutrinas are being held in May. But when I was growing up in one particular Santa Ana neighbourhood, there was only one lutrina, and it was started by my Lola. It was always started on May 14th, the birthday of one of my sisters. So, all my sisters and cousins, at one time or another, became "sagalas" in this Santa Cruzan and also in theFlores de Mayo.
This is also the reason, why we townsfolk of Punta and Mandaluyong, could eloquently sing the "Dios te Salve Maria."

Here in Toronto, the Filipino Catholic Mission (previously called the Filipino Chaplaincy) celebrates its own Santa Cruzan. At the old chaplaincy, we used to participate in the procession, where young Filipino- Canadian girls and boys donned their gowns and barongs, and the procession would take on the route around the high-rise apartment buildings and a park to the accompaniment of a Banda Filipino or musiko.

Welcome to my First Day

Good day to all.

My name is Gener. Family members call me Gene. Those very close to me call me Oz. You can call me a brother.

I started this blog today, May 24th, Ascension Sunday. It is the day when Our Lord Jesus Christ has been taken up into heaven and we believe that He sits at the right of Our God the father.

While I started another blog called Lucky Canary at http://www.luckycanary.blogspot.com/, a while back, I felt a call to write a blog that captures my Catholic faith - its rites, events and practises. Already, my original blog had posts devoted to Philippine Catholic practises.

For starters, let me tell you that I am not a very religious person. As a child, I was first baptized an Aglipayan, in a church in the Philippines. Aglipayan, to those not familiar to it, is a Philippine Christian denomination with very close affinity to the Catholic religion, in its rites and practices.

Now called The Philippine Independent Church, officially the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) (also known as the Philippine Independent Catholic Church), Aglipayan is a Christian denomination of the Catholic tradition in the form of a national church.

The church was founded by Isabelo de los Reyes in 1902 and made Gregorio Aglipay, a dissilusioned Catholic priest, its head.

Aglipayan grew at an unprecedented growth from that time onwards because the Filipinos resented the Spaniards for its more than 300 years of repressive rule. Then, membership declined. Today, there are about 3 million Aglipayans throughout the Southeast Asian Peninsula of the Philippines, making it the country's second largest Christian church. It has members in the United States and Canada.

My mother's family is Aglipayan, and my father's, Catholic. There was even a topic, hushed mostly by my mother, that my maternal grandfather was a Mason.

But being so intertwined and similar to each other, these two religions and churches were but one to me...to us. While growing up, me and my siblings didn't really consider ourselves Aglipayans nor Catholics. We were foremost, Christians. Thus, even while baptized as Aglipayans, we - me, my siblings, mother and aunts, worshipped freely in both churches.

When I was about to start high school, I was baptized in the Catholic church, and thus now, I am a practising Catholic. All of us in our family are now practising Catholics.

I look forward to posting blogs that will talk about Christian religious practises, events, peoples and places, with a focus on Philippine Catholic practises.

I hope to see you along the way.

Serendipity

I remember watching the movies, Serendipity and A Knight's Tale, while on a plane travelling home to the Philippines.

Both movies tackle the tale of love. In Serendipity, John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale met at a New York department store while buying the same present for their loved ones, and immediately felt an attraction towards each other; but the girl decided to allow fate to take control of their future.

In A Knight's Tale, Ledger's character (William Thatcher) posed as a knight after his Lord died, and joined the "jousting" matches. In the process, he found the girl, Jocelyn, and his good fortune (befriending Edward, the Black Prince of Wales and Geoffrey Chaucer) of finally having a real knighthood bestowed on him. He also found his long lost father.

So, I found myself debating what the Tagalog word for serendipity is. All I could think of is ala suerte, or masuwerteng tadhana, but now, I think both phrases do not capture the true meaning and essence of the word serendipity.

Then this ancient story came back to mind. A story of a young boy who was constantly crying because he thought his father loved his younger brother more than he loved him. Whenever his brother got a toy, little Boy would grab it from him.

One day, after a long family trip, the little boy cried again. This time it was because his kid brother would not give him a piece of candy. He howled and cursed, until his father whipped him with a leather belt.

The little boy cursed even more, and threatened to run away from home. He went up to his room, put several clothes in a blanket, and checked the wound on his stomach which the belt lashing left.

He felt so sorry for himself. He then climbed on the bed's wooden headboard and reached for the bottle of oil kept on an upper cabinet, to soothe his wound.

A candle was burning on the altar beside the bed and as the boy reached higher, his legs quivered and he fell on the altar. When he did, his t-shirt caught fire. It was a new shirt, a gift from his mother.

The candle flame singed the shirt and produced a hole. Terrified, the young boy stood up and saw the icons looking at him from the altar. Somehow, he lost the gall to run away. It was the day after Christmas.

Sometimes when you're not seeking, you find the best.

There were some serendipitous moments in this blogger's life.

And as the days of our lives unfold, I hope there could be more.

Is there a serendipity in your life? Tell me.

This post was originally posted in my other blog: www.luckycanary.blogspot.com

Visita Iglesia

Left, St. James' Cathedral, Santiago de Compostela
Below, Nuestra Senora del Pilar, Zaragoza

If one is doing the Visita Iglesia, he is expected to visit at least seven churches and up to a maximum of fourteen. What is Visita Iglesia?

Visita Iglesia is another old Lenten tradition in the Philippines. It takes place on the Maundy Thursday of the Semana Santa (Holy Week). As tradition has it, Visita Iglesia commences at sunset and ends in the early hours of Good Friday.

In the area in Mandaluyong where I grew up, there are two churches: the Roman Catholic Church of San Felipe Neri, and the Philippine Independent Church (Aglipayan). These two churches shared somewhat similar religious practises and rituals, and so during the Semana Santa, such similarities gave rise to minor discomfort among the many residents who lived within the two parishes. Here, I am talking about the scheduling of the procession, and no other.

So as not to create a traffic disaster and an issue, which we kids, called "harangan" (cutting of, as in bad driving) the two churches decided to hold Holy Week processions on two different days. One, I think the Catholics, had theirs on a Wednesday and the Aglipays, on a Thursday. But , of course, on Good Friday, both churches held their respective procession on the same evening.

We kids considered these two processions as a competition. It was normal for us to hear murmurs among the crowd - those bystanders - giving their two-cent worth opinion as to which among the two churches had the better "carosas" or statues.

A Lola (grand aunt) of ours had a Santa Veronica in these processions and a maternal grand uncle owned the Magdalena. So a few hours before dusk, the people living in our street would be enthralled by the passing of these two saints, clad in their best colorful outfit and with hair as silky as the moon and as yellow as the sun - riding high on their ornate "carosas" and leaving behind the scent of sampaguita, ylang ylang and champaca.

Once the procession left the church, we scrambled and picked which saint to follow. Me and my siblings always followed Veronica; but sometimes, we trailed also Magdalena, especially if the scent of the "karburo," the chemical which powered the lights of Veronica, started to bother our nostrils.

For us, the Visita Iglesia started after the procession had ended. Next to our church, we would visit the Santa Ana Church, and sometimes, we went as far as the San Miguel Church which is located near the Malacanang Palace.

Sadly, the practise of Visita Iglesia is not observed in North America. Here in Canada, the Maundy Thursday church service is celebrated in the evening, unlike in the Philippines where it takes place in the morning. Thus, our Maundy Thursday service is held at seven and as it is celebrated throughout the whole Christendom, consists of the commemoration of the Lord's Last Supper.

And unlike also in the Philippines, we start our long Easter weekend, not on Holy Wednesday, but on Good Friday. Offices are closed on Good Friday and for most, returning to work is on the following Tuesday.

This post was originally posted in my other blog: www.luckycanary.blogspot.com

Pabasa - A Lenten Ritual in the Philippines

One happy memory of my childhood is the annual Pabasa ng Pasyon. Pabasa, an oral remembrance/recitation/singing of the passion of Christ and is one of the most unique and valued ways the Filipinos observe Lent. It usually takes place during the Semana Santa (Holy Week).

Here in Toronto, Canada, a Pabasa is held by the Filipino Chaplaincy/Mission. The chaplaincy which used to be housed at the Blessed John XXIII church was later transferred to the Our Lady of Assumption Church in Bathurst.

In our extended family, once you learned how to read you immediately became a member of the singing group.

Our Pabasa was hosted by our maternal Grand Aunt, who was fondly called Lola Ebya (Eusebia). It was held for many years in her grandiose house in Santa Ana, in a section of the house resembling a small chapel.

It housed life-sized statues and icons of several saints and patrons which included a Santa Veronica, which participated in the yearly processions of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and I believe, the Easter dawn-Salubong.

My Lola’s pabasa was always held on a Holy Monday. It would start in the early evening or mid-afternoon and finish the following day at three in the afternoon. So it meant continuous singing of verses describing the life, suffering and death of Christ. This continuous singing also meant non-stop eating. The singers and participants had to be fed; if not, like the canaries, their voices would weaken.

My Lola’s pabasa was usually attended by relatives, friends and members of the church which we attended. I distinctly remember one singer, an old woman named Aling Gundina, whose voice was opera-sounding and we, kids looked forward to imitating her after the pabasa had ended.

The food for these pabasas consisted of fiesta-like dishes, but what I loved most was the lumpiang sariwa (fresh vegetable roll) with lots of minced garlic and the suman sa lihiya, a native dessert of sweet glutinous rice wrapped in green banana leaves; such food and kakanins prepared out of the large kusina by old ladies who would not let you in.

My mother and two aunts had fairly good pabasa voices. And one uncle in-law could wow the crowd with his Cenon Lagman voice. But we, young ones would be sitting at the back of the room, boldly singing, only as soon as the crowd had thinned, usually in those hours after lunch and early hours of Holy Tuesday.

Back then, the use of microphones and loud speakers was unknown. But with participants honed over the years in the pabasa-style singing, the need for these equipment did not exist. It was usual to have various mini-sections in the big singing group, who would compete in the singing; some would intentionally prolong singing some words and phrases, and some would abruptly switch to another tono (tune) to catch the attention of the large crowd or to simply awaken those who were ready to fall asleep.

At home, my mother would start her own basa ng pasyon as soon as Cuaresma (Lent) commenced on Ash Wednesday, and we all had to participate at various days and times, to enable the family to finish the whole book, by Good Friday.

Today, I am quite sure that my mother is softly singing the Pasyon in the privacy of her room in the Philippines. She no longer goes to the official basahan ng pasyon as her eyesight is no longer as sharp as before, and alas, some apos (grandchildren) have lost touch with a beautiful Philippine Christian tradition.

Posted by Gener Fajardo Pagkanlungan at 8:16 AM