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Wednesday, April 16, 2003
They gather for the Carro
By Cora M. Almerino
Who will go back to the carro after a procession and take a second look?
The carro is a nondescript structure. Its worth depends on its simple function: a mobile altar for holy sculptures adorned with flowers. A mobile altar subdued in the magnificence of light and flowers decorated with a motif.
But more than anything else, the carro holds a shared history with its parochial community. This is true with a faithful clan in Tulay, Minglanilla, the Cañadas.
For years now, the Cañadas have been taking responsibility for the Nazareno carro used during the parochial Maundy Thursday procession. “Family members prefer to come home on Holy Week than Christmas because of this carro tradition,” says Joy Cañada Bernaldez, this city’s celebrated fashion designer. Joy goes home with her family and sisters to their ancestral home in Tulay, Minglanilla to decorate the carro.
The carro tradition started right at the start of the establishment of the Minglanilla Catholic church. It’s as old as the various accessory ceremonies observed by believers.
Huwebes Santo and the carro tradition of the Cañadas
It is always on a Maundy Thursday when the Cañadas gather to prepare the carro for the afternoon procession. But it always takes them a long time to plan as a committee on the presentation of the carro. It used to be Expectacion, the mother of Joy who would decorate the carro, while Jesus, Expectacion’s only brother took care of assigning the male members of the clan, who would take turns in pushing the carro during the procession.
Alejandro Cañada, the grandfather of Joy, Probo, Lamberto and the rest, grew up with this responsibility. Alejandro told his grandchildren that the tradition mandates the youngest son of the Cañada family to assume responsibility. “The responsibility to take care of the carro, to prepare it for the ceremonial processions of the church, has been there for ages now, although we cannot be as specific as identifying the year. But let’s just say that the responsibility was passed on to us shortly after the founding of the Minglanilla parish church,” explains Engr. Probo Cañada, the eldest son of Jesus.
Alejandro has two children: Expectacion and Jesus, the father of Probo and Lamberto.
Since Jesus is the only son of Alejandro, the responsibility went to him. That is placing the carro in his care. That is deciding on its restoration measures.
That is, as mentioned earlier, assigning male members of the clan to take turns in pushing it during the procession. Expectacion, on the other hand, was assigned to come up with the concept of decorating. She had to study and had to sharpen her creative hand from tubing flowers to putting them properly on the carro, albeit in perfect symmetry. She had to teach the young, Cañadas including her daughters, techniques of decorating to basic flower-tubing. And while she lovingly does all these, the other women in the clan also took their assignments to their very hearts. They would wake up early on Holy Wednesday morning to buy flowers in the mountain barangays of Cebu.
Joy assumes the responsibility of decorating now. She teaches young Cañada women the same things she learned from her mother. Together they gather in the compound staying up on Holy Wednesday night preparing the flowers for the next day’s procession. And since Jesus has been living in the United States with his wife, his sons Probo and Lamberto and the rest of the male siblings in the family make a final check on the carro, if its old wheels are indeed still functioning, if the paint is indeed finely distributed. And most importantly, if the male members of the clan take note of their turns in pushing the carro.
Lamberto Cañada, Tulay’s barangay captain, says, “But my father goes home for this tradition, like the other Cañadas. This is something we cannot just take for granted. This is our family history as well. I remember when we were still young, my parents would gather us young people in the house on Maundy Thursday, before the carro decoration started. We would pray the three mysteries of the Holy Rosary. And we needed to finish the three mysteries: Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious. On my part, since I was the one who managed to escape from major tasks, I would gather cadena de amor first before going around the neighborhood while other family members were busy.”
On a Maundy Thursday, aside from adhering to the spiritual agenda of the church on commemorating the institution of the Eucharist, the consecration of the holy oils and the reconciliation of penitents, the Cañadas gather for lunch as a clan and a basic ecclesial community as well. The ancestral house becomes a tryst of generations and the segments of history of these generations.
And it is in this gathering when they start recalling stories, “how it frightened me to see the headless and armless Nazareno image on the dining table. Its head and arms had to be replaced with the same materials which papa bought in Spain. It took a while before the image was restored. And it took a while as well before I could feel really comfortable,” Engr. Probo Cañada narrates.
After lunch, everybody gets ready for the procession and the other ceremonies. Together they observe these with a solid sense of family history and tradition. From Tulay to the parish church, the members closely watch the carro. People in a long queue along the Nazareno carro, wait for the procession to culminate at the church’s door. The flowers in its dynamics with light. Oh, but before the Nazareno could even reach the church, people start grabbing flowers from the carro.
But when all these things end-when the believers have all the flowers they want, they just leave. Why would someone include the carro in his contemplation of the Holy Week?
Why indeed, would someone remember a carro on a Maundy Thursday when there was much more to do?
Let the carro stand there in a corner. Let it wallow in its silence and oldness. Leave it there in its nondescript character.
Yet, there will always be someone who comes back for it. There will always be someone who sees more than wheels and structures.
This someone ought to have the peculiar logic of the heart, that of the Cañadas. And that heart which understands, and remembers for always.
(April 16, 2003 issue)
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