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Sunday, April 04, 2004
The way holyweek was
By Jenara Regis Newman
Holy Week in prewar days, during wartime and a few years after, was a very solemn, somber occasion. Noise was at a minimum in the kitchen in the homes among parents and children, among friends and in the streets. It was a time for quiet, for meditation, for religiously observing the rituals mandated of a Catholic Holy Week. For atoning for one’s sins.
On Holy Thursday, after the church rituals and the Blessed Sacrament was exposed in beautifully decorated altars, families would usually visit churches on foot. Matriarchs of the families would be dressed in beautiful mestiza dresses with beaded zapatillas and would wear their most precious jewelry: no snatchers then, you see. The men would be wearing long-sleeved shirts.
It was a very solemn occasion, with smiles or nods to acquaintances along the way. The old folk from Parian may have visited Santo Rosario, San Nicolas, Recoletos, San Agustin and finally the Cathedral, for the mandated visit to five churches to gain indulgences. Families would be praying the rosary as they walked from church to church, and together said the prayers in the church to gain indulgences. Those who could not walk all that length would make do by visiting a church or two, getting out after one set of prayer, and entering the same church again by another door, until the mandated five visits were completed.
There was another practice some men folk had: they would gather in groups and late in the afternoon go on foot to the hills and cut down trees, bringing these back down at night to the Cebu Cathedral for the Good Friday Siete Palabras. Some did this because of promises made, and others did in the belief that the tree branches participating in the Good Friday ritual would have some healing power (in the same manner that some people think the flowers adorning statues in a procession have the same powers). But it resulted in the denudation of the forest and the practice was stopped sometime in the 70`s.
During and immediately after the war, the same solemnity prevailed, but not the expensive clothes or jewelry. Then cars became more and more popular and people took to riding them to church.
Population increased, and new churches were added to accommodate the growing population. The culture changed, meditative and penitent silence seems to have gone away, and though a lot of families and church-based groups still visit churches on Holy Thursday, most of them ride, silence is not religiously observed. And others go to beach or mountain resorts or fly to foreign shores to have fun away from encountering oneself and one’s Maker.
(April 4, 2004 issue)
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