Friday, January 11, 2008 Speak out: A Sinulog of love By Fr. Boy J. Galindez, OSA
IN the Philippines, many festivals and cultural celebrations are held and dedicated to the Holy Child or Sto. Niño:
The original Ati-atihan in Kalibo; the Ati-atihan in Cadiz City, in Tondo and in Nayong Pilipino in Manila; the Dinagyang in Iloilo City; and the centuries-old Sinulog in Cebu.
Devotion to the Sto. Niño has been practiced since the conversion of this country to the faith.
Augustinian missionaries brought this devotion from Cebu to Tacloban, Tondo, Pandacan, the Ilocos regions and Aklan.
An Augustinian, I introduced the Dinagyang to Iloilo when I was parish priest of San Jose Parish in that city in 1969.
The Iloilo Dinagyang was organized in 1981, way ahead of Cebu Sinulog.
Religious, cultural
The Sinulog festival is both religious and cultural.
As a religious celebration, it is offered in honor of the Sto. Niño, the Divine Child, God, Creator and Protector of the world.
As a cultural celebration, it is offered and dedicated to the Sto. Niño for the cultural uplift and reminder to Filipinos, particularly Cebuanos.
During the Sinulog, visitors from many parts of our country and tourists from abroad not only pay homage to the Sto. Niño but also witness the display of Cebuano culture during the dances.
The revelry and the spontaneous shouting of “Pit Senyor!” have become part of our culture, especially of the Cebuanos.
When Ferdinand Magellan landed at the Cebu port in 1521 and until Adelantado Miguel Lopez de Legaspi arrived here in 1565, the natives were found praying to their anitos and personified idols accompanied by dull staccato-like rhythmic sounds of musical instruments and bodily jerks that appeared to be their dance.
When the first Catholic missionaries presented the image of the Sto. Niño to the natives, they leapt with joy and danced.
A sight in the festivity’s earlier inception was that of participants either of the procession or of the fluvial parade topping it with group acts of jubilation.
It was a way of paying homage to the Sto. Niño and expressed their faith in the Supreme Being, as represented by the image.
Such acts of jubilation have come to be known as “Sinulog” in Cebu, “Ati-atihan” in Aklan, “Dinagyang” in Iloilo.
Worship
We Filipinos are religious by nature.
Our forebears worshipped and adored many idols, to the extent of practicing idolatry.
Today, philosophy has become the handmaid of theology.
In our acts of worship and homage, we attribute divine power not to the image of the Sto. Niño but to the person it represents.
Through the image, we worship the Son of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.
In the coming feast of the Sto. Niño, we celebrate with joyful hearts and living faith the mystery of the childhood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That mystery is a mystery of love.
God became a child in flesh and blood in order to love and to be loved.
The reciprocal feeling of love between Creator and creature is man’s happiness that ultimately leads to His salvation.
The invisible God has to become visible so that man may comprehend the invisible.
God has to be born in order to become a Niño.
God has to be a Niño to be seen; God has to be seen in order to be known; God has to be known in order to be loved, or man cannot love whom he does not see and does not know.
There is always something in us that loves a little child.
And what can be more lovable than the Sto. Niño?
Love
To follow the wishes of the Sto. Nino is expressive of man’s love for him.
He wants man to love Him because man is capable of loving his fellowmen.
Before leaving for the abode of His Eternal Father, this Holy Child, already a grown-up Redeemer, entrusted to us man’s greatest testament:
“I give you may commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
As we leap and dance the “Sinulog” and shout “Pit Senyor!” and as we kneel down and sing our hymns of praises to the Sto. Niño, let us bear in mind that ours is, indeed, a Sinulog of Love.
