Thursday, August 28, 2008 Wenceslao: Spectacle in Inayawan By Bong O. Wenceslao Candid Thoughts
I EXPECT my wife Edizza to drag the family this Sunday to Barangay Inayawan, Cebu City in time for the festivities in honor of its patron, St. Augustine of Hippo. I have been hearing talks about preparations for the fiesta, and the stories are not flattering. The conflict over control of the main barangay chapel has spilled over to the fiesta activities.
St. Augustine, who is “up there,” is surely frowning at the spectacle made by his devotees. The group that has claimed ownership to the lot where the chapel was built has been holding their own nightly novenas even as the parish priest is holding masses at the vacant lot near the chapel. The Inayawan chapel is under the Laray parish in Talisay City.
My wife said St. Augustine may whack the recalcitrant with his cane. There is this talk in Inayawan about the saint’s wild ways before he converted to Christianity. Thus, deaths that occur in the days going to the fiesta are believed to be a precondition of the yearly ritual. What will St. Augustine do then to those who made his feast confusing?
The conflict, whose root is about control of the money collected from the masses and donations for the fiesta, has reached the office of Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, who decided that masses should not be held in the St. Augustine chapel until the lot ownership issue is resolved. Chances are fiesta masses will be held in the open air.
That means people in Inayawan should pray that typhoon Lawin will leave the country in time for the fiesta. I am looking at the window while typing this and the rain is starting to fall again. But then again St. Augustine devotees may have to go through the worst fiesta in barangay history to realize how destructive selfishness and pride is.
In the last days of his life, St. Augustine was bishop of Hippo and worked tirelessly to convince the people there to convert to the Catholic faith. He died on Aug. 28, 430 during the siege of Hippo by the Vandals, an East Germanic tribe known for their sack of Rome more than two decades later.
He urged the people to resist the attacks.
Just reflecting on the life and times of their patron saint should have been enough to prod Inayawanons to make the fiesta celebration less confusing.
But then nobody is willing to budge from their positions. Perhaps after the fiesta, the Laray parish should decide with finality on the building of another chapel for St. Augustine so that next year’s fiesta will be more orderly and less divisive.
(khanwens@yahoo.com/ my blog: cebuano.wordpress.com)
