Saturday, March 22, 2008 Sumog-oy: Reviving old Holy Week customs By Ben Sumog-oy Issues and Views
WE HAVE all the reasons to thank our modern civilization for the "glory and grandeur" it bestows upon us today. We become witnesses to spectacular phenomenon(s) in both physical and abstract sciences.
We are awed by the emergence of various sophisticated infra-related technologies and new social theories, which are catching up, rather amazingly, with our speedily changing political and economic landscape.
However, the current advancement in science and technology, intrinsic perhaps in the nature of a human project, has dubious implications on the character of our nation and of our basic communities. Specifically, we fall prey to a commercialist gambit, which is now undermining the unity of Filipino families and cracking the moral foundation of our nation, especially following the advent of modern communication and information technology.
With the highly commercialized boob tube media, which reach nations and races, dominating our mainstream thinking, many of our time-treasured cultural traits are beginning to crumble. Presently, the boob tube is still continuously pounding heavily on our cultural heritage as a race. Its effect is ravaging!
During the Christmas season, our children revere Santa Claus more than Jesus Christ (as they know the animes more than our nation's heroes) whose coming to earth is supposed to be the center of their spiritual reflection and self-retrospection.
Every year, in time for the celebration of the All Souls Day and All Saints Day, TV media treats our children to a Halloween party, which showcases the most ugly and the most dreadful, thus distorting the meaning of these supposedly sacred moments for spiritual reflection.
As this paper hits the ground, we already begin our observance of this year's Holy Week, which is basically a time for us to retrospect Christ's passion and suffering on the cross. However, this Holy Season is not at all freed from all sorts of cultural distortion, making us wonder what we have actually become as a people.
Instead of preparing ourselves, and our families, for deep spiritual encounters, we are panicky about foods and drinks in preparation for "long" vacation in resorts, beaches and other places of leisure. Some of us are even contracting videoke services to make our partying and drinking sprees exceedingly enjoyable.
In my home province (Antique), old folks call these "endeavors", if pursued in time for the observance of the Holy Week, "kadu", which is not only "bad", but, it is "so bad" that God would most likely descend His wrath upon those who have had gotten propensities for these "evil" deeds.
In the past, during Holy Week, the children of my generation were made by their parents to fast and pray and to eat only a small amount of rice, coupled with fish or vegetables. The belief, then, was that spiritual (re)awakening occurs when one momentarily departs from his or her usual material needs.
The children were told not to be very playful during the observance of the Holy Week for this ridicules the suffering Christ. They were also prohibited from running and climbing trees and other high structures for God is not watching them and, therefore, they are prone to accidents. In addition, they were not allowed to toy with sharp objects because, accordingly, God would not be around to cure them when they are injured.
They were made to regularly attend masses and kiss the perfumed edges of the ropes attached to the statues of saints, which were displayed in front of the church because, as the belief preordains, doing this promises a bountiful life for them.
All these old Holy Week practices offered so many wonderful experiences to the children of my generation. The social implications of these experiences are so deep-seated that they are beyond human comprehension. Their impact on the spiritual nurturance of the children of our history was awesome, concrete and cannot be undervalued.
But, these old Holy Week practices are also subjected to criticism. Again, in Antique, some educated people, who have been influenced by the norms of modernity, call these old Holy Week practices as "desparates", allegories that eloquently describe the backwardness of rural living, which must be abandoned.
I always have a problem with some intellectuals. They tend to confine "culture" within the moronic question of "right or wrong." This is a misconception.
Culture is neither right nor wrong; it is beyond it. It encompasses generations and knows no social frontiers. Culture is the spirit of every human civilization. It is, therefore, immortal.
When we deprive the future generations of their well-deserved cultural heritage, we actually commit an unforgivable genocidal crime against the collective soul of human race.
