Echaves: Revisit

MEDITATION, prayer, fasting, and penance. These were the ways my family and relatives observed Holy Week.

Scholars write that Holy Week came by different names. It was “Sacred and Great Week” in the Greek Church, “Great Week” among the Slavic nations, “Greater Week” in the Latin Church, or “Karwoche,” meaning “Week of Mourning” according to the Germans.

The ancient times referred to the “Laborious Week” because of intense penance and fasting. It was also the “Week of Remission” because the public sinners were absolved on Maundy Thursday.

However it was called, this special week was devoted to commemorating Christ’s Passion and death. Thus, both the East and West Roman Empires forbade amusements and games, as well as the conduct of trade, business, professions and courts.

On these sacred days, too, an imperial edict pardoned majority of the prisoners, and the courts withdrew many charges. Because all these were to honor Christ’s Passion, Holy Week was sometimes called the “Week of Salvation.”

So, on Maundy Thursday, my parents and us children commemorated the day when Jesus celebrated the Passover with His disciples. We’d do the “visita iglesia” and the “Via Crucis” in seven churches.

First, my father would park the car at the Redemptorist Church compound. Inside we would do the Stations of the Cross, after which we’d walk to Sacred Heart Church while praying the rosary uninterrupted.

In those days of very few cars, families somehow did not fear being mowed down while crossing the street with rosaries dangling in their hands. Motorists were more respectful and religious then, I suppose.

By the time we had visited the churches in St. Therese Parish, Santo Rosario, Santo Niňo, Metropolitan Cathedral, and San Jose, we had prayed the Sorrowful Mysteries several times, with all family members taking turns as prayer leader.

It was all fish and vegetables from Maundy Thursday to Black Saturday. On Good Friday, the family all stayed in the sala, listening to priests interpreting Christ’s last words.

I remember the years of crying Lent after Lent. I believed I personally helped nail Him to the Cross. The dread and guilt would build up such that when Christ breathed His last and said “Consumatum est,” I bawled so hard that my parents were alarmed.

Naturally, there was no television, no music, no jokes or laughing on those blessed days. Books were limited to religious topics, or prayers. As we grew older, we joined our parents walk kneeling from the main door of the church to the communion rail. We ended the day by lighting candles.

Easter Sunday was, thus, deliverance day. It also meant resuming our regular Sunday trip to the beach right after Mass.

And where the beach was, there was going to be lechon, puso, guso or lato, chicharon bulaklak and fish sinugba, too. What a fitting end to our three days of fasting and abstinence.

Hearing how our Holy Week was, some classmates found our family practice weird. Holy Week for them was entirely at the beach. That I found weird. --from SunStar Davao