On this day, we start the most somber of weeks in the Catholic liturgical calendar. The state recognizes the importance of the Holy Week celebration to Filipinos since Holy Thursday and Good Friday have always been red-letter days. Although the gloomy mood on these holy days has been slowly eroded as we get more secularized, still many people do the Visita Iglesia, listen to the Siete Palabras, watch films on the life of Jesus, limit their food intake to binignit, not to mention joining the official liturgical services.
While studying in Europe, I got the shock of my life on my first Good Friday outside of the Philippines when it was not even considered a holiday in a Catholic university. (But Monday after Easter is a holiday, which reveals where the emphasis is). My initial shock was further heightened when I observed that while people in my country were mystically gazing at statues of the dead body of Jesus, the movie houses in my adopted country were showing a provocative film starring Madonna entitled Body of Evidence.
Our seeming emotional attachment to the passion and death of Jesus would sometimes lead to a fetish on morbidity. This is shown in a number of re-enactment of the crucifixion and the public self-flagellation of penitents. Both the re-enactment and the flagellation have become tourist attractions. Somehow strangely, the macabre has become attractive to onlookers. This has led some religious pundits to say that in this country, it would seem as if Jesus has not yet experienced the resurrection.
But we cannot be totally negative in looking at our popular devotion which emphasizes on the suffering of Jesus. Theologically, we are highlighting, whether consciously or not, the price God was willing to pay for the salvation of the world. It can also mean our willingness to share in the suffering of Jesus. Of course, it needs to be corrected if it leads to the glorification of suffering for its own sake. It is good to be reminded that Jesus suffered not because he wanted to, but as a consequence of his passionate dream to establish the reign of God.
But going outside of the realm of theology, our emphasis on the passion and death of Jesus should in fact lead to greater resolve to end innocent and unnecessary suffering.
In this context, I like to recall a thought-provoking and well-argued thesis of Filipino historian Reynaldo Ileto. In his book Pasyon and Revolution, Ileto studies the thoughts and feelings of the Filipino hoi polloi, not just their leaders. In this process, he examines the text of the pasyon which, as the word suggests, is an epical narration of the passion and death of Jesus.
Ileto argues that our colonizers highlighted the passion of Jesus in order to inculcate among the Indios loyalty to Spain and to the Church. The emphasis on the passion was intended to teach docility and obedience and to instil a morality rooted in the belief of an after-life. Yet, the effect on the Indios was diametrically opposed to the intent of the colonizers. The natives compared instead the life of Jesus and those of the colonizers. The unintended consequence was the formation of the revolutionary consciousness among the natives. Ileto’s thesis is different from that of other historians who study the formation of revolutionary consciousness through the writings of the propagandists.
Today, instead of just being moved by the suffering of Jesus (which can be an authentic religious experience) we can also look at the passion and come to resolve to end unnecessary suffering of the innocent. The High Priest during the passion of Jesus was Caiphas. He persuaded his peers that it is better for one man to die than for the whole nation to perish. Now think about how many poor and innocent people died in Davao City and later in the whole country in the name of peace and order. During the dark years of martial law, how many innocent people died when the banner of national security was raised?
In order to relate the passion and death of Jesus to contemporary victimization of the innocent, we also should not isolate his death from his whole life. It is rather unfortunate that in popular religiosity, and even in some official prayers, we jump from “born of the Virgin Mary” to “he suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified died and was buried.” It is as if nothing happened in between his birth and his death.
Yet, it was his passion for the reign of God that led to his passion and death.