Let it be

Good Friday this year finds me working. I am not complaining. When you’re living in a non-Christian country, religious holidays like these are not really felt, except perhaps, by the really religious, which I am clearly not.

Nevertheless, Good Friday this year finds me reminiscing on how I spent the Holy Week in the Philippines. Growing up in Baliuag, Bulacan, two highlights in the Holy Week were the Palm Sunday mass and the procession on Holy Wednesday. The Palm Sunday mass, commemorating Jesus’ triumphant return to Jerusalem, is celebrated with young palm fronds folded and fashioned into decorative pennants that are gaily waved in one part of the mass. These fronds are then hung on a wall outside the house as protection from evil all year, until it is replaced with a fresh frond at next year’s Palm Sunday.

I’m not sure if the procession on Holy Wednesday is done in other parts of the Philippines but it was a regular event in my old hometown. Floats or carozas depicting scenes from the life of Jesus, from annunciation to resurrection, parade in this procession. Each float contains life-size statues dressed and decorated according to the scene they were depicting. Affluent families own at least one caroza. No family in Baliuag can claim prominence (be it old or new) without a caroza in the Holy Wednesday procession.

This realization came to me later, but as a boy I delighted in watching this visual treat before my eyes. Some of the caroza, aside from being splendidly costumed and decorated, also came with other effects to heighten the scene. For example, the caroza depicting the crucifixion had lights that flashed like lightning and the sound of thunder. The evening heightened this particular effect very well.

By the morning of Maundy Thursday, my parents and I are off to my paternal grandparents’ home in Candaba, Pampanga to spend the rest of Holy Week. In Candaba, my clearest memory of spending Holy Week was the silence. This was a time when all television and most radio broadcasts stopped during Holy Week. And my grandmother was adamant about spending the Holy Week, especially Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, in prayerful silence. Children like me weren’t allowed to play during these days. Laughing was verboten as well.

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