by Lope Coles Robredillo, SThD
ALONGSIDE
THE LITURGICAL celebrations that the Church observes during the Holy
Week are practices which, in the Philippines, have long been linked with
it. Among them are the siete palabras, the way of the cross, procession of
images, salubong, pabasa, cenaculo, and penitencia.
For most Catholics, they not only add color to the week-long
celebrations, but are, in fact, so associated with the Holy Week that it
could not be conceived without them. It is not seldom that devotees--if
only for these folk rituals—would spend the Holy Week in Sta. Cruz
(Marinduque), Palo (Leyte), Grotto (Novaliches), or in some remote town
in Bicol or Pangasinan, rather than in their own parishes. Some, for
example, may decline to attend the Good Friday liturgy, but they will
certainly make an effort to witness penitentes reenact
the crucifixion on that day. Indeed, it happens that these activities
attract more people than the liturgical celebrations themselves. But
since these practices belong to the extra-liturgical spiritual life of
the Church, the question is often raised: how do you look at them a
critical point of view?
For the nonce, it may be well to focus on the pabasa, cenaculo, and penitencia, and, to start with, give a short description of these practices. Usually held at home, the pabasa is the singing of the life of Jesus in poetic form, called pasyon. Accompanied
by a musical instrument, with the book placed between the two lighted
candles, singers chant verses, oftentimes in alternation, before a
crucifix. It is not uncommon for the host to serve drinks and finger
foods during a pabasa. The cenaculo is
the dramatization of the passion story, which normally begins with the
scene of the agony in the garden, and ends with the crucifixion. It may
take the form of simple passion play or a grand one similar to that of
Oberammergau in Bavaria, where practically the whole village is involved
in holding it once every ten years. Unlike the way of the cross which
is aimed at meditating on the journey to Calvary, the penitencia
seeks to dramatize the physical sufferings of Jesus bodily, either by
physical flagellation, the carrying of a heavy cross, being crucified on
it, or their combination. All of them are, objectively viewed, forms of participation in the suffering of Jesus: oral (pabasa), dramatic (cenaculo) and bodily (penitencia).
Expressions of Affective Faith
It is instructive that whereas in the siete palabras, procession, salubong
and the way of the cross, the priest ordinarily accompanies the
participants, especially in the provinces, he is conspicuously absent in
pabasa, cenaculo and penitencia. Of
importance, however, is that these three rituals are basically meant
for the edification of lay people. And they are held without having to
be joined with the liturgical celebrations going on in the church. The
priest has no role in them. They belong to the popular tradition. But
they are originally aimed at participation in the celebrations of the
mysteries of redemption. If these observations have anything to tell us,
it is that these rituals are expressions of the people’s affective
faith, which scarcely finds place in the official worship in the Church.
In effect, it may be said that these popular practices are expressions
of the lay people’s affective dimension of faith and at the same time
are catered to it. They enhance religious affections and feelings. In
the chanting of the pasyon, it sometimes happens that singers, swept by their emotion as they sing the poetic lines, shed tears; in the cenaculo, the participants become emotionally involved as they dramatize the events surrounding Jesus’ death; and in the penitencia,
they are able to empathize with him in his pain. On the other hand,
Roman liturgy is sober and reticent, and such emotion experience has
scarcely any place for expression in it.
At
the same time, however, they also externalize the people’s
understanding of the faith. Of course, the lay people did not compose
the pasyon; priests did. Most likely too, they did not, at the beginning, write the script of the cenaculo;
but they make the oral and dramatic expressions, and obviously, having
been written for them, these influence their ways of thinking and
acting. For this reason, it is not surprising, indeed, that in most
cases, their knowledge of who Jesus is and his salvific work shows a
familiarity more with the pasyon
and the drama than with the gospels or the official Christology and
soteriology of the Church. Moreover, today, the script of the cenaculo is
being written by laymen and, although priests are consulted, the
over-all outcome mirrors the understanding of lay people. But this is
especially true of penitencia.
Though its roots may be traced to the practice of doing penance during
Lent, it expresses the lay people’s faith in what participation in the
suffering of Jesus must consist of. The rituals, in the other words, are
a vehicle which expresses the faith experiences of the participants,
but at the same time serving to call that faith to mind, and to
catechize their audience in that faith.
Reason for Attractiveness
That these rituals (particularly the cenaculo and the penitencia)
attract more people than the liturgical celebrations has at least four
significations. First, this indicates their success, at least in
catering to the affective dimension of their faith, and the
understanding of that faith. In other words, they are able to speak to
the needs of the lay people. Unhampered by liturgical discipline, they
undergo changes and additions as they develop and flourish in response
to those needs. For this reason, they are meaningful to them. The second
implication is simply the reverse of the first. These rituals may also
be interpreted as an expression of their disaffection from the official
Church liturgy. For lay people, it is difficult to appropriate the
meaning of the prayers and the action of the official liturgy. Hence,
they feel the need for a ritual in order to plug in to the reticent
liturgical celebration. A case in point is the holding of hands during
singing of the Lord’s Prayer. Although it is against liturgical norms to
do so, people in Manila make that gesture because, as someone said, it
feels good. More should be said of this, but the point is, there is
wisdom in the proposition that liturgy should not be foreign to the
affective dimension of the people’s faith.
Moreover,
the lay people have been estranged from the official liturgy because,
before the Second Vatican Council, they had a little chance--save for cantoras--to
take an active part in the liturgy. They were simply spectators, who
could not understand the meaning of the words and gesture in the
liturgy. Third, in these folk rituals, the lay people are, on the
contrary, the subject of the expressions of faith experiences, not
merely the recipients or onlookers of the celebrations. And the medium
of expression is the language they speak and are at home with. On the
other hand, that of the liturgy before, which was Latin, was opaque to
their understanding. Hence, they could never comprehend nor feel for
themselves the meaning of the celebrations. And fourth, on account of
all this, the rituals provide them identity.
Environment of Poverty
The
aspect of disenfranchisement brings the discussion to the social
location which these religious practices presuppose: an environment of
poverty. In general, those who take part in pabasa, who are involved in the cenaculo,
and who engage in bodily flagellation do not came from the middle class
or above it. They belong to the lower classes–those often alienated
from the official liturgy. Even today, they are, in many areas, still
disenfranchised, because they are not given opportunities to take an
active part and express their faith in parish celebrations to a degree
which these rituals allow. (Eucharistic celebrations in which members of
charismatic communities are able to express themselves emotionally are
an exception rather than the rule.) Quite
apart from the gulf created between the language of the liturgy and
that of the poor people, the common values which these practices
represent are the pain and the suffering which Jesus endured until
death, and people who are poor easily understand and identify themselves
with these values. Hence, solidarity in values also accounts for the
popularity of these rituals in an environment of poverty. The
crucifixion for them is God’s empathy from which they can derive
strength and inspiration. Clearly then, these rituals speak something of
the part of society or the environment in which they thrive.
Encounter between Faith and Culture
Their
practitioners to some extend cut off from the official Church, and
coming from the grass roots, these rituals--it is the whole
understandable--reflect an understanding which is the outcome of the
encounter between the Christian faith, which they received with much
limitations, and the culture in which they were brought up. They
presuppose an environment removed from the centers of religion and
politics. Before the coming of the Spanish missionaries, our forefathers
believed in animism. Here, it was taught that the forces of nature were
controlled by spirits who, by magical rituals, could be rendered
beneficent or harmful. These were performed by the diwatahan, tambalan or baylana.
If Holy Week folk rituals have anything to tell us, it is the animism
has not been completely erased from the Filipino psyche. If one makes a
survey on those who join in the cenaculo, for
example, he will discover that the motive for participation is not
simply to share the suffering of Christ, if at all; some likely answers
are: fulfillment of a promise, thanksgiving for a favor granted, or
reparation for sins.
In a study made on the penitentes of Palo, Leyte, it emerged that fear of punishment was among the motives for submitting oneself to penitencia. The
fear of punishment for doing something wrong the year round motivates a
person to placate an angry God. By experiencing pain, one assures
himself of forgiveness, escape from punishment, and peace of mind.
Nonetheless, this is actually an animist theology, though one cannot
blame the devotees .They probably have never been thought correct
theology, or have correctly understood it, in the first place. On the
other hand, the environment of poverty prevents them from having access
to opportunities to learning orthodoxy. Hence, the theology of these
rituals does not perfectly cohere with the official teaching of the
Church. On the contrary, it represents the result of the people’s
appropriation of the gospel message vis-à-vis their pre-Hispanic culture
and their situation of poverty.
Which
brings us to other shadows of these rituals. Alienated from the centers
of Catholic authority and life, they are in danger, among others, of
being engaged in for utilitarian purposes. That
one participates in self flagellation to obtain God’s forgiveness
values the ritual for what the subject can obtain from it. This borders
on superstitions, which nurtures the belief that as long as one engages
in the ritual, he will be safe, for example, from calamities. This is
true of other expressions of popular piety which are celebrated in
connection with liturgy. For instance, although a procession is designed
as a public witness to the faith, this is not how lay people take it.
In many cases, they do not participate in it for that end. That one
takes part in it so his illness will be cured, or so his son will reform
his life–motives like these are very common. It fact during fiestas in
rural areas, many residents will complain if the conduct of the
procession excludes their houses from its ambit, convinced as they are
that this will also bar them from receiving the graces that are obtained
through the intercession of their patron saint.
Subjectivism and Lack of Ecclesial Sense
Related
to this is the risk that these rituals are anchored on subjectivism. As
already noted, one reason for the popularity of a Holy Week ritual is
that it caters to the people’s affective needs. Because it is in touch
with their feelings, it makes them satisfied. But there is a danger in
thinking that what satisfies is good. That is subjectivism. In official
liturgy, of course, this is not supposed to happen, because liturgical
signs have their own meaning. That is why the Congregation for Divine
Worship and the Discipline of Sacraments, for example, forbids the
raising of hands during the Lord’s Prayer because this gesture
symbolizes communion. At any
rate, lay people continue the practice because they feel good doing it.
But it is precisely the role of liturgy to educate us in such a way we
are able to express the meaning of liturgical gestures as our own, and
so enter into the mystery of God and our own as a community. This frees
liturgy from the danger of subjectivism. On other hand, since lay people
engage in Holy Week folk rituals because they make them feel good and
satisfy their affective needs, they do not lead to a real participation
in the saving mystery.
In
addition, these rituals hardly promote a sense of belonging to the
Church. Because they focus on answering the effective needs of the
participants, they, in general, are individualistic in orientation. If
one were to ask the motivations of Black Nazarene devotees in Quiapo for
joining the January procession or for wiping their handkerchiefs on the
image, the responses would hardly differ from the ones that would be
given for joining the cenaculo or the penitencia: personal
favors, either material or spiritual. There is scarcely any sense of
being community or of belonging to one. (Which reminds us the
pre-Vatican II eucharistic celebrations where each member of the
congregation acted as if he or she were not related to the other
worshippers in the church.)They lack social direction. Understandably,
the theory of salvation or soteriology they embody is likewise
individualistic: it is the individual who is saved from material and
spiritual evils. Hardly ever clear is the concept of salvation of the
community, still less the teaching that we are saved through the
community. Consequently, the idea of building up the kingdom as part of
their mission is far removed from them. On the contrary, the
understanding is oriented toward the maintenance of the status quo. It
is not farfetched to say that these rituals are burdened with the
pre-Vatican II theology. And since they tend to develop apart from the
hierarchical structure of the Church, it is not surprising that, in some
cases, they are celebrated without any harmony with the liturgical time
and meaning of the Holy Week. And their lack of ecclesial sense of
belonging opens itself to abuse. It does happen that these rituals are
held either for the personal advantage of their patrons, or for tourism
purposes, or both.
More Important than Liturgy?
As
is true of other popular devotions, these Holy Week popular rituals–to
many lay people–are regarded as more important than the liturgy itself
for reason already noted. As a young priest assigned to the seminary, I
used to say Mass in far-flung barangays. For lack of priest, only one
Mass was celebrated in each of them once a month. One day, in one
barangay, the old ladies asked me a favor after the mass: "Father, since
you come here only once a month, may we suggest that instead of coming
every first Sunday, you rather say Mass for us every first Friday?”
Similar views can be encountered when it comes to the Holy Week rituals.
For many, it is more fitting to act as Pilate in the cenaculo than
to attend the Holy Thursday liturgy. It is more meaningful to undergo
self-flagellation than to participate in the Good Friday liturgy, for,
in the penitencia, one really experiences than the pain which Jesus himself experienced. And so on.
The
problem, of course, is that this only reinforces the development of
wrong values in the sense that these are at variance with those held by
the Catholic Church. And precisely because many consider these rituals
more important than the liturgy, there lurks the danger that they might
think that all that is needed to be in the right before God is to take
an active part in these folk practices. They might believe these are the
ways of approaching God. That many ritual enthusiasts do not go to
Church on Sunday, that they do not receive the sacraments, that they are
more familiar with their practices than with the Bible--these reflect
their lack of belonging to the Church and the importance they ascribe to
these rituals. That the most important in being Christian is to follow
Jesus daily in discipleship within the community, not in the yearly act
of self-flagellation--this, it would seem, is still lost to the
devotees.
Incomplete View of the Passion
Finally, the primary importance attached by the participants in the cenaculo, pabasa and penitencia
to the death of Jesus results in the formation of values which have
grave consequences for their faith and life. (Of course, such
significance is not limited to the practitioners of these rituals. As
may be observed during the Holy Week celebrations all the country over,
it is only during Good Friday that people feel obliged to go to church;
hence, pews are occupied to the full. But Easter and its Vigil, which
are the culmination of the three-day celebrations, does not, except in
parishes where small communities are flourishing, command as much
crowd.) The value placed on the death of Jesus has serious implications
for a theology of salvation, because this overlooks the life and
ministry which led his death, and the vindication of him by God through
the resurrection. In such a theology, Jesus came only to die. Which, of
course, is a gross oversimplification. Seen in this light, suffering
almost becomes valuable in itself, or at least part and parcel of being
human which nothing can be done about. But then, this would almost
associate Christianity with masochism! Suffering, however, is evil, even
in Christianity. In systematics, God is always viewed as a pure
positivity. In the Bible, Jesus never enjoyed suffering; if he suffered,
it was a consequence of the life he led. He was murdered; he never
sought pain and suffering. To say therefore that all that is important
is to participate in the suffering of Jesus by simply undergoing
self-flagellation or by joining the cenaculo is
to oversimplify the meaning of Jesus’ suffering and death. Such a
theological understanding would encourage the acceptance of injustice,
oppression and domination, and could be used to justify them.
Aberrations?
But
despite these observations, there is no reason to dismiss these rituals
as aberrations. On the positive side, what the Second Plenary Council
of the Philippines (PCP II) says of popular piety readily applies to
them: “These religious practices are rich in values. They manifest a
thirst for God and enable people to be generous and sacrificing in
witnessing to their faith. These practices show a deep awareness of the
attributes of God: fatherhood, providence, loving and constant presence.
They engender attitudes of patience, the sense of the Cross in daily
life, detachment, openness to others, devotion’’ (PCP II, Acts and Decrees,
172). In their Third General Conference at Puebla, the Latin American
Bishops describe the lights of popular piety, which may be said of any
of our Holy Week popular rituals: it “presents such positive aspects as a
sense of the sacred and the transcendent; openness of the Word of God;
Marian devotion; an aptitude for the prayer; a sense of friendship,
charity, and family unity; an ability to suffer and to atone; Christian
resignation in irremediable situations; and detachment from the material
world” (GCLAB, Puebla, 913).
But then, what is to be done?
Potential for Social Transformation
Despite
their weaknesses, they should not be suppressed. Our attitude should be
“one of critical respect, encouragement of renewal” (PCP II, 175).
For one thing, these Holy Week rituals are engaged in by numerous but
poor Catholic all over the Philippines. And being part of the Church,
they are subject of the Church’s care. This even gains prominence today
since the Church in the Philippines has declared its intention to
become a Church of the Poor where, among others, its “members and
leaders have special love for poor.” The Church must therefore value
their faith expression, however distorted or superficial, found in these
rituals. For this reason, we must help the devotees in such a way that
these practices can contribute to the maturing of our faith. And,
probably, this could be done in two ways. First, we can identify their
values and motivations and purify them in the lights of Christian faith.
Then we can transform them by imbuing them with Christian values. In
the process, we can show how these rituals are connected, for example,
with the entire life of the Christian, and with the life of others. The
purpose here is primary their coherence with right beliefs and right
living (orthodoxy and orthopraxis).
Second,
in helping deepen their faith, we can explore the potential of these
rituals for social transformation. At present, they are observed yearly,
but do not have--it would seem--any visible impact on the communities
they are held in. Probably for most, they are simply rituals, religious
externals--period. But it is instructive that during the Spanish period, from the 18th
century onward, the Tagalogs found in the passion story a motivation
for revolt against oppression. (A Filipino theology of liberation must
take into account the theology of the Filipino peasant religious
movements.) We are still in the process of liberation, and as the
Philippine bishops noted their Pastoral Exhortation on the Philippines Centennial Celebration,
“today, our liberty is eroded as much by foreign invaders, as by
internal enemies as the poverty of the many and the concentration of
wealth among the few, inequality and lack of participation, injustice
and exploitation, deficient culture values and mind-set, destruction of
the ecosystem and deterioration of peace and order, to mention a few.
True freedom demands that we, especially the poor and the disadvantaged,
are liberated from this evils (cf. Gal 3:25-28). It requires profound changes in socio-economics and political structures, revolution of the heart (cf. Jas 4:1) and, most important, liberation from sin (2 Chr 7:14 Rom 6 18; 1 Tim 1:5). It dictates that we ourselves shape our history.” Of
course, we should not utilize these rituals to incite revolt—that is
unchristian. But surely we can ask: what values could be appropriated
from these rituals which could serve as vehicles, in a very Christian
way, and how they could contribute to the process of transforming
society, which the PCP II speaks of (cf. PCP II, Decree 97)? How can “they serve the cause of full human development, justice, peace and the integrity of creation” (PCP II, 175)?* (Note: The author wrote this essay in 1998].
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