HOTSPOT
Contrary to what we’re often told, the greatest Christian feast isn’t Christmas but Easter. For what could be greater than God destroying death? With Easter, God showed the world what’s truly great and gave people such a new sense of hope.
Sadly, the long-running Lenten traditions overly fixate and focus on suffering and sacrifice and often don’t explicitly lead people to the glory of Easter. The focus on self-sacrifice in walking on knees on the central aisle of churches, panata of self-flagellation, Senakulo, Pabasa, Siete Palabras, and Via Crucis could partly explain our high tolerance and resilience for collective and individual pain.
Then, after the festivities reach fever pitch on Maundy Thursday’s remembrance of the Last Supper, and Good Friday’s sorrowful procession of the Santo Entierro followed closely by the Lady in Black, we totally pause today, Black Saturday.
Catholics should – or must? – also attend the Easter morning mass that’s often marked with the Salubong and the ceremonies of lighting up the churches. Holy Week lacks its complete meaning without it. What sets Holy Week apart is Easter. Sure, Christ was born like us and also suffered like us, but the differentiator and the source of all our hope is the belief in resurrection. If you choose to believe in a god, why not pick one who triumphed over death?
I have seen prayer books and even the order of the mass get updated. But in the popular devotions, change is slow in coming. The most popular this season, the Via Crucis that’s recited in the Visita Iglesia to seven or 14 churches, is still accompanied by a prayer booklet that dates back to maybe 50 years ago? The prayers and reflections don’t fit the new Stations of the Cross that have since been updated to end with the Resurrection. I’m pretty sure many have noticed this.
But merely saying Easter is the greatest feast cannot be enough. There must be explanations and this must be shown in practice and perhaps new, better traditions, that are relevant to people today. What does the resurrection mean? Does it relate only to people reaching their “end of days”? Or does it also refer to our daily lives?
These questions are not new. They have been asked by writers and pundits, religious or not, because we always search for meaning in what we do and wish to do whatever we do towards a higher, nobler purpose.
For me, Easter is a time to memorialize the family members and friends who have gone ahead. We may disagree about what happens after their death, but partly because of Easter, we summon their memory all the time. Through stories, photographs, videos, documents, and memorials, they continue to live on. The greatest among them – those who we call heroes and martyrs – still manage to inspire and haunt others. They belong to our communion of saints whose individual and collective experiences we remember every Sunday and on special occasions, and who we still believe to be with us in spirit.
Of course, Easter may or should have its relevant meanings to us as a people -- as couples, families, and friends, and also politically, socially, culturally, economically, diplomatically, and militarily. The challenge perhaps is to look beyond individual human affliction and limitation, and reimagine what if we rise from individual and collective demise.
Whether it is family drama, or the daily commuting sacrifice, or our stress-inducing visits to the palengke or the supermarket, or the difficult search for job security, or our quest for good governance, or our desire to finally see elusive peace in a free Palestine, there’s a pervasive feeling that we’re at the lowest of lows. That, quite frankly, is not anymore surprising. What to do next, what to make out of this terrible mess, could be where we could find our small and big Easters waiting to be told.
Here’s wishing you and your loved ones a blessed Holy Week and an awesome Easter. May we be recharged and resurrected into better humans and citizens.