Believers and non-believers converge this year when Catholics revere in faith the Holy Child Jesus through the image of the Señor Santo Niño of Tacloban whose image is now in Saint Michael the Archangel of Basey in this writer’s impoverished and perennially graft-ridden beautiful province of Samar. The pages of history bare that the fiesta celebration of Señor Santo Niño was moved from the usual January to June 30 as the significant day of its finding after being lost on a shipwreck. Its return to Tacloban City resulted in a miracle that cured a cholera pandemic that had caused many deaths and illness among the people of the city.
Since then, the celebration of the city fiesta was held every June 30 even if the Santo Niño parish join the whole country in celebrating the feast every January. Indeed, the Holy Child Jesus had attracted a myriad of devotees all over the country as it is uniquely a Filipino celebration not practiced in other Catholic countries. The celebration had been renowned all over the world.
The revelry in adoration and homage of the Holy Child Jesus are often through a dance parade and merrymaking, with colorful and well-crafted costumes flooding the streets in every place of celebration with people on the sidelines not merely standing spectators but are joining the beat of street dancers in choreographed motion.
As years went by, the celebration transformed from a mere religious event, to a socio-civic parade, to an eco-tourism activity and now a commercial moneymaking venture. The religious aspect had gradually been over-glossed by the commercial overture where the image of the Holy Child Jesus is submerged by giant commercial advertisements.
The religious prayers and songs accompanying the land procession had already been overwhelmed by the noisy rock metallic music of commercial products. The distribution of religious items such as novenas, rosaries and photo stamps of saints are now substituted with candies, juice tetra packs and other items being thrown to the crowd.
Worse, the celebrations had been marred by political power-play where one event is forced stopped as the powers that be are brandishing their clout and power over their defeated political adversaries. Amid all these brouhaha, people are made as blind followers of their political leaders, ready to rumble with their adversaries. The peace, love and happiness that are supposed to be the blessings from the grace of the Holy Child Jesus, are lost in the topsy-turvy stinky mud of dirty politics.
Then we see non-Catholic politicians getting the best seats and accommodation in church, as if they are not the root cause of the rattling outside the church. And people get on fanatical rituals that appears godly but mayhap be deceptively satanic as manifested by their praying to the Holy Child Jesus akin to venerating Saints by invoking “pray for us.”
Because the Holy Child Jesus is God the Son, we take a sigh in sincere prayer by saying, Señor Santo Niño, have mercy on us.
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