Lent amid virus scare: Rites may change, but not meaning

When Rey Santos goes to church today along with millions of Catholics for Ash Wednesday, the start of the 40-day Lenten season, he would still prefer to receive the mark the traditional way.

“I feel Ash Wednesday is not complete without the marking on my forehead or if changes will be done in the way it is imposed upon me,” the 66-year-old driver in Makati City told the Inquirer.

Like Santos, Nonong Razon, a lay minister at San Ildefonso Parish Church in Makati, also wants the ash smudged on his forehead. “For me, the traditional way of putting the ashes is more symbolic,” Razon said.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) earlier suggested the sprinkling of dry ash on the crown of the head instead of marking the forehead with a cross—in order to avoid body contact. The suggestion was part of the liturgical guidelines issued by the bishops for the Lenten season as a precautionary measure against the transmission of the new coronavirus.

Archbishop Romulo Valles, CBCP president, said the ash on the head “signif[ies] our repentance from sin, which has marred the grace of baptism.”

“This is not an innovation but in accord with the ancient practice of the Church,” Valles explained.

Option for parishes

Several dioceses have made the same recommendation but others, like the Archdiocese of Manila, said the ash on the forehead remained an option for parishes and communities.

“[Sprinkling the ash on the head] is fine with me if it’s based on an old practice,” said Georgina Fabreag, a government employee in Manila. What’s more important, she said, is what the occasion personally means to her. “Ash Wednesday is an opportunity for me to renew myself and my faith as a Catholic,” Fabreag said.

But more than where the ash is put and in what manner, the meaning is the same, said Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo, apostolic administrator of the Manila archdiocese.

“Let us go to the core meaning of our rites rather than be confused by changed external practices,” Pabillo said. Ash Wednesday “opens us to the season of Lent, the 40-day period of penance, prayer and almsgiving that prepares us for the great event of our salvation: the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus which we all participated in during our baptism.”

Reminder of mortality

Fr. Jerome Secillano, execu­tive secretary of the CBCP’s permanent committee on public affairs, also said that “confusion and fear should not stand in the way of a meaningful and worthy celebration of Ash Wednesday’’ amid the threat of the new coronavirus.

“Ash Wednesday is the day that reminds us of our mortality,” he said. ‘With Jesus let us conquer our fears and strengthen our faith.”

Meanwhile, Pasig Bishop Mylo Hubert Vergara appealed to the faithful to fast while supporting the Church-led Hapag-Asa, a feeding program for poor, malnourished children.

“We humbly ask you to support the relaunch of (Hapag-Asa’s) Fast2Feed campaign this Ash Wednesday. We hope that Fast2Feed will be able to raise the funds to feed the hungry and malnourished children, one meal for 120 days,” Vergara said in a letter addressed to all parish priests, chaplains, and school administrators in his diocese.

The project hopes to bene­fit at least 3,500 children and organize their mothers into self-help groups. INQ