‘Visit tayo’

Yahoo! Two more exams and it’s summer vacation for me!” Sal exclaimed as he entered the cafeteria.

“Don’t forget the two projects we still have to submit, dude!” his best friend Chris reminded him.

“That? They’re not gonna even make me lose any sleep. I can do them while I enjoy my tan, music, drinks and gals in Bora during Holy Week!”

“Okay, but don’t go around texting me for help ’coz I’m not going to lend you any this time. ’Sides, you call that Holy Week? Why not give yourself a spiritual face-lift this year?”

“Face-lift?” Sal was a bit confused. “Hey, I bet you’re thinking that we spend our Holy Week there like pagans.”

“I didn’t say that nor did it ever cross my mind, Sal.”

“We never stay in the party zone, ’sides it’s too noisy and I want a paradise with peace and quiet. Moreover, we make sure to follow the Holy Week services celebrated in the island.”

“Glad to hear that.” Chris started peeling a banana.

“How ’bout you, Chris? What are you going to do this Holy Week?”

“I’m gonna do my yearly visit to seven churches,” he gobbled almost the entire banana in one bite.

“Visit to seven churches?” Sal suddenly became excited. “I know that! We did that before. It was fun going from one church to another, meeting lots of people, seeing pretty faces [CHUCKLE!], and then racing to a fast-food joint or resto for a last hefty meal before the clock struck twelve beginning Good Friday, which requires us to fast and abstain.”

“Bravo, you’re not so pagan after all!” Chris cheered.

“But that’s pretty boring for me now,” Sal sighed. “What’s in this local custom for you, Chris?”

“Oh, I’m excited to visit some new churches I haven’t yet seen. By the way, it isn’t just a local custom like you think it is, Sal.”

“Really, dude? Then how did we catch this lenten thingy?”

“Actually, I read that it goes all the way back to the early years of Christianity. There weren’t as many Christians then, so the pope gathered all of them, usually during lent, in one place around the Eucharist. This was to stress their unity by receiving the one Body in our Lord.”

“Wow!”

“Can you imagine how moving it was to see everyone together in one place? The rich sat with the poor, the educated with illiterates, businessmen chatting with street cleaners, etc.? The early Christians became a sign of how Christianity was truly for everyone and made no distinctions whatsoever. It also became a symbol of unity around our Lord in the Eucharist and also with the Pope who convoked that yearly meeting.”

“So what did they do together?”

“Relax …” Chris smiled. “What about buying me some potato chips?”

“Sure.” Sal jumped to buy the junk food.

“As I was saying …” Chris opened the chips. “When Christianity began to grow and spread, it was no longer possible to physically gather everyone in one place. Thus, began the custom of the statio.”

“The statio?”

“It means standing before the Lord,” Chris explained.

“Standing?”

“The custom consisted of the pope, as Rome’s sole bishop, leading all the Roman faithful in worship and going right through each of the titular churches.”

“Titular …?”

“Also known as principal or designated seven pilgrim churches that the faithful would visit as a form of penance.”

“Geez! And what were these seven churches?” Sal asked.

“There are the four patriarchal basilicas St. John Lateran, St. Peter’s, St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, St. Mary Major, and the three of the city’s minor basilicas St. Lawrence Outside the Walls, the Holy Cross in Jerusalem and the Shrine of the Madonna of Divine Love.”

“Awesome memory you got there, dude! And what else did they do?”

“Pretty much the same as we do it here. They met together and went to the church together and thus in each church the unity of the Church becomes visible and touches every person.”

“That’s really cool, dude!” Sal remarked. “So it also means that when we do our local visitas here, we are somehow united to the entire Church, the pope and all Christians!”

“Not only somehow, but we are really united because we stand around the source of this unity, who is Jesus in the Eucharist,” Chris further clarified.

“Super! I never saw it that way,” Sal said. “And what do we do inside church?”

“Well, we do the statio, or what we now call the major stations sort of standing before the Lord with our prayers.”

“Major stations?”

“Yup! It means six sets of Our Fathers, Hail Marys and Glory Bes recited before the Altar of Repose in each of the seven churches.”

“If there’s a major, then there must be a minor, right?”

“Yes, that means a minor consists only of three sets that can be done before any Tabernacle.”

“That’s makes all of this so meaningful. It’s like reliving those awesome World Youth Days vigils like in Sydney and Madrid,” Sal nostalgically recalled.

“And do you know why these set of prayers?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, Blessed John Paul II once said that they’re the most natural prayers to recite for the stations. While we stand before the Lord, the Our Father reminds us that we are God’s children through the Son. The Hail Mary teaches us that Jesus came to us through Mary and the Glory Be leads us to give all this glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,” Chris concluded.

“You know, Chris?” Sal remarked.

“What, Sal?”

“It’s bye Bora for me and it’s statio this Holy Week with you.”

“Rather, you mean, visit tayo kay Jesus?” Chris joked.

“Yeah, I meant that too,” Sal laughed.