Retired priest laments fading of Lent practices

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan—Traditional cultural practices associated with the observance of Holy Week are disappearing in many parts of the country, a retired priest here said.

“The Holy Week is about Jesus dying and resurrecting for our sins. But traditional cultural practices that help us meditate on the meaning of the death and resurrection of Christ are slowly vanishing,” said Fr. Immanuel Escaño, a member of the Pangasinan Historical and Cultural Commission.

These traditions, he said, include silence, penance, abstinence and saying prayers during Holy Week.

“Before, parents would not want their children to be noisy, to sing and even laugh because of the awesomeness of Jesus’ dying for our sins,” Escaño, 66, said.

“But today, everyone listens to the radio, watches television. Everyone is on the road,” he said.

Even the traditional Visita Iglesia (church visits), he said, has become a tourism activity, and people eat as they travel. “Where’s the penance and sacrifice? It’s not really prohibited but you have to maintain the spiritual element,” Escaño said.

He said there was a time when people had to wear new clothes on Maundy Thursday because that day is a renewal of one’s baptism. “In baptism, your clothes are supposed to be the symbols of Jesus wrapped around you. But we seem to have lost the meaning of clothing that’s why we don’t see this practice anymore,” he said.

There was also a time, he said, when on Good Friday, people wore red clothes, and on Black Saturday, churchgoers had to bring candles. “Red symbolizes the martyrdom of Jesus, the greatest love. On Saturday, it is the return of the new light, that’s why you have to light a candle,” he said.

“You are not also allowed to eat anything after 3 p.m. on Good Friday. You will only eat after you have received the resurrected body of Christ on Saturday night,” he added.

Escaño attributed the vanishing traditional Lenten practices to secularization. “People now no longer believe that it is God who is really giving us life. You give people money and that’s their life. People think that life is whatever money can buy, whatever money can give,” he said.

“And we can see this during elections. You can see that the weakening of people’s spiritualization also weakens the nation,” he said.

But Escaño said the Catholic Church hierarchy was “recovering everything back.” “These Holy Week traditions will not completely vanish,” he said.

In Masses, he said, the proclamation of faith is a very prominent contribution for this renewal. “Even the Pope is trying to regain all these that in translations, the awesomeness of God and, at the same time, our need for God should be there,” he said.

During Holy Week, he said, people should rejoice in God. “Unless you really rejoice in God, all these things mean nothing. To rejoice in God means you have to give God the value of your life,” he said.  Gabriel Cardinoza, Inquirer Northern Luzon