Priest tells churchgoers: Mass flowers are not amulets

BANSALAN, Davao del Sur, Philippines — Flowers used during Easter Sunday Masses have no healing power and are not meant to be used as amulets against harm, the parish priest here told devotees.

The flowers are neither lucky charms for cockfighting aficionados nor an assurance for business owners that their businesses would flourish.

Fr. Rex Templa made this clarification in a homily on Easter Sunday, as many churchgoers in his parish were wont to pick the flowers decorating the carriage bearing the statue of the Risen Christ after hearing Mass, in the belief that these flowers would bring them luck.

Among the hundreds who gathered for the dawn Easter Mass at the Immaculate Concepcion Church here on Sunday was Catalina Camoni, a resident of Barangay Poblacion.

She positioned herself early in front where the carriage to make sure she would get some flowers. These were all gone even before the priest started his sermon.

Business push?

Camoni believed that the flowers would help her sari-sari store thrive.

“The highlight of the (Easter) rites is not the flowers,” Templa said in his homily.

Templa said the most important thing was that the devotee had participated in the Holy Mass and had listened to the Gospel.

He said he was aware that some Catholics had become superstitious and that they’d grab the flowers to use as lucky charms.

“Every individual must remember that after the suffering of Jesus in the hands of the Jews, after his crucifixion, his eventual resurrection came on the third day, (which we) celebrate on Easter Sunday. It marks Jesus’ triumph over death,” the priest said.