PAN DE LA SEMANA

  Maundy Thursday 2013 Mass of the Lord’s Supper NOT JUST BYSTANDERS, BUT PARTICIPANTS! What I like about the Paschal Triduum that we begin in earnest at this Mass is that you all are very well motivated and, therefore, very participative and attentive. For the most part, when all the rest of the seasonal Catholics have all hied off to some more seasonable area of rest and relaxation, those of you who are here with us now, with the priests who serve you and work with you, have obviously decided to stay, and even more obviously chose to journey with us though our own version of the passover – the Church’s version, I must add. You have chosen this and not some fanatic and misguided trip to San Pedro Cutud, to witness the gory and bloody, and shallow dramatization of what now we re-enact and make present here and now, but in a totally different way. Even as I speak, feverish preparations are being done in Cutud in Pampanga. There will be the same ...

Holy Thursday April 5, 2012 The best of Pinoy popular religiosity, along with its worst, shines out beginning today, first day of the Paschal Triduum. Even as I sit down to write these reflections, hordes are now making their way up Mount Banahaw, or trekking in the concrete jungles of Metro Manila to go to Antipolo, or “carrying their little or big crosses” everywhere in Central Luzon, particularly in Pampanga, to do their own version of “washing and watching.” Elsewhere, throughout the Tagalog region, particularly in Batangas and Cavite, the singing of the Pasiong Mahal of the unsung poet Mariano Pilapil, could be heard or espied taking place in just about every prominent family’s house, or in humble abodes everywhere else. In Poblacion, Makati, the old Sampiro, dozens of what is called “kalbaryos” house the family-owned statues depicting the various events related to the passion of the Lord, where endless singing of the same pasiong mahal is done, replete with food and drinks for...