For the past few years, I have devoted the Holy Week Vacation to house cleaning, brushing the dust off the books crammed in our five floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. I used to watch the Lenten and Easter observances on TV, but stopped even that after finding myself increasingly repulsed by what passes off for the spiritual these days. The closest I now come to a Lenten observance every year is watching “Jesus Christ Superstar”, the Gospel according to Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, so to speak.
My Holy Week activities are a far cry from those I remember from childhood and would probably earn your grandmother’s opprobrium. Our hometown, Buhi, Camarines Sur, had plenty of Holy Week customs and traditions that, as a former boy sacristan with your father/uncle Junior, I remember as redolent with the smell of burning candle wax and incense wafting from a thurible. We were active in the church-sponsored activities which, after Ash Wednesday, included the Via Crucis or Stations of the Cross at the patio or churchyard. Our neighbors, the Buenaventes/Aileses maintained the Nazarene caro or float used for the occasion, borne on the shoulders of volunteers. To emphasize responsibility with devotion, your grandmother used to fetch the Nazarine’s crown of thorns and silver rays for me to polish with the wax your grandfather used to shine his belt buckle.
Except for the fact that the Palms the faithful brought home were supposed to ward off dangers from lightnings during storms, I have very little recollection of Palm Sundays. On Holy Wednesday, however, there was an evening procession featuring about twenty caros or floats which started with the one of St. Peter and the rooster and ended with the melancholy figure of the Mater Dolorosa. Among the caros which featured tableaus from the The Passion of Christ - from the Agony in the Garden to the Three Marys or Tres Marias visiting the Tomb – my favorites included the Interrogation of the Christ called “Pasencia” and the Pieta caro, known by the townfolks as “Angustia”. On Good Friday evening, another procession was held, this time featuring the Santo Intierro/Hinulid or the entombed Christ. Later in the evening, there was another procession called the “Soledad”, with people accompanying the caros/floats of the Tres Marias and the Blessed Mother from the opposite direction of the earlier procession.
As elsewhere, there was the Seven Last Word or Siete Palabras on Good Friday and I remember your grandfather, a member of the Holy Name Society, being once asked to deliver his reflections on the words “I Thirst”. One year and the succeeding ones after that, in attendance at the service were the Sayos, wraithlike women clad in black ankle-length garments, their faces obscured by sheer black veils and their feet protected only by black socks. Joining the processions holding poles bearing tokens from the Passion, the Sayos was a penitential practice that was revived, if memory serves, by the Lavapie sisters, Tiya Puring, Clemen, Rayning and Flora.
In homes all over town, there were “Pabasa” or chanting of the Passion in the Bicol vernacular. There were brief re-enactments of Mary’s sorrow over her son’s plight called the “Senakulo”, a variation of which was once staged by the Good Shepherd Sisters, with your grandfather writing the Blessed Mother’s lament. Family pledges for various intentions also gave rise to the staging of the “Tanggal” – productions depicting highlights from the Old Testament before going into a detailed portrayal of the life and times of the Christ , from birth to his resurrection. Television had not yet attained its current ubiquity, so these spectacles – going on for days and with three or four productions sometimes being staged across town – served as devotional diversion for the townfolk. The actors also sung their lines in the Bicol vernacular, with the narrative flow maintained by a chorus that broke into keening at what seemed like spontaneous intervals. With her high singing pitch, your great grandmother Nicasia sometimes joined these choruses that, late at night and from a distance, mustered what sounded like sung lamentations, both primal and primeval.
In the “Tanggal”, the Christ figure was usually portrayed by a penitent or someone fulfilling a pledge. As a boy, I was told that the actors playing the Roman Soldiers should inflict actual pain on the Christ figure or end up feeling the pain themselves. The Roman Soldiers were called the Hudyo – a misnomer that echoes the supposed blood curse on the Jews and, to this day, serves as a reminder of the anti-semitism that still clings to the Catholic faith. Fearsome creatures in their traditional regalia, these Roman Soldiers sometimes went around begging for funds, frightening neighborhood kids in the process. Family lore has it that, as a young boy, Junior once went home pale and unable to speak after encountering one of these Roman Soldiers on the street.
Staged after the Tanggal, my personal favorite was the Moro-Moro, a re-enactment of St. Helena’s search for the true cross. With the dialogue likewise delivered in song, the Christian contingent engaged their Muslim foes in sword and dagger fights timed to a lively 2/2 tune provided by a small band playing guitar, tambourine, trumpet and horn. To the amusement of the crowd, the proceedings were enlivened by a bobo or fool who, while repeating the lines of the main protagonists, would deliberately flub the words to great comedic effect. I once watched a full scale production of the Moro-Moro that went on for days, where the actors, clad in much grander costumes, used wrought iron swords and daggers instead of the customary wooden ones. My playmates and I used to re-enact these Christian-Muslim encounters with half-remembered lines and bamboo sticks for swords and daggers.
On Easter eve, there was the Balo – a dress-rehearsal for the angelitos/angelitas who, by a popularity contest that involved selling tickets for the Parish’s fund raising activity, had the high honor of removing the mourning veil from the Blessed Mother, as she encountered the risen Christ. Before the construction of the concrete one at the Churchyard, the Castillo or tower at which the angelitos/angelitas were lowered from a great height were annual projects made of bamboo, anahaw and coconut leaves. Emerging from an inverse pyramid contraption which, when opened, resembled a star, the lead angelito/angelita sung his/her lines in Latin before performing the assigned task. The Balo was a crowd-drawer, if only for the spectacle of reluctant angels screaming in fright or, on one occasion, wetting herself at the very outset of her contrived celestial descent.
At Easter dawn, the faithful gathered at the Castillo for the actual re-enactment before repairing for the mass, the message of regeneration and rebirth fresh in their minds and hearts.
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