Good Friday: How Holy It Used To Be
I remember growing up in a strict Catholic upbringing and observing holy week as some sort of purging religious experience.
The celebration would culminate with the Palm Sunday procession. We used to diligently weave some artfully crafted coconut leaves that we proudly wave as a reenactment to the welcome rites they gave to Jesus Christ during biblical times.
Then we proceed to celebrate Ash Wednesday by having ashes rubbed on our foreheads as a reminder of our mortality—“Remember man, you are from dust and to dust you shall return.” It is a humbling experience and a great reminder to all of us to cast aside all worldly desires, after all, we all just vanish from this material world.
Then the week-long celebration of the passion of Christ would highlight the Lenten season celebration—Holy Monday, Holy Tuesday, Holy Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Black Saturday, Easter Sunday. I remember our family celebrating this holy week as holy as it could be by observing penance, fasting and abstinence. For penance we go to church and do confession. We also observe fasting by eating just one or two meals in a day instead of the three regular full meals and trying not to feel full. This event is made more meaningful by offering prayers to everyone around the world who are hungry hoping that we might have a chance to feel their hunger for food. We also observe abstinence from the things we love, and the bad things that we do. We abstain from meat, from music and dancing, and from cursing and getting angry. Basically, we observe holy week like a week of turning our ways so they are delightful in God’s eyes and in some way, sharing the suffering of Christ on the cross.
On Holy Thursday, we would join the procession around town, parading the different saints in beautifully decorated carousels. I used to love walking under the searing heat of the sun as a form of sacrifice, just to be able to feel the spirit of the holy week.
Good Friday is a big day. This is the day when we basically, die a bit by really keeping a holy day through prayers, reflections, atonement, fasting and abstinence and stopping all worldly affairs. This is also the day when we get to see a reenactment of the passion of Christ in flesh form—real people trying to relive the passion, the betrayal—Judas’ kiss, the Pontius Pilate act, the carrying of the cross, the crucifixion. We also reflect on the seven last words of Christ on the cross. It was definitely a life-altering tradition. At three in the afternoon on Good Friday, the time when Christ supposedly died on the cross, we go to the beach and wash off ourselves in the sea—with the belief that as we do that we cleanse ourselves of all our sins.
On the other hand, tales of witches and black magicians renewing their powers on Good Friday hover around, creating an aura of eerie, empty, godless, sorrowful, almost black Friday. I remember seeing all crucifixes in the church being covered by a purple or maroon piece of cloth and that makes the day even gloomier.
Black Saturday is less holy because then some people will try to return to their daily chores and routines—their casual lives. Except that at night time, we also join another event which we call as Visita Iglesia or church visit. It is carried out by a bunch of people who visit one church after another and saying prayers typically in the form of the Stations of the Cross. But the highlight of the day is the blessing of the new fire. This basically pre-empts the celebration of Christ’s victory from sin which is celebrated on Easter Sunday—the Resurrection.
Easter Sunday comes with a bang. We wake up very early on Sunday morning and witness a glorious celebration of Christ’s resurrection. Typically a float filled with fresh white flowers with a statue of the risen Christ is paraded around the church while in the background we would hear the angelic choir, singing songs of praise and hallelujah. The one practice that still baffles me today but has some kind of entertainment value is the way they project Judas on Easter Sunday. A Judas dummy is hanged on a tree and burned while church goers are happily witnessing every minute of it until there’s none left of Judas.
Easter Sunday is like the grand finale to a season long celebration of the passion, the death, and the resurrection of Christ our Lord for all of us Catholics. Other Christian churches have a different way of celebrating the Lenten season, but most of us in the Christian world agree that the resurrection of Christ is the one true manifestation of God’s glory, thus making His death more meaningful, for we are saved not by our actions but by God’s grace through dying on the cross.
I also look forward to the Easter Sunday homily which in great detail magnifies and glorifies God’s victory over sin. You may doubt it, but in my heart of heart, that’s what I believe—and none of you can take that away from me.
Anyways, now I am twenty thousand miles away, and instead of going to church on Good Friday, here I am in front of my computer, hopelessly wishing that I was back home celebrating the season with my family and neighbors.
And come Easter Sunday, there’s no salvation for me, because the place where I am now is too blind sighted by the world’s commercialism. I even question why, the celebration of Christ’s resurrection is merely reduced to a futile and meaningless search of fake colored eggs, scantily hidden in bushes as little children and adults as well, excitedly search through corners leaving no stones unturned to find the Easter eggs, left by—the Easter bunny?
Somehow, I just couldn’t connect that in my head. It’s too shallow. This depicts how humanity is wasted away as time goes by, shifting its ways from life’s deeper spiritual practices to the nasty and ugly world of materialism and commercialism.
What’s left of us? I don’t know. You tell me.
The celebration would culminate with the Palm Sunday procession. We used to diligently weave some artfully crafted coconut leaves that we proudly wave as a reenactment to the welcome rites they gave to Jesus Christ during biblical times.
Then we proceed to celebrate Ash Wednesday by having ashes rubbed on our foreheads as a reminder of our mortality—“Remember man, you are from dust and to dust you shall return.” It is a humbling experience and a great reminder to all of us to cast aside all worldly desires, after all, we all just vanish from this material world.
Then the week-long celebration of the passion of Christ would highlight the Lenten season celebration—Holy Monday, Holy Tuesday, Holy Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Black Saturday, Easter Sunday. I remember our family celebrating this holy week as holy as it could be by observing penance, fasting and abstinence. For penance we go to church and do confession. We also observe fasting by eating just one or two meals in a day instead of the three regular full meals and trying not to feel full. This event is made more meaningful by offering prayers to everyone around the world who are hungry hoping that we might have a chance to feel their hunger for food. We also observe abstinence from the things we love, and the bad things that we do. We abstain from meat, from music and dancing, and from cursing and getting angry. Basically, we observe holy week like a week of turning our ways so they are delightful in God’s eyes and in some way, sharing the suffering of Christ on the cross.
On Holy Thursday, we would join the procession around town, parading the different saints in beautifully decorated carousels. I used to love walking under the searing heat of the sun as a form of sacrifice, just to be able to feel the spirit of the holy week.
Good Friday is a big day. This is the day when we basically, die a bit by really keeping a holy day through prayers, reflections, atonement, fasting and abstinence and stopping all worldly affairs. This is also the day when we get to see a reenactment of the passion of Christ in flesh form—real people trying to relive the passion, the betrayal—Judas’ kiss, the Pontius Pilate act, the carrying of the cross, the crucifixion. We also reflect on the seven last words of Christ on the cross. It was definitely a life-altering tradition. At three in the afternoon on Good Friday, the time when Christ supposedly died on the cross, we go to the beach and wash off ourselves in the sea—with the belief that as we do that we cleanse ourselves of all our sins.
On the other hand, tales of witches and black magicians renewing their powers on Good Friday hover around, creating an aura of eerie, empty, godless, sorrowful, almost black Friday. I remember seeing all crucifixes in the church being covered by a purple or maroon piece of cloth and that makes the day even gloomier.
Black Saturday is less holy because then some people will try to return to their daily chores and routines—their casual lives. Except that at night time, we also join another event which we call as Visita Iglesia or church visit. It is carried out by a bunch of people who visit one church after another and saying prayers typically in the form of the Stations of the Cross. But the highlight of the day is the blessing of the new fire. This basically pre-empts the celebration of Christ’s victory from sin which is celebrated on Easter Sunday—the Resurrection.
Easter Sunday comes with a bang. We wake up very early on Sunday morning and witness a glorious celebration of Christ’s resurrection. Typically a float filled with fresh white flowers with a statue of the risen Christ is paraded around the church while in the background we would hear the angelic choir, singing songs of praise and hallelujah. The one practice that still baffles me today but has some kind of entertainment value is the way they project Judas on Easter Sunday. A Judas dummy is hanged on a tree and burned while church goers are happily witnessing every minute of it until there’s none left of Judas.
Easter Sunday is like the grand finale to a season long celebration of the passion, the death, and the resurrection of Christ our Lord for all of us Catholics. Other Christian churches have a different way of celebrating the Lenten season, but most of us in the Christian world agree that the resurrection of Christ is the one true manifestation of God’s glory, thus making His death more meaningful, for we are saved not by our actions but by God’s grace through dying on the cross.
I also look forward to the Easter Sunday homily which in great detail magnifies and glorifies God’s victory over sin. You may doubt it, but in my heart of heart, that’s what I believe—and none of you can take that away from me.
Anyways, now I am twenty thousand miles away, and instead of going to church on Good Friday, here I am in front of my computer, hopelessly wishing that I was back home celebrating the season with my family and neighbors.
And come Easter Sunday, there’s no salvation for me, because the place where I am now is too blind sighted by the world’s commercialism. I even question why, the celebration of Christ’s resurrection is merely reduced to a futile and meaningless search of fake colored eggs, scantily hidden in bushes as little children and adults as well, excitedly search through corners leaving no stones unturned to find the Easter eggs, left by—the Easter bunny?
Somehow, I just couldn’t connect that in my head. It’s too shallow. This depicts how humanity is wasted away as time goes by, shifting its ways from life’s deeper spiritual practices to the nasty and ugly world of materialism and commercialism.
What’s left of us? I don’t know. You tell me.
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