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´Suffering´ Filipinos Relate More To Calvary Than To Easter

Updated: March 23, 2005 05:00 PM GMT
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Many Filipinos find greater relevance in the Way of the Cross than in Holy week and Easter liturgies because they "understand suffering more than salvation," a Manila liturgist observes.

"Unlike salvation, suffering is a concept you don´t need to explain to majority of our people," according to Father Reginald Malicdem of the Manila archdiocese´s Ministry for Liturgical Affairs.

He told UCA News on March 21 that the Way of the Cross animates "Filipinos´ faith amid suffering." The priest cited "landless and exploited farmers" who experience oppression and persecution as Jesus did from when he was sentenced to death through his crucifixion.

Over the years squatter communities, laborers, youth, professionals and other sectors of Philippine society have staged the Stations of the Cross in public places during Lent to dramatize their collective suffering.

On March 22 in downtown Manila, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines led media workers in their first Stations of the Cross, held in front of the Benedictine Fathers´ San Beda College. "Kruzada: Kalbaryo ng mga Biktima" (crusade: Calvary of victims) included prayers for the 13 journalists killed since January 2004 and others slain in previous years.

Earlier, on March 18, Bishops Antonio Tobias of Novaliches and Deogracias Iniguez of Kalookan, and retired Bishop Julio Labayen of Infanta joined "Kalbaryo ng Bayan" (Calvary of the nation). The People´s Congress for Authentic Democracy, a coalition of cause-oriented groups and bishops, led the activity that began at the Basilica of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo, downtown Manila, and proceeded southward to the Catholic cathedral.

Farmers, women´s groups and poor urban communities also organized Stations of the Cross around the country.

In Bacolod City, 475 kilometers southeast of the capital, about 500 peasant women from land reform beneficiary groups marched with their children and supporters in a Calvary procession on March 8, International Women´s Day.

Women carrying crosses made of sugarcane and wearing replicas of Christ´s crown of thorns led the procession. Men with their heads and faces covered played the part of Roman soldiers "whipping" the women. Organizers said the men represented the ineffective government that cannot empower farmers to take control of land awarded to them as well as landowners who violently refuse to comply with agrarian reform.

In Mati, Davao Oriental province, lay Carmelites have been leading 5 p.m. Stations of the Cross at the public market. Vendors and customers were surprised in early March when members of the group, mostly students wearing school uniforms, wove their way through meat, vegetable and other sections of the market, where they had set up stations, said Juanita Jimeno, a lay Carmelite.

Within a week or two, however, people grew accustomed to pausing from their business to join the prayers and singing. Some offered donations in envelopes or handed out some money to nuns accompanying the students.

Father Malicdem noted that taking the Stations of the Cross outside of churches allows Catholics who do not go to church a chance to "reflect on their spirituality." He explained that this trend "highlights" for the "unchurched the human face of divine Biblical characters, especially Christ."

Since the early 1990s, the Philippine Church has expressed concern about "the high incidence of nominal Catholics." Father Malicdem said many are "kept away" from church activities and the Sacraments by the need to earn a living.

In Bishop Tobias´s view, re-enacting the Stations of the Cross to "express burning issues" in Philippine society integrates theology into the pastoral reality. The bishop said it shows people that "the suffering of Christ did not end in his death on the cross 2,000 years ago, but continues in an outflow of suffering of people over time, especially now."

Close to 4 million Philippine families live below the poverty level, the National Statistical Coordination Board reported in January.

END

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