Holy Week is the most colorful time in Catholic Philippines.
Commemorating Christ’s arrival at Jerusalem, people bring palms to church on Palm Sunday for a priestly blessing. The ensuing procession features a tableau of Christ on a donkey accompanied by men as the Twelve Apostles.
A Holy Wednesday procession recalls the public life of Christ—the Wedding at Cana, Miracle of Loaves and Fishes, Christ and the Samaritan Woman and other events prior to Christ’s final week.
Maundy Thursday Mass includes a re-enactment of the Washing of the Feet and sometimes the Last Supper. The Holy Eucharist procession follows—the priest holds the host in a gold monstrance and walks to a temporary retablo through clouds of incense under a pallium (embroidered cloth canopy on poles).
On Good Friday, there is a procession after the three-hour Siete Palabras. It’s in three parts: (a) Christ’s public life (the Wednesday tableaux again); (b) the passion and death of Christ (Entry into Jerusalem, Agony in the Garden, Christ before Caiaphas, etc., and finally the Crucifixion and Pieta (the dead Christ and the Virgin); and (c) the funeral procession led by the Sto. Entierro (a glass funeral carriage) and followed by mourners—the tearful Virgin (Dolorosa), Mary Magdalene, St. John the Evangelist, etc., including parish dignitaries.
Still another procession ends Good Friday: a solitary carroza bearing the sorrowful Mary (La Soledad) and silent candle-bearing devotees all dressed in black.
Two processions start off early on Easter morning—one with the Resurrected Christ and the other with a shrouded Mary. As dawn breaks, the images meet under a galilea (a decorated structure) where, to fireworks and great rejoicing, a little girl dressed as an angel descends and removes Mary’s shroud.
Francisco “Quico” Vecín, the highly regarded processional image maker, tells me that enthusiasm over Holy Week processions is now greater than ever.
Observing that the Malolos Cathedral procession has gaps, a family commissioned a Last Supper (with 13 images), Kiss of Judas, Señor de la Paciencia (a bloody Christ, seated), and a Desmayado (an exhausted Christ after the scourging). Members of a younger generation decide to continue family tradition and commission images for their own parishes. Priests, convinced of processions’ devotional value, encourage parishioners and themselves commission images. (Fr. Jojo Zerrudo has about a dozen tableaux arranged at his Holy Family Parish in Quezon City.)
Manilans not planning on the beaches of Boracay or Batangas, Baguio, wherever, may wish to experience (and/or have their kids experience) our Semana Santa processions. The most spectacular Viernes Santo processions I’ve seen are those at San Pablo (Laguna) and Baliwag (Bulacan) with as many as 90 tableaux each. The resplendent Makati Población procession has 40 tableaux (Wala Lang, March 29, 2010). Quico tells me that those at Malolos, Imus (Cavite) and Pasay (Sta. Clara Parish on Libertad Street) are marvelous.
And if you have an heirloom that needs sprucing up or if you want your own image, check out the Vecín Workshop, 1259 D. Osmeña Street, Rizal Village, Makati.
http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/354654/experiencing-our-semana-santa-pageantry
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