By J. Rakista
The Catolico Cerado among us will swear by their forefathers’ knee caps that the celebration of the Holy Week is not complete without the traditional Visita Iglesia which, they will explain, is an extended version of the Stations of the Cross due to the fact that one has to travel from one church to another with each church representing one Station.
But nobody does the Visita Iglesia alone. You will go with your parents, or brothers and sisters, or relatives, or friends. Or if you feel romantic about it, you can ask your girlfriend’s parents to allow you to bring her with you so that you can savor that once-a-year chance to be able to recall the Passion and Death of the Lord with your life’s most beautiful girl by your side. It can be a metaphysical experience, mind you, to meditate together on the most brutal and violent murder that led to the birth of the Church where, in the future, you sure are going to marry her.
And since churches are usually located very far away in between, you will have all the time in the world to exchange with each other those sweet nothings you’ve always exchanged before – this time in between Stations of the Cross – in between fourteen Stations of the Cross. Fourteen. That's fourteen chances to show her that you can be fun to be with and that there's no one else who can make her smile, laugh and giggle on the eve of the most beautiful Good Friday of her life.
Traditionally, the First Station of the Cross is where you will attend the commemoration of the Lord’s Last Supper. It’s just like your usual Sunday Mass except for the presence of twelve men dressed in bathrobes with multi-colored sashes and large belts. They will wear sandals showing their newly pedicured toes prepared for the one and perhaps only chance in their life that a priest shall wash their feet. You will recognize some of your jobless neighbors among them and feel proud about it; and I mean it in an ironic way.
The Scriptural Readings shall be longer and the priest’s homily shall expectedly be more boring than last year’s, but you will not be able to sleep through it because the church shall be warmer and there shall be more attendees than the usual Mass.
You will wait until the end of the Mass. You will wait until the altar has been laid bare, and the images of the angels and saints have been covered with purple cloths, and the consecrated hosts in an Olympic-sized cup shall have been solemnly transferred to another altar bedecked with flowers and candles and lights and what-have-you. It is called the Altar of Repose.
You will approach the Altar of Repose by making the double genuflect, but, of course, you already know why you should do that. Invite your girlfriend to kneel beside you – always choose the shortest available kneeler. And as your elbow is but barely touching hers, you will begin to offer the longest possible silent prayer in your life. You will know when to stop by your knees’ reaction to this new experience called “kneeling.”
Then you will stand and begin to offer the First Station of the Cross.
After reciting together the First Station from your prayer booklet entitled "STATIONS OF THE CROSS: The New Way of the Cross", you will do the double genuflect again and then off you go to the next church in your itinerary. Don’t forget the sweet nothings.
Once you arrive at the next church, you will look for the Altar of Repose and finding it, don’t forget to do the double genuflect again. Don’t forget too to find a kneeler and to offer the very important silent prayer while your elbow is barely touching hers.
After the silent prayer, you will stand and begin to offer the Second Station of the Cross.
Twelve more churches and you will have completed the sweetest Visita Iglesia of your life. It will be sweeter yet when, along the way to one of those churches, she will allow you to hold her hand.
And for a while there, those exchanges of sweet nothings will stop to give way to a secret prayer asking the Lord not to let that moment end.
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