-  by czaldy                                                                          

 

Biernes Santo has been synonymous to melancholia, apathy and inactivity. As if everything came in stand still at least in Padada particularly. Went around town and saw emptiness as almost allthe shops were closed, no multicabs or jeepneys plying their routes. Only the fruit stands were opened and a stall or two in the fish section. Most of the people are in the church.

 

The passion of Christ is an important event in every Padada Catholics as it commerates Jesus's death and crucifixion and how it translate into their Christian lives, it is also the time for renewing and strengthening their faith. To some, it is vacation time and head to different destinations opportunistically spending the five long non working days.

 

The procession of the Santo Entiero and other saints is always the main activity to most. Throngs of people walked around town with candles and reciting the rosary. There was a feeling loss and a stench of death as snaking to the processional route that was experienced before but time has ripened my spirituality with greater understanding of the significance of it all.

 

Today's procession lacks the saintly luminaries of before like Mary Magdalene, St. Joseph and St. Peter. There were only two carosas that of the Santo Entiero and Virgin Mary. I wish they were complete as they were very significant to Jesus's life and how their lives mirrored can be mirrored by us all.