I’m back January 26, 2009
Posted by edwayne in Happenings.Tags: I'm back, Return
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I’m back that’s the first thing I can think of, when I started creating this post. I know it’s been quite a while since my last article and there are lot things that has happen in my life between my last post and now, actually I don’t remember when was my last post. Anyway the good thing is I’m back on the blogging world, hopefully I’ll be able to post some interesting topic and issues.
Food for the soul May 6, 2007
Posted by edwayne in Happenings.add a comment
Faith simple, faith sincere
By Jenara Regis Newman
BALIKBAYAN doctors Lito and Winnie Basa, invited me to visit their place in San Remegio on April 5. I hesitated because that was Holy Thursday, but when they said there was a fluvial procession which they have not seen before and which they wanted to see with me, I agreed.
San Remegio is 109 kilometers northwest of Cebu City. It’s now slowly getting to be known for its beaches. Otherwise, it’s pretty much backwoods territory where the church used to banish erring priests: when a new priest came to town, parishioners wonder what he had done to be sent here (with apologies to the present one, who may be unlike most of his predecessors).
They’ve grown accustomed to priests with families living in the convento or visiting regularly, especially on a Sunday, to count the colecta. Winnie actually saw a priest smoking while saying Mass.
Where we were bound is at the edge of San Remegio, near Tabuelan. The place, Sitio Aningan, barangay Luyang has about 30 households which honor San Vicente Ferrer with a small feast, featuring a fluvial procession because his statue was found floating among the debris washed to sea after typhoon Seniang.
Victoriano Pable recounts that it was his father, Santiago, now deceased, who found the statue. He had gone fishing after the typhoon and found the statue, crude, unpainted and missing a hand. Santiago decided to keep it, seeing that it looked like San Vicente Ferrer, patron saint of Bogo. He placed it on top of his aparador where it stood almost forgotten. One day, about two years later, three children from different household in the sitio, decided to play with it, mocking it, dancing irreverently with it. That evening, all three children could not swallow and it was only after they and their parents went to the statue to pray to it that they were able to eat again.
Santiago then called a meeting of the households because it had become clear to him that this statue had gahum, power. At the meeting, it was decided that they were going to repair the statue, paint it and honor it on its feast day with a fluvial procession. The sitio now had a fiesta to look forward to. This was in the mid ‘60s. The families in the sitio have faithfully continued to honor San Vicente Ferrer on his feast even though the parish priest would no longer say Mass at their very small chapel, some 10 feet by 14 feet, not only because it was too small for him to move around, but also because the church has mandated that all chapel lots should be donated to the church if mass is to be said there (the Basas, who own the lot, had already donated more than 700 square meters of land for the barrio chapel in barangay Victoria). And so the people of Aningan decided on what they think is the next best thing, ask the Aglipay priest in Tabuelan to say Mass for them, a task he has gladly undertaken the past several years.
After the Mass, the people move down to the beach and ride their sparsely-decorated pump boats to take the statue for a ride in the waters of Aningan, where it was found. Since 1996, when some do-gooders gave the sitio a statue of Our Lady of Fatima for people there to pray the dawn rosary, Our Lady’s statue has also been part of the fluvial procession. Unlike some other fluvial procession where people make merry during the ride, the folks who participate in this procession continually pray the rosary and chant hymns from their novena booklet. Unlike other fiestas where everyone prepares a feast, in this poor sitio, it is usually only Victoriano and his daughter-in-law Joy who prepare food for everyone.
Simple faith like theirs is hard to come by these days and was, for me, a humbling experience. But it’s a faith that is slowly going Aglipay (a child was baptized into that faith during the fiesta mass) for this flock has lost its shepherd.
During the rest of the Holy Week, and even today, witnessing the fluvial procession and the simple faith of the people keeps nagging at me because I see Christ on the Cross, who gave up His life so people including those in Aningan could be saved; Christ, the Good Shepherd who would leave the 99 in His care to find one sheep gone astray. Where in the Catholic hierarchy today is the good shepherd to tend to 30 households slowly being weaned away from the faith of their forefathers?
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