Post-Holy Week tattle

It all went too fast, the four days that were part of Holy Week. It seemed like the short vacation was not enough compared to how hard you worked for the whole year. Well, I was working too on the days where people were busy wallowing in the beachfronts, flaunting their cool pictures of the sunrise and the sunset. It's like the days allotted on the calendar supposedly for reflection and time to be in the church have been spent on a vacation. I don't blame others for neglecting supposedly church duties. It is a choice to spend quality time with family in this very busy world.

What's ironic though is the Church's effort to get everyone to practice the traditions being done during Holy Week. The children of the next generation are forgetting the sacrifices and the death of Jesus Christ plus the reason why he rose again. It has become a battle of the best benignit in town, that known Visayan dessert made out of taro, sago, coconut milk, and other ingredients fit to one's liking. It has also been a competition for the best photos of the procession that took place --who got the best angle of the saints and whatnot. What has the Holy Week really become?

People flock to Bantayan Island because of how it is in a festive mood during this season. But the aftermath is worse than we expected --trash is strewn everywhere. People do know how to party in that island but it's all too much. The time given to pause and reflect has been a time to go all-out and wild, full of alcohol.

It's sad that we claim to be a Christian country but can't even retell the story of the resurrection. We are too enticed with the cuteness of the Easter egg and the bunnies instead of God's love for us. Children today only think that the day of the resurrection is a time to go the beach and swim with the whole family. What have we become? It's a theoretical question that would really hit us hard. Lent today is totally different from the way it used to be.

This week is National Youth Day where devout young Catholics convene in worship and to learn about their religious spirit. Fresh from the Holy Week craziness, we are faced with young people who are devoting themselves to the Lord. Isn't it such an irony? I only hope they won't stumble along the way with what they will be experiencing in Cebu.

I hope we use the whole year to reflect about what happened this Holy Week and hopefully apply more adept activities next year. It will be a long haul but I know the young ones will soon realize its true meaning, let alone its essence. I’m grateful for those four days, it made me reflect on my true purpose in this world and I thank God for that