For the whole Christian world, the coming of Jesus Christ is the greatest manifestation of God’s love for all of mankind. While many Christian sects do not follow the teachings of the Catholic Church on the Paschal mystery, many of such sects do some sort of observance of the Holy Week. The crucifixion of Jesus Christ was the strongest statement of His obedience to the will of the Father who sent Him so that man will be saved from the throes of sin.

People seem to have turned less observant of the practices that mark Holy Week as truly holy. Even in these holy days, we still find people having fun in their night escapades, enjoying in drinking sprees, hip-hopping in dance crazes and crooning their lungs out on videoke bars. Old folks would always share their stories about the reflective mood that people go through during the Lenten season and the Holy Week. The holy days would always be turned to somber mood in reflection of the passion and death of Jesus Christ.

It really is hard to understand how people could chose lackadaisically on unholy activities that go in conflict with the spirit of Holy Week. We cannot say that the Church had been lacking in reminders and admonitions to all and sundry regarding the proper conduct and behavior that will show reverence to these holy days. It is perhaps the lack of humility to accept God’s will that people tend to do their wants even if unpleasing and inappropriate for the Lenten season and the Holy Week.

But there is the light side amid these unholy practices that the faithful can turn to during the Holy Week. We still can find broadcast both on radio and television about biblical stories, narratives and movies that would remind us of the great love that Jesus Christ gave us. Apart from these movies and dramas, we can observe live reenactments in many places all over the country and the world, depicting the passion of Jesus Christ.

Above all, we can always take part in Eucharistic Celebrations in the many Catholic Churches where the passion and death of Jesus Christ is read, reflected on and prayed. Doing penance and sacrifices in atonement and for the forgiveness of our sins will make our holy days truly holy as we look inside our lives the Jesus Christ on the cross.
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Holy Week unites Filipinos across regions and backgrounds. Families engage in special religious practices, such as praying the rosary, attending church services, and participating in processions. It’s a collective experience that transcends individual beliefs.

While it is a fact that the Philippines is not purely catholic it is the most dominant in terms of numbers. Of the 108,667,043 household population in 2020, nearly four fifths or 85,645,362 persons (78.8%) reported Roman Catholic as their religious affiliation. It was followed by Islam with 6,981,710 persons (6.4%), and Iglesia ni Cristo with 2,806,524 persons (2.6%). In 2015, these were also the top three religious affiliations in the country.

Completing the top ten religious affiliations in 2020 are Seventh Day Adventist, and Aglipay (0.8% each); Iglesia Filipina Independiente (0.6%); Bible Baptist Church (0.5%); and United Church of Christ in the Philippines, Jehovah’s Witness, and Church of Christ (0.4% each). Figures from PSA.

The Catholics observes with humble yet consistent frequency Lent or Quaresma . What we see in the shared practices and experience of sharing the passion of our Lord. And it is a good thing for the whole of nation is being admonished to be good on a week and perhaps on all days of the year.

Lent gathers families, set aside differences and make people open to the pouring of God’s message of sacrifice. Its a time of ushering in love and propagating hope in Christ resurrection. It’s a time where a country divided by political squabbles and polarized by power plays is once again united as mere mortals, Philippines become again a nation of devout people.

HAPPY EASTER TO ALL! Yes, we have every reason to be most happy as we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Let’s hope that when we greet each other, ‘Happy Easter,’ we would really mean it and know what is behind that greeting. Let’s exhume that happy greeting from the tomb of our usual formalisms and clichés. Let’s get real!

Finally, we have reached that point where Christ culminated his redemptive mission with his resurrection that simply means that he has conquered sin and death and has reopened the gates of heaven for us. He bore all our sins and conquered them with his resurrection. He offered his very own self as the ransom. We can now be true children of God if we also do our part.

All our sins and all the negative things in our life can be considered a “happy fault” as the Easter praise, the “Exultet,” puts it, because they have caused God to show the ultimate expression of love, a love that we ourselves should also cultivate in ourselves.

But we should not forget that our supreme joy over Christ’s resurrection should not be separated but rather should be considered as the organic consequence of his passion and death which we should also go through.

This joy of Easter should always be with us irrespective of how the drama of our life turns. This joy, a deep sense of confidence and security, the conviction that everything will always work out for the good even if we commit mistakes, should always be with us, because Christ takes care of everything. Ours is simply to try our best in doing good, even if our best efforts will never be enough according to God’s standards. They can always be made better.

We should just be sport with our human condition here on earth. The idea is simply to do our best. If we fail in something, let’s be quick to rise, asking forgiveness and then move on. Let’s not waste time ruing and brooding over our mistakes which actually can give us precious lessons also. These mistakes and failures should not keep us from God. Rather, they should spur us to go to God.

In practical terms, it may be a good idea that we always remind ourselves that “I am Christ.” No matter what situations we find ourselves, we just have to say to ourselves, “I am Christ.” We may have to make some qualifications to that declaration, as we start considering the implications of such declaration, but it should be professed first of all.

We should try our best that such constant reminder becomes a streaming consciousness of our own selves. Again, that is not presumption, simply because our true identity is that Christ has taken the initiative to identify himself with us. We just have to learn to correspond to that reality and to start feeling at home with such truth about ourselves.
Such consciousness will surely give us joy and confidence no matter what happens to us here on earth. It would be an indestructible joy, the joy and confidence of a son who completely trusts his father.

Let us spread this Easter joy, evangelizing as many people as we can so we can take them out of the ignorance and unbelief of a very important truth about ourselves. More than evangelizing, let us be models and active endorsers of this Easter joy!