In the old country, particularly in my former province of Pampanga, this Lenten spectacle has attracted foreign media in print, TV & Cable broadcasting, film, and live internet streaming because of so many men, and sometimes even women who walk around from mid-day until late afternoon under the summer heat of the scourching sun, barefooted along the highways, from barangay to barangay, and other towns or provinces, dressed like Jesus Christ, with head sacks covering their faces but not their eyes, while carrying a cross, or simply self-flagellating and scourging their exposed backs with whips or chains from left to right, in order to atone for their sins, while becoming oblivious to their pain and suffering, and the crowds encourage them from their self-immolation, with very few people, or nobody jeering at them, which culminates in the actual nailing on the cross, or crucifixion of one of the penitents in the community, and a real Passion Play comes before your eyes, if you are actually there witnessing this chaotic and gory reenactment of what transpired on Good Friday in Calvary.
This practice, while not sanctioned but discouraged officially by local and national Christian churches is so common, that I remember starting my own Cenaculo or Passion play at a very young age (I could not have been more than 10 years old,) by gathering all the kids in the neighborhood, and designating one of my younger cousins to carry the makeshift cross made of rattan around the yard, while the other children acted as centurions whipping and nailing Jesus on the cross, followed by the King of the Jews bowing his head upon death, with make believe exuberance, and fake sadness from the participants.
Later on in my late 40's, the Suffering Servant, or the Passion & Death of Christ would become the driving force masking the real sexual abuse that was inflicted to my main protagonist as a young girl by her Uncle, in my semi-autobiographical master thesis feature film entitled Perfect Friendship, that I wrote, shot, directed, and edited in NYU, based on Aristotle's Philosophy of Friendship, and my dream about the Second Coming of Christ, which in my movie fomented the destruction of the main character's love & friendship towards her best friend, and the latter's dissolution of her marriage, brought about by her husband's infidelity who was seduced by her abused friend.
As a Christian, the Cross is celebrated as an instrument of salvation during its Feast every year (which falls on September 14, 2020 this year in the Roman Missal,) known as the Exaltation of the Cross, the Triumph of the Cross, or Holy Cross Day. For Catholics, who prefer the Crucifix (with Jesus on it crucified,) the Feast is not a Holy Day of Obligation, but like all other Christians, the Cross is a universal symbol of the Christian faith, which represents Christ's victory over death. It is the sign of Christ Himself, and the faith of the laity; hence at the center of every Catholic church is the Crucifix of Jesus Christ-- a symbol of 'victorious reversal,' meaning, the cross, which was once so hated and feared as a form of punishment & death, is now "a symbol that points to the past, and now brings or gives hope for the future" as memorialized in the Sign of the Cross, which for us Catholics is altogether, a prayer, a blessing, and a sacramental.
Today, I don't have to take part in a crusade just like in the 4th Century, when Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, abolished crucifixion as punishment, and promoted the Cross as a symbol of the Son of God, or adopted it as a Christian iconography. Whereas the True Cross of Jesus Christ Crucified (made from cedar, pine & cypress trees according to the Sacred Tradition of the Orthodox Christian Church) was found by St. Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great during her pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 326 AD, enhanced and promoted as a symbol of the Son of God by her son, I didn't want anything to do with it except as a prop during my Passion play as a young boy, or during my thesis filmmaking, and up to my recent outing in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal because of ignorance, or hardening of my heart.
(To be concluded...)
This practice, while not sanctioned but discouraged officially by local and national Christian churches is so common, that I remember starting my own Cenaculo or Passion play at a very young age (I could not have been more than 10 years old,) by gathering all the kids in the neighborhood, and designating one of my younger cousins to carry the makeshift cross made of rattan around the yard, while the other children acted as centurions whipping and nailing Jesus on the cross, followed by the King of the Jews bowing his head upon death, with make believe exuberance, and fake sadness from the participants.
Later on in my late 40's, the Suffering Servant, or the Passion & Death of Christ would become the driving force masking the real sexual abuse that was inflicted to my main protagonist as a young girl by her Uncle, in my semi-autobiographical master thesis feature film entitled Perfect Friendship, that I wrote, shot, directed, and edited in NYU, based on Aristotle's Philosophy of Friendship, and my dream about the Second Coming of Christ, which in my movie fomented the destruction of the main character's love & friendship towards her best friend, and the latter's dissolution of her marriage, brought about by her husband's infidelity who was seduced by her abused friend.
As a Christian, the Cross is celebrated as an instrument of salvation during its Feast every year (which falls on September 14, 2020 this year in the Roman Missal,) known as the Exaltation of the Cross, the Triumph of the Cross, or Holy Cross Day. For Catholics, who prefer the Crucifix (with Jesus on it crucified,) the Feast is not a Holy Day of Obligation, but like all other Christians, the Cross is a universal symbol of the Christian faith, which represents Christ's victory over death. It is the sign of Christ Himself, and the faith of the laity; hence at the center of every Catholic church is the Crucifix of Jesus Christ-- a symbol of 'victorious reversal,' meaning, the cross, which was once so hated and feared as a form of punishment & death, is now "a symbol that points to the past, and now brings or gives hope for the future" as memorialized in the Sign of the Cross, which for us Catholics is altogether, a prayer, a blessing, and a sacramental.
Today, I don't have to take part in a crusade just like in the 4th Century, when Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, abolished crucifixion as punishment, and promoted the Cross as a symbol of the Son of God, or adopted it as a Christian iconography. Whereas the True Cross of Jesus Christ Crucified (made from cedar, pine & cypress trees according to the Sacred Tradition of the Orthodox Christian Church) was found by St. Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great during her pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 326 AD, enhanced and promoted as a symbol of the Son of God by her son, I didn't want anything to do with it except as a prop during my Passion play as a young boy, or during my thesis filmmaking, and up to my recent outing in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal because of ignorance, or hardening of my heart.
(To be concluded...)
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