TODAY in the Philippines, God will be dead and a pall of mourning will hang over Asia’s only Roman Catholic nation.
Business establishments, including malls, are closed, and there are only a few vehicles on the usually congested roads of Metro Manila, which is home to 10 million people but is seemingly deserted today. There is nothing on FM radio except for a station or two that will only play the gloomiest Barry Manilow, Roberta Flack, Bread, et al. On TV the only show is a live broadcast of the Mass at the jam-packed Manila Cathedral where the bishops are uttering The Seven Last Words of Christ while the women fan themselves furiously, and the men are glad that they don’t wear bras.
At exactly 3 p.m., the crucified Christ will drink vinegar, say “It is finished,” and die.
I will always associate Good Friday with an oppressive, punishing heat. It is as if you were entirely covered in Reynolds Plastic Wrap. There is no breeze and the very air is warm. Turning on the electric fan will only circulate the suffocating miasma of the dry season, which we like to call “summer.” Outside, the sun will bear down on you like a cross. We are, however, forbidden to take a shower because, our mothers said, the water would turn into Christ’s blood. The children are told not to play, because if they get hurt their wound would never heal.
Childhood in a Catholic household back home is marked with christenings, confirmations, confessions and communions. Every home has an altar, and you go to sleep knowing that the statues of the Holy Child Jesus, Mother Mary and a saint or two are keeping you company, guarding you against all those evil spirits (“mga maligno”) that come out in the dark. But on Good Friday, you will be told that there will be no God to fend off the “maligno,” and the Virgin Mary and all the saints are too grief- stricken to hear our prayers. It is as if you were a ship passenger who has repeatedly gone through all the emergency drills only to be told, when the ship is sinking, that there are no life boats.
After 3 p.m. on Good Friday, there is only evil and no God, and we are on our own.
The children are, of course, scared s***less. However, Lent is not only for terrorizing hyper-active kids into passivity for at least a day. It is also a lesson in faith. God may be dead, but He will be back, and if we believe in Him we will be redeemed and delivered from a meaningless existence.
For the Roman Catholics back home, to quote a Philippine historian, Lent provides powerful images of transition from one state to another—from darkness to light, despair to hope, misery to salvation, ignorance to knowledge, death to life. This is the time of the year when “the spiritual and material planes of existence coincide, when…the people themselves participate in Christ’s passion.” Every movement, every gesture is referred to Christ’s suffering. Hence to take a shower after 3 p.m. is to bathe in His blood. To eat pork, beef or chicken is to partake of His flesh. To laugh is to laugh at His agony on the cross.
So the Filipino Catholics commiserate. The flagellants shed blood and sweat. The older women will cover the distance from the entrance of the church to the altar on their knees. Some will re-enact the crucifixion, literally. The rest will hear Mass. At the end of this most terrible day in the Catholic calendar, impurities are cast off, hope is renewed, our ties to the global community of believers are restored, and we finally remember why it is called Good Friday.
