FILIPINO TRADITIONAL ROMAN CATHOLIC: Sto. Nino De Cebu: Icon of Philippine Evangelization

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Sto. Nino De Cebu: Icon of Philippine Evangelization

Today the Philippine Church celebrates the feast of Sto. Nino. If there is ever an icon of faith well loved and appreciated by the Filipinos is the Sto. Nino. Ferdinand Magellan gifted the chieftain of Cebu and His wife with a statue of the Sto. Nino as a token for their baprism and conversion to the Catholic Faith. Several decades when the Spaniards came to reclaim the Philippine Islands, they found the statue of the Sto. Nino in Cebu. To me this historical accounts are significant in some ways: (1) The Childhood of Christ means a show of good favor. God loves the child. In many instances Christ made the child as an example and picture of the Kingdom of God. (2) The discovery of this image signal the start of the evangelization of the Philippines, through enough after years of evangelization this islands are now reclaimed for Christ. This is the main reason why I always love this image because it is a symbol of God's providence for the Filipino people and we ought to be grateful of this favor from God. The many cultural aspects attached to this feast such as ati-atihan, dinagyang, sinulog, etc... are good in themselves. These are forms of indigenous expression of love and devotion. But this activities should not deviate our attention from the real objectives of this feast. The objective of this feast is to make us realize that we must become like children if we want to enter the Kingdom of God. This means holiness, humility, submissiveness and the willingness to obey the word of God. This obedience should be coupled with understanding as illumined by the Scriptures, enriched and preserved by tradition and should culminate in a stronger devotion to the Eucharist. Our real blessedness will rest upon these. Street dancing, parading of images are simply outward forms of expressions whose objective is to preserve the feast for posterity and to serve as a reminder but the meat of the feast is the spiritual dimension of growing in our faith, our love and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. To know more about this feast you may visit the website of Basilica del Santo Nino.

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A 13 years old boy............. in 1983, but now I am a golden boy, gaining weight and wiser, but younger at heart. I consider myself as a “novus ordo baby” because I was born in the late 60s after the 2nd Vatican Council introduced the novus ordo missae and grew up confronted by the confusions as a result. Like my generation I never saw what the church was like prior to Vatican II, but I am a living witness to the gradual disappearance of religious traditions we hold dear. Young as I was then I could not understand what was going on. But I suffered the sense of loss as I saw how the modernizing influence in the church disfigured the liturgy and clouded the way we believe and practice our faith. But then being a child, powerless, not knowing what it was, and why it happened, I simply drifted into the sea of confusion, too young to understand. With a glimmer of faith in my heart, planted by baptism and confirmation, strengthened by the sound teachings of my parents and grandparents, I sailed into the sea of life, day after day, seeing the changes happen, feeling the sense of abandonment, yet God was merciful to me. In 2005 I discovered the Traditional Latin Mass or commonly known in the post-conciliar period as the Tridentine Mass. I began to love the rite of mass that has nourished my ancestors, the saints and the martyrs. I am eternally grateful to His Holiness Pope John Paul II for recognizing the rightful aspirations of Catholics attached to the ancient forms of the Roman Rite through his apostolic letter ECCLESIA DEI DI AFFLICTA. I am also eternally grateful to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI for liberating the Traditional Latin Mass through his apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum. I fully agree with the program of his pontificate regarding the Hermeneutics of Continuity and disdain the hermeneutics of rupture. Today I consider myself a Traditional Roman Catholic attached to the liturgical discipline of 1962 as outlined in the Motu Proprio SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM of his Holiness. I believe that there is only one Roman Rite, the Ordinary and the Extraordinary and that the Mass in whatever form should be celebrated with dignity. My voyage is on. Join me in this quest.

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FILIPINO TRADITIONAL ROMAN CATHOLIC

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Sto. Nino De Cebu: Icon of Philippine Evangelization

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