Every year, Holy Week is being celebrated all over the world, especially Christian nation. For a week we remember the Death of Jesus in the Cross for our salvation.
I grow in a place where I haven’t been disciplined well when it comes to Holy Week. There is no such thing as requirements or guidance that is being given to me by my elders to read “pasyon” , mortification , attending the mass and reparation for my sins when Holy Week came. But I am not that dumb enough to know these things. I pretty know it well because for my 18 years of living here on Earth, I often observed some practices when Holy Week is right on the bat every year.
I remember when I was young, I often seen my childhood friends getting scold by their lola’s. They are being required to attend the “pasyon” and sing with the mike with that weird rhyme at the “kubo kubo” built in the baranggay. Some of them should also attend the procession during Holy Wednesday and Good Friday. I also observed some of the family do not go for outing during the Holy Weeks unless it Easter Sunday. Not to mention those “No music, no television, no laughing, no playing time and not to much food on the table.” For the entire Holy Week, these are the things that were common “when I was young” take note of it.
And now my observation for this year is near to end. Today is Black Saturday and we just need to wait for is Easter Sunday then presto, it’s done.
We are now in I-generation where computers and gadgets consume a lot of our time, sometimes all of it. And with my observation this year, I found out that seldom we do observe Holy Week true meaning. I’m not going to be hypocrite to write all over this papers that I do not belong with those people. Honestly, this Holy Week, a lot of us is busy planning our summer escapades, prefer to watch televisions, movies, laugh out loud, sing with videoke rather than the pasyon and if we visit the church it just like you’re soul has been left in your house and what we do is sit and watch the sermon of the priest and get nothing at all.
It is sad that nowadays, there are only few families who observe Lenten Season in traditional way. Holy Week has become our summer vacation where we go into parties, eat a lot, drink and seldom pray. The elders forgot to teach the children that Holy Week is not for these things. That Holy Week is a time for a family, to pray, repair for the sins and remember what Christ has done for us. And if some of us do so, they do it in a typical way without valuing the sufferings and sacrifices of Christ.
In this I-generation elders sometimes let our children rather, what worst is we tolerate them to play computers, PSP, Ipod, mp3 and laptops. I wonder how many more teenagers still know, the true essence of passion of Christ for us.
I know that I am not old enough to be saying these things. I’m only 18 and I’m still young. But I believe that age is not a requirement to reflect on this. I grow in a way that I haven’t experience these things, but let me tell you that if we just “wish” to do it, it wouldn’t be impossible to resurrect the old ways.
I am afraid of what will be in the future. I believe that I am still bless enough to know what the true meaning of Passion of Christ in the past, that I am able to experience the traditional way today. But what fears me is the future. Will we allow that our future children and our children’s children to forget the experiences that we had when you were young? (I haven’t experience it lol just observed lol), That we are bless to value the sense of being a Christian, a Catholic and that we know that what we are today is because of the salvation made by our Lord Jesus Christ.
According to Albert Einstein, “technology can surpass humanity”. But the question is can we allow this?
Don’t let the future generation not to understand that just like the sacrifices we do in schools, our parents in works, our everyday struggle just to make our life easy, Jesus has given His own life to make us experience the beauty of life.
