This year, the month of March had a mix of major events–graduation rites during Lenten season or kwarisma in Cebuano Visayan. This word is derived from the Latin quadragesima or the 40th, referring to the 40 days counted from the first Sunday of Lent — that is after Ash Wednesday — until Good Friday.
Kwarisma is differently observed by Catholics, the focus of this article, as compared to other Christian groups that may disapprovingly view some of the Lenten rituals of the former.
Graduation and Lent as cultural events paint a mix of human emotions–suffering and happiness.
While penance (pinitinsya), fasting, or abstinence (puasa) and reflection (pamalandong) are expected of Catholics during the Holy Week and jubilation (kalipay) during Easter Sunday, it is a common sight of some parents who watched with tears of joy their children receiving diploma in their black academic gowns during graduation rites.
This is particularly true among parents who are poor because their sacrifices had finally produced good results. They exemplify that loving and sacrificing nature of responsible parents who aspire for a good future of their children.
For parents who are poor, it is not an easy task of providing the best education to their children. They describe it as kalbaryu (calvary) to picture how they had sacrificed and suffered a lot for the responsibility.
But getting a degree, then a good job signal a new life for these children. So while the Calvary associated with Good Friday symbolizes the sufferings of Jesus Christ in saving humankind away from sinfulness, Easter Sunday that commemorates Christ’s resurrection is the happiest time of the year for Christians.
So imagine likewise how happy these parents become when their children are able to earn college degrees; these parents who are poor have provided their children a better chance of quality life, assuming they can find work in a very competitive labor market after graduation.
The suffering and happiness of parents are equally shared by poor working students who have to forego pleasant things and events in college because they have to make productive use of their meager money and time.
Actually, they have the option not to bother about college if they cannot afford it, but they constitute that few remaining breed of students who still believe that the one who endures will be glorified in the end (ang mag-antus, masantus).
And you must have known some of these poor but deserving students who worked through college, graduated with honors, eventually landed into good paying jobs and have a good life.
I could tell how it is like to earn a degree by brain and brawn.
The stories of successful graduates who had sacrificed a lot due to poverty just to finish college may be likened to self-punishment, not because of wrong doings but because of their aspirations for a secure future.
Hard work and suffering always pay off with perseverance in pursuit for a noble reason. It was just so unfortunate for that poor student in the major State University in Manila who became hopeless because she can no longer afford to settle her unpaid tuition fees and who eventually committed suicide. It was a wrong sacrifice, but not totally futile because it led to a review how state-run higher education institutions should handle financially-handicapped but deserving students.
Meanwhile, a devout Catholic knows very well what official church activities one should participate or observe particularly during the Holy Week — the climax of the Lenten season.
These activities include confessing of sins to a priest, singing or reading the lengthy Passion (pasyon) of Christ, participating in the Way of the Cross (Via Crucis), visiting different churches (Visita Iglesia), among others.
The activities, however, exclude flagellation or self-infliction of physical pain as vow (panaad) for favors requested or enjoyed, like good health and employment, or as an expression of repentance for sins committed the past year.
Others have themselves nailed on the cross like Jesus Christ on Good Friday, which is actually rejected by the Catholic Church, but which has recently become an attraction to local and foreign tourists in San Pedro Cutud in San Fernando, Pampanga.
But modernity may have reduced the significance or modified the meanings of official Catholic beliefs and practices associated with the Lenten season.
This phenomenon is typified by the young generation and residents of highly-urbanized cities, but the tradition remains more evident at present among adults or the elderly, particularly in provinces like Negros Oriental.
For the former group, the non-working days during the Holy Week are considered as opportunities to enjoy and relax from busy work; in fact, tourism in some parts of the country is very much alive during this period.
And amidst the growing religious diversity of Christian Filipinos, it is not only a task of the Catholic Church to keep the Holy Week tradition alive beyond a chronology of religious rituals, but to make it likewise meaningful to keep as a means by which Christian faith is sustained and one’s relationship with God is strengthened.
The church cannot do it alone. Catholic parents, in particular, should explain the official church tradition to their children, and to practice this together as a family.
In similar manner, parents should keep instilling upon their children the value of quality education, not only for the sake of the degree or title, but as to how this can improve personal life and subsequently, contribute to societal well-being.
