I recently returned to Dumaguete from a six week trip to the USA, my home country. Shortly after my return, I took a photo of what I saw at the checkout counter at a local supermarket. It was 6 pm, the time of the Angelus.
I had been away long enough that this scene seemed very strange, almost freakish. A signal sounded, and everything in the store stopped dead. Some of the staff, including these two bag boys, actually fell to their knees.
In America, no one falls to their knees in a supermarket; if anyone did, the manager would call for an ambulance.
People pray in church, at home, but not in public places like supermarkets.
That’s not to say that Americans are not religious; but religious feeling is considered a private matter, not something for public display. To stop for prayer on a street or a store would be considered embarrassing, even rude.
But here in the Philippines, at 6pm, in the bright white public supermarket glare, a bell rings, and the store stops dead — while shoppers also bow their heads, and listen while a scratchy-recorded voice leads them in prayer.
Of course, many foreigners, and a few Pinoys who consider themselves to be “scientific”, continue to move around, and shop during the few minutes of the prayer, either in rebellion or indifference to what’s happening.
Those in prayer do not object to this, or even notice it, and when the Angelus ends, they just resume what they were doing without a beat, as if nothing had happened.
As for myself, I have no idea what this is all about. I have been around these boys at checkout time, and there’s nothing particularly devout about them. They joke with each other, and with me, flash their eyes at passing girls…
And then, as though dropped by an invisible hand, they fall down to their knees with bowed heads. Two minutes later they pop back up, resume their smiles, and continue as they were before.
I see them on their knees and wonder: are they really in serious prayer, or are they just following a common practice without feeling anything?
It’s not my place to ask them, and even if I did, I don’t think that they could tell me.
Even after having lived in Dumaguete for many years, some local perceptions and feelings remain impenetrable to me.
There are some cultural bridges one cannot simply cross.
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