INQUIRER Global Nation

A blessed New Year to all, with prayerful wishes for joy and peace and hope to see us through the difficulties and the uncertainties ahead of us!

The Church marked Jan. 1 celebrating three occasions: the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, the “Theotokos”; World Day of Peace; and the popular New Year’s Day.

Celebrations, both religious and secular, also marked December, the last month of the year just past. December 6th was the feast of Saint Nicholas, after whom Santa Claus was named and popularized. December 8th was the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, which we always observed, especially in Cebu, with a solemn procession emanating from and ending at the Cebu Cathedral. The day after, the 9th, was the feast day of recently proclaimed St. Juan Diego, to whom Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared in Mexico. Then, Our Lady of Guadalupe was honored on Her feast day on the 12th with the traditional solemn procession in Guadalupe, the largest barangay in Cebu City, to which we in Banawa belong, although we are now a separate parish, the Parish of the Alliance of Two Hearts, which feast day we celebrated in November.

Christmas Day, marking the birth of Jesus Christ, is one of the happiest days of the year, both for Christians and for the rest of the secular world. Personally, I think it was the most brightly lighted Christmas season I remember in Cebu, illuminated with trumpet-blowing angels, the colorful star lanterns, and that landmark tall Christmas tree surmounted with a star and an image of our beloved Santo Niño at Fuente Osmeña. All of these to honor the Christ Child’s birth in the manger represented in the Nativity Scene, the “belen,” in churches, homes and the “Pasko sa Sugbu” all over the city.

Christmas Day was followed by more religious feasts: on the 26th, of St. Stephen, the first martyr stoned to death for his faith; on the 27th, of St. John, the Beloved Apostle; on the 28th, in honor of the Holy Family, especially significant in these times of broken and separated families, not to forget the Slaughter of the Innocents, which we also observed on this day in past years, and which has secularly been observed as Innocents’ Day, a day for pranks and practical jokes. Ironically, the slaughter of the innocents continues through these days in abortions, abandonment, and death due to poverty, hunger and disease. Another martyr murdered for his faith when he was archbishop of Canterbury, and honored by the Church on the 29th, is St. Thomas Becket.

On the historical side, we remember December 30th as Rizal Day, in honor of our martyred national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal. The day I wrote this at the beginning of the week, news was that the Rizal Day observance would be transferred to June 19th, Rizal’s birthday, which, ironically again, has been passed over quietly in recent years.

Another religious feast day in January after New Year’s Day is the Feast of the Epiphany, popularly observed as the Feast of the Three Kings, commemorating the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles in the person of the Magi on the Twelfth Day. Then on Jan. 18 , we observe the Feast of the Holy Child in honor of our beloved Santo Niño de Cebu and the Sinulog.

Meanwhile, as I opened this piece earlier in the week, let us pray and hope that God’s grace, manifested in these many religious holidays, may see us through what has been projected as “dark days ahead.” Starting from the financial meltdown last October in the States, these are now being felt worldwide, and already affecting us in rising costs and lower earnings, and hitting us significantly in the mass laying off of workers abroad involving OFWs, our oversees Filipino workers who have been contributing most significantly to our national coffers and the finances of their families. Now that they have come home and continue to do so, their major problem and ours, too, is the availability of jobs and salaries.

Of the last remaining Christmas activities on my agenda last year, I regretfully opted out from our Girl Scouts Handog sa Pasko on the 28th with the arrival of my Manila resident son and his family. At the end of their three-day stay at the fabulous Plantation Bay in Mactan, they drove me out there to see the resort. That was an impressive occasion for me, as was our later luncheon at the newly opened The Terraces of Ayala Mall at Cebu Business Park. Seeing the clients at the resort and the crowds at The Terraces, the young, the successful and the cosmopolitan, reminded me of the similar places I had visited during my Stateside trips and made me realize that Cebu has truly come of age as a unique “island in the Paciific”!

There’ll be more to write about with pride in future columns. In closing, condolences to the family and relatives of the late mayor of Carmen, Cebu, where we spent our three years of evacuation during World War II: Mayor Virginio Villamor. May God rest his soul!