Our country purportedly has 80% Catholic and therefore, a great many are true devotees of Jesus Christ who is worshipped in the form of the Black Nazarene in January 9th. Millions join the procession in order to be able to strengthen their faith, to get concessions like good health, the strong ability to overcome vices and many others which after deeper analysis would border more on economic and material needs.
Over-all the reasons for the procession center on Worship. Pagsamba.
Since time immemorial, people have been worshipping -- the earlier people prayed to the living things around them and we called them pagans. Our indigenous groups have their own rituals about worshipping God/s. They dance, sing, and pray for good harvests, for healing of the sick among them, for safety from their enemies who could wreak havoc on their lands.
In other words, to worship is to communicate with God our innermost desires as we live on this earth. Now how do we communicate? We do that by quiet conversation with God, how we want him/her to respond to our wishes, or simply to thank them for the good life that we have had.
However, when millions of people are worshipping the Nazarene, and they experience pain as when someone elbows them to get nearer the icon, or they lose consciousness from the extreme heat of the sun as the Nazarene is led from street to street, or they just simply lose their bearing and cannot proceed anymore due to exhaustion, are we no longer to ask what the purpose is of the Nazarene procession?
What kind of praying does the procession demand amid the noise, the pollution, and the heat of many bodies crowding against each other?
What are the other negative effects of the procession?
Today it was mentioned in media that two people have died already and over a thousand were injured. How did these people worship God and why did those negative things happened to them?
Is it really possible for anyone to be transformed by the sight of an icon? I think we are being too drawn to vicarious experiences so much so that even the kind of worship we have is too artificial. The people are no longer content about seeing, feeling and touching the real thing. Instead, gadgets take over their lives and allow them a hollow kind of pleasure.
It is the same thing with worship. Instead of communcating quietly with God, and allowing him/her to speak and say what is to be said about their lives, people just go through the motions of praying in public and hope against hope that God would listen.
Is this authentic worshipping? What is an authentic one? A quiet place, a candle, or flowers, such as when we visit the tomb of a relative, make us ponder on immortality and how God could be persuaded to insure us a peaceful and prosperous life with our loved ones as well.
All priest leaders should experience the trials and travails of our people to find solace even in an inauthentic type of worshipping just so to have our transcendent beings listen to us and give us hope to still continue to exist in this world. By doing so, that could give them a big knock on their consciences how they are parties to the deaths of those who continue to be mesmerized by this type of deadly worshipping.
A law should be passed disallowing such massing up of people in very small streets and avenues where the possibilities of pain and death are real, no matter how certain religious leaders call it. After all, not only are the processioners being affected but everybody else -- the businesses in the different areas where the Nazarene would pass, the ordinary folks who have to make a decent living, and all the rest whose way of life should not be disrupted by the penchant of those leaders to show that they are more powerful spiritually in this country.
Even the Bible shows the prohibition of idolatry -- (Definition of idolatry: the worship of a picture or object as a god - "You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below." Ex 20:3-4 (NIV)
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