An Atheist in Easter.

Since I was a kid, I was a Catholic  (Only  when  was in my senior high school years I became a Born-Again Christian) yet I never experience those Catholic Lenten activities, especially Easter.  Yesterday, thanks to Philip Reyes, I was able to experience the whole shebang.

This is a personal experience, so I what I’m going to give you here are only my opinions. 

We began with this church near Remedios and gosh! I think I just heard the worlds’s worst children’s  choir ever!  We start calling it “Bugbog Children’s Choir”  hahaha! Anyway, I think it’s a practice for the presentation that they will perform at the Easter Virgil celebration.  Most churches are close that day and some were open,  but all the lights were out. Philip said it is a tradition. 

Tradition, rituals… yes, that’s what I see in all that festivity. 

More rituals were held during the Paschal Vigil and I think that’s not just an ordinary Mass. Catholic mass usually takes only an hour, but yesterday that was almost 4 hours with 8 readings. There were also those some women yesterday that were baptized in the Catholic Church. They say that they converted to Catholic to get married. I dunno.

All in all, I noticed that the church were not fully packed. Also, it seems most Roman Catholics are only going to their church when there are occasions like Christmas and Easter or a disaster/tragedy recently happened.This is quite noticeable in the ritual called “Pagsalubong” (The Meeting) where the statues of Mary and the newly risen Christ were paraded in the street to re-enact a certain biblical event. Now, this is a tradition. People flock to see this. Obviously, the whole spectacle is not spiritually uplifting. Really! If people are so moved at that ritual, then  they should not notice those little girls chatting near the microphone.  All I saw were people flashing their cameras, cell phones and tables,  taking shots (obviously for Facebook and Instagram) but solemnity and holiness are out of the picture.

Maybe that’s it. I never felt moved by the rituals, yet some people seem to be worst compare to my lost of faith. Something just seems to be missing and I think it’s the conviction and faith of the pious.