Tributes to Sto. Niño
reverberate

In Western Visayas, the yearly tribute to the Holy Child Jesus was exemplified by the drumbeats in Iloilo City tribal dancers pirouetted around choreographic steps in the city streets and contest areas.

In Ibajay, Aklan, however, it was the celebration of the Ati-atihan that regaled visitors and balikbayans with their tradition of pilgrimage to the vintage church where the Old Sto. Niño Image was installed amid the cheering crowd shouting Hala Bira, Sto. Niño!

And, as pointed out by Fr. Gerry Alemanza, rector of the Sacred Heart Seminary yesterday, the Pope granted the Philippine Church a special Sto. Niño mass in recognition of the Filipino relationship with the Holy Infant.

The seminary liturgy was climaxed by the swearing in of the newly-elected officers of the Sacred Heart Seminary Lay Alumni Association Inc.

There was the promise that the present crop of lay alumni would reach out to other alumni to form a bigger group.

Joe Gomera, the original founder of the latest association, was also present. He had all these years watched anxiously that the other elected officers of the association manage to rise beyond their perspective concerns and devote some of their time to share their experiences and insights with their former colleagues. And also, try to help out the seminary.

The impediment of the past seem to have been overcome. One of the biases remains – the need to be independent of the graduated clerics.

Strange that those who agreed that they have learned so much about the faith during their student days are the very ones who tend to throw away the enduring lessons of the past. But that's a human reality.

Gradually, however, they seem to have taken on a childlike attitude toward the Church. Distinguishing between the foibles and errors of its human components, the clerics.

And that seems to be the problem with the way we communicate to the Holy Child. Most of us have become childish instead of childlike. We mistake heroism as part of the celebration. We forget that being childlike does not mean you should throw away your values and join the maddening crowd enjoying only the pleasures of life and forgetting the mission we have been tasked by the Savior. We should rejoice that Christ showed us the mercy of God that does not mean that it was a license to do whatever we want.

I remember how ridiculous the Sto. Niño cult has become. A Filipino columnist once told me what his mother quipped about Christ and the Sto. Niño. In short, there was a distinction between the Child Jesus and the Christ.*

back to top