Semana Santa Holy Week

Welcome to the Sherwin M Podcast, a podcast about the adventures of being Filipino American. I’m your host, Sherwin. Happy Easter, everyone. Everyone who celebrates Easter. This is episode nine, Holy Week.

So before we get started, I just wanted to share that I went to an event in Glendale, California, and Coco Martin was there. And I guess the show is called Coco and the Fantastic Four. And the Fantastic Four are Chocolate, his name is Chocolate, Chocolate Quebrosa. Yes, Pokwang and Pooh. So all five of them were there, and it’s like a variety show, some comedy, some like sketch comedy, singing, and just entertainment.

And it was a lot of fun. I don’t go to these as much because I sometimes don’t understand some of the things that they say, but I did. I think I did pretty good. There was a couple of things that I had to ask Abby, like, why are they screaming their heads off? You know, so but I guess there’s this little drama here and there and, you know, like relationships between certain people.

So I guess we get overly excited. And yeah, so it was a lot of fun. It was like, I think, two hours long. And just and just like what I’ve experienced. I’ve experienced in a past event, I don’t know what it is like with cell phones and and like tablets, people, you paid good money to watch and experience this don’t like for the most of the show, like record, like enjoy it.

Who cares about the people who weren’t there? They didn’t pay, especially those people with big tablets. It’s just very annoying. And it’s so bright. Like you guys should be really considered about the people around you.

It’s really disturbing. So so please, if you’re one of those people who bring tablets or if you’re one of those people who just sit and pay good money to watch these shows, but rather than watch, just pull out your smart device and record this. It’s like, how are you? How are you experiencing it? Like, get your money.

Get your money’s worth, man. Sit back, you know, take take a few pictures. But for the most part, just just sit back and relax and enjoy. And because it’s somewhat, you know, distracting to other people. So please be considerate with with the people around you.

So but yeah, it was it was fun. It was funny. Some of the jokes were pretty, I guess. Dirty, but it’s it’s funny. Like just.

Just common Filipino delivery, but yeah, I don’t think I would have my kids go because I would be stuck with questions that they’ll more than likely ask, but there were kids there. There were kids there, but that’s that’s really all I wanted to share before we get started. Episode nine, Holy Week. So Holy Week is the week that leads up to Easter. Holy Week is is big.

In the Philippines, because most of the people there celebrate it. The religion is Catholic or some version of it. And so it’s it’s it’s the week that leads up to Easter. And I guess things start on Palm Sunday, which is the Sunday prior to Easter. And most schools, if not all schools or Catholic schools or.

You know, they they close they close for the entire week. This is pretty much their version of like spring break, I guess. And so, yeah, they don’t have any school. And a lot of businesses also shut down for the entire week. So some businesses don’t shut down until I believe Wednesday.

So Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, they’re closed like radio stations. For those who still listen to the radio, they they shut down their. Daily programs. There are they’re not broadcasting any new shows. They’ll either like have reruns or they will play like religious themed shows on the radio.

This also happens on on television. Many shows don’t don’t record or televise new shows. It’s just they take the entire week off. And what they will show are also like religious themed programming. So and many of them like they’ll they’ll fly out and just have a vacation and go elsewhere or they just hang out with family.

So it’s it’s pretty interesting that most of the country behaves this way. The closest that I can think of in America that we have like that is like Thanksgiving. I mean, I know we have Christmas. Here and it’s celebrated, I guess, you know, nationwide in terms of, you know, considering it as a federal holiday. But throughout the years that I’ve been here, it seems that Thanksgiving is a bigger celebration.

Keep in mind, in America, there’s so many different religions. So that’s why the focus on religious theme holidays aren’t really that high because everyone has a different religion. So. I guess the holiday that many people can relate to is Thanksgiving, especially the day after Black Friday, which, you know, is supposedly the biggest shopping day of the entire year. But in recent years, it hasn’t really been that great.

But, you know, good, good marketing strategies that companies use still make it, you know, a big purchasing day for people. So, yeah, in America, we. There aren’t really religious holidays that we celebrate similar to like Holy Week just because we have different religions here. So but I wanted to take some time in this episode to just share with you what happens during Holy Week in the Philippines and what many Filipinos do during Holy Week, even when we’re not in Philippines. So Visita Iglesia is Tagalog and Spanish.

So Visita means visit. Iglesia means church. And what that means is people visit churches. It’s about seven churches from Monday, Thursday, Monday, M-A-U-N-D-Y, Thursday or Good Friday and recite the Stations of the Cross. There’s 14 of those Stations of the Cross.

So they visit seven churches. And recite those in the 1970s, people recited all 14 stations in one church. But more recently, it’s custom to pray two stations at each church. I just imagine how difficult it is to travel in the Philippines, especially just the common person that not everyone could afford to move about, especially there aren’t many churches like in America, each city may have three or four. Churches in one like area in the Philippines, it’s, it’s rare to have more than one church, so you would have to go out of your way and travel, especially when you get into the provinces, there are chapels and stuff, but in terms of I guess what you would count as a church, there aren’t that many that are close to each other.

So this is part of the part of their sacrifice, where. It, they would spend an entire day just traveling to each church and do the Station of the Cross. Now, I remember when I was a young kid, I would go with my, my mom and my grandma, my mom’s mom. And so they, I don’t think we really practice Visita Iglesia in America, but we, I would go with them to church and I noticed that. My mom and grandma would just get on their knees and kneel and they would go around the entire church and they would do the Stations of the Cross and they would do it in front of each station of the cross and there are 14, but they would be on their knees and they would just kneel and they would travel throughout the church doing it and I would just sit down and my brother and I would just sit and stay put till they were done, but I’ve always thought like, wow, man.

Those floors are pretty hard and my grandma was, was old at that time already and so my mom was, you know, fairly old as well, but, you know, I guess growing up, like, as I get older, I’m like, okay, so I guess that’s their sacrifice, right? Because, you know, that’s the whole story with Holy Week and Jesus dying on the cross for our sins and stuff, so that is, I guess, their version. That’s the whole story with Holy Week and Jesus dying on the cross for our sins and stuff, so that is, I guess, their version. of sacrifice. They would just get on their knees and kneel and pray.

I’ve tried it a few times and tried to be next to my mom as she does it. I mean, I was a younger kid. I couldn’t do it. Like, my knees would just be so bruised up and hurt and I just stopped, like, maybe three stations in. Like, I just couldn’t do it.

But so they would do it. They would do it for the entire 14 stations. So, yeah. That’s their penance. That’s their sacrifice, right?

So, another memory of mine growing up, I remember on Good Friday, like, right after lunch, like, we are just still. We can’t move. We were getting so much trouble, my brother and I, because apparently, like, around 3 o’clock is when, like, Jesus died, right? And so we were supposed to just be quiet, sit still for, like, hours. We weren’t allowed to do anything.

When we were younger kids, that’s what we did. Our parents just made us sit for a couple of hours, like, two, three hours during that time just to be in silence. And as we get older, though, I mean, you know, it is more difficult for us to be like that and, you know, or sometimes we just won’t be home. But I just remember. Like, when we go out, my mom would be like, well, if you’re going to go out, don’t play loud music in the car.

Jesus is dying today or something, you know? And so there are names for the different days. And so Thursday is Monday, Thursday, as I mentioned before. And then there is Good Friday. And then there is, I guess, Holy Saturday, I think.

Okay, Holy Saturday. And then you have Easter Sunday. And so in Tagalog, Monday, not Monday, but Monday, Thursday, in Tagalog is Jueves Santo. And then Good Friday is Viernes Santo. So Jueves is Thursday.

Friday is Viernes. So for those who are familiar with Spanish, it’s pretty similar, if not the same. And Santo means saint. And Holy Saturday in Tagalog is Sabado de Gloria. So now let’s talk about Saturday.

There’s a lot of things going on traditionally on Saturday, Sabado de Gloria. So Sabado de Gloria is when families get together and they get together around a body of water. People go swimming. People just wet each other. And I asked my parents and my wife, I’m like, what is the significance of wetting people or being wet?

And they didn’t have an answer for me. They didn’t know. It was just a thing. So I tried searching for it, I guess. People just gather just to be with one another.

And it’s kind of like a reunion thing, a mini reunion. And they have a meeting. They have picnics. Now, on Friday, we attended mass, there was a church mass, and one of the priests had a homily. And he was saying that the significance of water, like, at least how I understood it was on Saturday, it’s like a new beginning, because Jesus will be resurrecting.

So it’s like a new beginning, a new. A new life, right? And it’s like baptism all over again or something, something like that. Hopefully I understood that correctly. So I guess that’s what the significance of the involvement of water.

And so people have gatherings, usually near a body of water, whether it be a pool, a beach, you know, stuff like that. And they’ll have picnics and they just bond. Families bond and hang out. Now, on top of this. OK, so the next thing I wanted to share with you, just if you have little kids listening to this podcast, maybe it’s a good time to either skip or get ready to explain if you have them.

Listen, but it’s all about circumcision or in Tagalog, it’s Pagtutuli. So Sabado de Gloria is one of those days where many boys. Get circumcised. And so the process begins early in the morning. And so the boys would take a bath.

So mind you, in the Philippines, most of the time, if not all, boys that are born don’t get circumcised right away. I don’t know if it’s still true today, but, you know, during my time and, you know. So until at least 10 years ago, I know it’s still it’s still like that where boys don’t get circumcised till till later when they’re older. I don’t know what it is, but yeah, so it’s called Pagtutuli. It’s circumcision.

And this is like the traditional way of like the process. Right. So, yeah. So the boys would wake up early and they would take a bath. Just to clean themselves up.

And it’s it’s usually done in a forested area. So girls would not see it done. Now, there are beliefs that if a girl sees it done, the boy’s Easter egg would grow big. So that’s that’s like the belief. So that’s why they go in the forest somewhere and they just do it.

And usually the person that does it is like an elder person, like he’s an elderly person. Maybe he’s like Albulario or just someone who is trusted and respected in like the village or the, you know, town or whatever. And so. So, yeah, they do it in a forested area somewhere secluded. And it’s usually from from other stories that I’ve heard.

It’s usually done by a body of water as well. So the next thing they do is they boil Bayat. Bayabas. Bayabas is like it’s guava leaves. I think I hope.

And so that is used to to clean the area. OK, so the next thing they’ll do is they they have a hole is made in this white cloth like it’s a square cloth. It’s white and they they poke a hole. And that’s where your, you know, the boy’s thing is inserted. OK.

So basically, I don’t know if I want to go into more details, but but yeah, so they do. They do this manually. Right. And so they pretty much just just chop the skin. They sit down.

There’s like a razor and they during this process, like the boy would be chewing on the guava leaves. The. Bayabas he would be chewing on it. Right. And so, yeah, the the the elder person would would just, you know.

Give it a haircut, give it a haircut, I guess, with just I don’t know how to explain it without being dirty or anything. I’m not trying I’m not trying to be dirty, but but anyway, they do it. And when they do that process. The boy is supposed to spit out what he’s chewing on the Bayabas, and he would put it around the wound and then they jump into a nearby lake, river or ocean. I don’t know what the significance of that is.

And to be honest, I didn’t go through the process. I didn’t go to the process. So let’s just that’s why I’m not too familiar. I’ve seen it in movies. My dad talked about it because he went through that process.

But anyway. So, yeah, you’re you’re supposed to jump to a body of water. That’s why it’s done near near a body of water when everything’s done. I don’t know. It’s kind of it sounds like it’s unsanitary, but but that’s what they did.

That’s what they did. Like, this is one of the, you know, right rights of passage, I guess, to becoming a man or something. But but yeah. Yeah. So so, yeah.

The Sabado de Gloria, this is another thing that they do. Many, many kids do. Many boys go through. So shout out to those who went through this process this year. Hope you made it out OK.

But yeah. So the other thing that my mom mentioned was like, I guess, from her town, what people did was they got on tables. And made the kids like jump up and down so they can grow taller. And this was done during Sabado de Gloria. So I don’t know if I did it.

Even if I did, I guess I was immune to this effect. You know, spoiler alert. I’m not that tall, so I don’t think it worked on me. Maybe I didn’t jump high enough or I didn’t jump enough. So but yeah, she was sharing with me that I guess in some places.

You should be jumping up and down on top of a table so that it encourages height, height growth or something. I don’t know. So, yeah, but that’s that’s that’s Sabado de Gloria. And now we have Easter Sunday. I don’t really have much information about Easter Sunday, except early morning.

There’s a procession like a parade. And they call it Salubong. And Salubong is like the welcoming of Jesus. And so throughout the towns, they would they would have these long processions. And it’s just to celebrate.

So in the Philippines, we don’t have Easter bunnies. We don’t have any egg hunts. I remember growing up, I went to a few like Catholic schools and they never really did that. Because like Easter bunny isn’t part of Easter. Like this is just something that, you know, was commercialized, I believe.

I don’t know. So never really did that growing up. I mean, later on, I guess it became welcome in some places like the Easter egg hunt and stuff. But yeah, we never really did that. And I don’t believe the Philippines has that because chocolate is expensive in the Philippines.

If you don’t know, now you know. It’s very expensive in the Philippines. And so and buying like those plastic eggs and putting the chocolates inside. Yeah. Or coloring, coloring like hard boiled eggs.

Like we don’t at least when I was there, we didn’t do that. Like we ate the hard boiled eggs, but we never colored it. Paint probably cost much, too. So never really did any of that. Maybe they’re doing that now.

But when I was there and growing up, never, never did. So so it’s primarily just all religious related stuff like, you know, what Catholics celebrate and do. So that’s really about it. I hope everyone had a good Holy Week. Those who celebrated it.

Hopefully everyone had a good Easter. Happy Easter once again. Let’s all celebrate if you celebrate it. And that’s it. Episode nine.

Holy Week. Hope you enjoyed the show. Please check out my page on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash Sherwin M podcast. Check out the show notes at podcast dot Sherwin M dot com slash nine. And if you’re on social media like I am, sometimes find me at W1 and seven eight.

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Otherwise, enjoy the rest of your week and I will see you on the next episode. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye.