The child of the light

This month, the Philippines swells with Sto. Niño festivals. The devotion can be traced to 1521 when Ferdinand Magellan gave Rajah Humabon and his wife a Sto. Niño image to celebrate their Christian baptism.

What happened next, however, is not quite rosy. Magellan and his men tried to take Mactan by force when its leader and Humabon’s enemy, Lapulapu, resisted conversion to Christianity. Magellan was killed in the ensuing battle, and his men were driven out. The next expedition came in 1565: Miguel López de Legazpi attempted peaceful colonization of the islands, but, rejected, burned Cebu, and killed hundreds of its people. In the ruins, say the stories, the conquistadors found the Magellan Sto. Niño, unscathed, in a pine box.

Centuries later, history takes a backseat to the celebrations. There’s Cebu’s famous Sinulog. There, too, is Aklan’s Ati-atihan, once a tribal animist festival with varying, divergent origins. Iloilo’s Dinagyang was a response to Ati-atihan in the 1960s and became its own festival in the 1970s when the Marcos administration ordered provinces to come up with festivals to boost tourism. There, too, are separate festivals in Tondo, Malolos, Maasin, and Butuan, among many others.

For years, these Sto. Niño festivals have been the subject of research. Sally Ann Allen Ness and William Peterson once referred to the Sinulog and Ati-atihan as religious processions turned Mardi Gras, although researchers, too, have focused on the spirituality beneath the drums and noise. Astrid Sala-Boza’s linguistic analysis of interviews with Sinulog informants revealed a “mosaic” of intertwined, centuries-honed beliefs about Jesus and prayer. Imelda Nabor’s work in Aklanon history described Ati-atihan as a way to release emotions, a yearly cleansing of the soul through wildness and dance. More recently, Nedy Coldovero studied Ati-atihan as a social equalizer, a festival for all the faithful to reflect on the contrast between kingship and humility.With such festivity around a child king, one would hope that the passion would reflect how we treat our children as a society.

At home: do parents guide their children and serve as examples of good values, so that their children learn to live righteous lives? Or are these tasks left to teachers, the internet, or the streets?

A little further: have we created an educational system that complements these values, and that teaches our children to be curious, to ask questions, to be discerning, and not merely obedient? Or are children simply pushed through grade levels for the sake of awarding diplomas?

A little further still: do we advocate for the protection of all human life? Or do we ignore the images of children being slaughtered because we feel ourselves too far, or because we have been told that these children will grow up to be evil one day?

Related: would we ever allow our children to grow up to be a man-child who refuses to travel on anything lower than a first-class ticket, is ferried to and from concert venues via a helicopter plus excuses, can spout words but not reflect them in deeds? What a cold play on our pains this man-child is, partying while we all struggle!

Celebrating the Child Jesus should not be confined to dancing while we are careless with the actual children in our midst, regardless of their location, identity, and faith. Our festivals should not be parties that fade when reality calls us to be citizens rather than mere spectators.

Years ago, I was a regular parishioner at Purdue’s Dominican Church. At this time of the year, our parish priest would always call children to the altar for the homily, and then ask them questions about Jesus, the church, or prayer. It was a way, the priest said, for adults to hear how the young articulated their faith.

One such cold, gray Sunday, our parish priest baptized a baby at the start of the Mass. When the blessing was over, the priest held the baby up to face the congregation and announced, “Meet your family!”

Suddenly, the stained-glass windows above the altar shone with golden light, and the snow gave way to sunshine. The baby broke into bubbling giggles that echoed across the church, prompting everyone to smile, laugh, and then applaud.

That priest, God rest his soul, was active in our church’s various programs for children, migrants, the homeless, and the marginalized. Showing us the child was his way, perhaps, of also speaking of children as laughing in the presence of light.

Joyful in the presence of the light.

It is this joy that is missing in so many adults, who deny the most obvious facts and rest in comfortable, romanticized lies; who force their minds to split into contradicting identities to accommodate their personal beliefs even when these clash with the tenets of their faith; who justify murder or plunder or corruption by bludgeoning the Bible and seeking out verses to suit their purpose.

Perhaps it is this child we need: the one that celebrates the truth, the one that dances to the drums of reality.

iponcedeleon@ateneo.edu