Procession

Late this afternoon, I witnessed a religious procession passing in front of our house. Devotees of the Black Nazarene, garbed in the familiar maroon shirts with yellow orange piping, sans footwear strode the hot cement road towards the direction of Manila. I wondered why there was a procession since the Feast of the Black Nazarene is in January and I am not aware of any othr Black Nazarene-related religious commemoration.

Towards the end of the procession was the image of the Black Nazarene, seemingly a replica of the one inside the Quiapo Church. It was propped on top of two parallel wood planks beneath of which several young people's shoulders rendered support in transporting the image. One think that was markedly striking about what I witnessed this afternoon is the youthfulness of the devotees. The second remarkable thing is their seeming tenacity and purpose in expressing their devotion. 

Last night I watched a documentary of Kara David featuring the youth of Paracale in Mindanao - about children who are small-scale gold miners, whose happiest moment of their lives is to finish grade school, and whose dreams are to finish high school, perceived as the only escape from the predicament of working in the mines and earning a measly 200 pesos per day after spending utterly life-endangering tasks for a few ounces of gold.  

Would prosperity and progress make religion irrelevant? Are religious groups conscious that their bane lies in providing a decent quality of life for the people? I have gone past being naive not to believe that possibility of awareness. 

When I was in Sydney, I discovered soon enough where to find a lot of Filipinos any given day - St. Mary's Cathedral beside Hyde Park. If it happens that there was an event which would prevent the Filos from going to church, the ones who will be left will be the Latinos, a handful of Italians, and if it so happens that neither of them could be present, there would not be more than 20 Australians who would be left inside. I read somewhere that even in Europe, the beautiful, historical churches get to hear fervent prayers and professions of faith only if migrants such as Filipinos begin to attend that church. Perhaps, and I am guessing here, that all religious orders around the world would have at least one Filipino in their midst.

I wonder how related is the Filipinos' faithfulness and the country's poverty? Would this remain the same if the middle class expands exponentially due to alleviation of poverty? I wonder.

I wonder where the procession was headed?