Happy Easter

(Part of an ongoing account started on March 13, 2020 of how the spread of COVID-19 in our country and our government’s response has affected our lives.)

I have very basic food in the house. I realize that as soon as I start looking for something nice to prepare for Easter Sunday.

The Lord is risen. It’s a time for rejoicing. Easter Sunday is the most important holiday in the Christian calendar because Jesus’ resurrection is a fulfillment of God’s promises to mankind.

I do not even have dessert.

I look through my ref and decide that it’s still going to be a one-viand meal, like it’s been under the lockdown. I make bistek tagalog for lunch and that’s it, with rice. That’s more than a lot of people have under the lockdown, but I decide that we can do with a little more today.

I look through my online sources and decide we will have pizza as a mid-afternoon snack. Our favorite pizza place is closed so I try one that’s open, nearby and delivers.

It comes after more than an hour and I have to go out to the village gate to get it, as stipulated by the housing association as part of precautionary measures against COVID-19.

Of course, everyone is excited. NOW, it is Easter Sunday. Everyone is in a celebratory mood, which slowly subsides when we open the box. It IS pizza, but a gummy-looking one. Worse, it’s a gummy-tasting one. Our dog takes one sniff and ambles off. The pup, always an adventurous one, jumps up for a morsel and promptly spits it out.

We eat it, of course. No one wastes food at this time.  The amount we paid for that pizza was about the cost of a meal.

Credit: Vatican Media/CNA

We decide that the Easter Sunday celebration need not hinge on a meal, so we prepare to go online and “attend” Mass at the Manila Cathedral as previously planned. But at the last minute, hubby decides we are going to St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican and listen to the pope instead.

I have no quarrel with that. I just thought that a Mass in English or Filipino would be easier to follow, especially since we’d already attended a Sunday Mass online at St. Peter’s before this and found ourselves struggling with Latin.

Again, we rely on our familiarity with the Mass to participate and respond, although in English. We are grateful every time an English translation is provided. This way, we are able to fully understand the Pope's call for solidarity in the face of the “epochal challenge” posed by the coronavirus pandemic.

We stay on for his Urbi et Orbi message and hear him echo the hope in our hearts when he ends it with a prayer:

"May Christ, who has already defeated death and opened for us the way to eternal salvation, dispel the darkness of our suffering humanity and lead us into the light of his glorious day, a day that knows no end."

Happy Easter, everyone.

DoH update: As of 4 p.m. of April 12, 2020, the Philippines has reported 4,648 confirmed corona virus cases, including 197 recoveries and 297 deaths.

Semantics

(Part of an ongoing account started on March 13, 2020 of how the spread of COVID-19 in our country and our government’s response has affected our lives.)

When someone mentions “Black Saturday,” the memory that comes to mind isn’t exactly religious in nature.

It’s about a dark-skinned childhood friend, who I greeted a “Happy Birthday” after a mutual friend told me it was her natal day. I had no idea I was being duped and the supposed birthday celebrator wasn’t amused either.

That was years ago, but memories have a way of coming up when you’ve been cooped up in the house for almost a month now. I remember Black Saturdays past when my sisters and I and our families would gather in our home province, and we would eat out in a nice restaurant. 

That seems so long ago now.

In a little while, I will go online for the Easter Vigil mass. I am ticking off all the Lenten traditions this year, some of which we did not even observe in the past – like the Easter Vigil mass.

It gives me a sense of comfort. I do not like to watch TV or Netflix for any extended amount of time. I find myself picking up the same book and starting on the same paragraph. I keep tuned to the news and the numbers just keep going up.

It doesn’t matter that it’s Black Saturday. There is no Lenten break for COVID-19. Today, the Department of Health (DoH) counts 233 new cases, bringing the country total to 4,428.

The DoH also re-classified COVID-19 cases into “suspect”, “probable” and “confirmed” today. There’s speculation that the re-classification is made because the health department is going to start mass testing, and the persons under monitoring (under the old classification) will not be included.

Oh wait. It’s not mass testing. It’s supposed to be called extended testing because it’s really just a continuation of the testing that the DoH is making, but more will be done now that there are more accredited subnational laboratories nationwide.

Semantics.  It reminds me of the effort made early on to distinguish between a lockdown and an enhanced community quarantine, when it’s really one and the same thing.

I should know. I’m under both.

DoH update: As of 4 p.m. of April 11, 2020, the Philippines has reported 4,428 confirmed corona virus cases, including 157 recoveries and 247 deaths.

Good Friday

(Part of an ongoing account started on March 13, 2020 of how the spread of COVID-19 in our country and our government’s response has affected our lives.)

It is Good Friday and everything is the same, and isn’t.

The few times we’d stayed in Manila during Holy Week, we’d always been amazed at how little traffic there is on Good Friday. Now, there isn’t ANY. And not just some stores are closed. EVERYTHING is closed.

For as long as I can remember, we would always pause to pray at 3 p.m., the hour that the Lord is said to have given up His spirit to the Father. Mommy would have the family pray the Holy Rosary.

When we all got married and had our own families, we’d take the Lenten break to bond as a family, usually at the beach. Whatever it was we were doing, we would pause for a prayer.

Now, I have the whole family attend Mass online. 

We actually welcome it. Okay, maybe not daughter, who is probably wondering why a prayer won’t suffice. But she doesn’t ask why. She is pretty much aware that things have changed and that now, more than ever, we need to pray.

 (CNS photo/Vatican Media) 

The Vatican has asked priests around the world to recite a new prayer during this year’s Good Friday liturgy, and we find it said during the Celebration of the Passion of the Lord held by the Manila Cathedral online.

The Good Friday prayer prays for “all those who suffer the consequences of the current pandemic, that God the Father may grant health to the sick, strength to those who care for them, comfort to families and salvation to all the victims who have died.”

After a moment of silent prayer, the priest asks God to “look with compassion upon the sorrowful condition of your children who suffer because of this pandemic; relieve the pain of the sick, give strength to those who care for them, welcome into your peace those who have died and, throughout this time of tribulation, grant that we may all find comfort in your merciful love. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Amen.

DoH update: As of 4 p.m. of April 10, 2020, the Philippines has reported 4,195 confirmed corona virus cases, including 140 recoveries and 221 deaths.

Holy Thursday

(Part of an ongoing account started on March 13, 2020 of how the spread of COVID-19 in our country and our government’s response has affected our lives.)

It took some convincing but late yesterday afternoon, hubby said yes.

We are not doing the Way of the Cross virtually. We are going to do it much like we have done years past but we will forego the seven churches. Instead, we will pray before 14 stations I have set up inside and outside the house.

“Really? Daddy said yes?” daughter asks, watching me closely. She always tells me I am a bad liar.

She sighs when I confirm it. She is a teenager. She much prefers sitting down and praying in front of a monitor.

It takes some effort, I must admit. But we’ve practically been glued to news outlets every day or Netflix or whatever keeps us busy. I wanted us out of that mode. The days might flow one into the other during this lockdown, but I wanted to jolt us out of it and into prayer because after all, IT IS LENT.

For as long as I can remember, we’ve always done the Visita Iglesia. When I was growing up in Cebu, we prayed two stations per church so we visited seven churches. To a child, it was, in parts, fun, but I remember that it was more an obligation, even drudgery. I couldn’t count quickly enough to seven.

I don’t remember exactly when I changed. I do know that through the years, God became less this Being I was obliged to visit every Sunday in Church, and more my personal savior. I found myself talking to Him more and more, and being thankful.

I am also blessed to have married a man who shares my faith and observes the Lenten tradition.  So now, we are doing the Way of the Cross as closely to the real experience as possible.

What's nice is that we don't have to deal with traffic inside and outside the Church or parking problems. We’re just going to hop from station to station printed on paper, which I've stuck on the walls in various parts of the house until we come full circle to our small altar.

And we will pray. Most importantly, we will pray.

Grant healing and speedy recovery for those who are sick, protection and strength for our frontliners, enlightenment for those who are searching for the cure, and the safety and peace of your people. We ask these prayers with trust and humility. Amen.¹

DoH update: As of 4 p.m. of April 9, 2020, the Philippines has reported 4,076 confirmed corona virus cases, including 124 recoveries and 203 deaths.

 ¹Closing prayer, A Way of the Cross in the Time of a Pandemic

Heroes

(Part of an ongoing account started on March 13, 2020 of how the spread of COVID-19 in our country and our government’s response has affected our lives.)

Tomorrow is Araw ng Kagitingan (Day of Valor).

It’s a public holiday in the country, held to remember the Fall of Bataan on April 9, 1942, and the bravery of Filipino and American soldiers during the campaign against invading Japanese forces during World War II.

Associated Press file photo

I wonder if the young ones even know its significance. I have to admit that I always associate it with the Death March, aptly named because thousands of Filipino and American prisoners of war died when they were forced by their Japanese captors to walk from Bataan to San Fernando, Pampanga, where they were brought to Tarlac by train.

They walked for about a hundred kilometers, a difficult thing to do if you’re fit, basically suicidal when you’re hungry, thirsty, tortured and exhausted. Many died, many escaped and many more survived.

I can’t help but draw parallels to how things are today. The whole of Luzon is under lockdown; practically the rest of the country is under some version of quarantine in an effort to slow down transmission of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

We are all prisoners of this disease that has come to our shores, and many of those who have been infected are forced to march in time to its beat. 

Like those POWs, some die, some “escape” when they recover and the rest march on as persons under investigation or monitoring because they had contact with the infected even if they don’t show symptoms of infection.

As for the rest of us, we can avoid the "march" if we just stay home. 

I am afraid, though, that more are stumbling into the march because they are bored, they can't suffer the heat, there is this ingredient or food that they 'absolutely must have' and a host of other reasons that reveal this inability to believe that they are NOT invincible and immune to the virus.

PNA photo

Then there are the brave: those who get infected because they attend to and care for those who are sick with COVID-19, those who man the checkpoints and keep the peace, those who deliver basic goods and services, those who pack, distribute cash aid and relief packs, those who serve us at food stores and supermarkets, those who work so we can have food, water and communications, etc.

They go out into the streets because they HAVE to. Sadly, many of them have joined the march and died along the way.

These are now our new heroes – most of them unnamed, unmoneyed and unnoticed before now.  Their acts of bravery might not be what Araw ng Kagitingan is originally about, but April 9 is a day of valor ; thus, it is the right time to remember, celebrate and pray for these heroes in our midst.

I am sure that those soldiers who tried so hard to stay in the fight but couldn’t, won’t mind sharing the day with those who are now fighting an unseen, pervasive, unknown and powerful enemy in a battle whose end, as yet, we cannot see.

DoH update: As of 4 p.m. of April 8, 2020, the Philippines has reported 3,870 confirmed corona virus cases, including 96 recoveries and 182 deaths.