Henry's Asylum

Since I’ve been ensconced in the Philippines, I’ve noted many different (and unusual) aspects of the culture that, ultimately, defy any explanations on my part. It’s only after an extended period of time that I began to understand the real reason behind this.

In my varied locations of residence, there has always been one consistent factor that would eventually allow me to adapt to my environment. That factor was “order”. No matter where I found myself – New York, Texas, Washington State, Japan, you name it – there was always a sense of stability within the culture that I could always put my finger on. Not so, here. Much of daily life revolves around “winging it”.

In this small region of the world, one gets the sense that not even the local population fully understands what is expected in an ordered society. Things are, more often than not, left up in the air if they involve situations they pertain to modern concepts. This can be seen in the driving habits of motorists that populate the streets and highways. Even after nearly two years, I still can’t predict what a driver will do next, since following an orderly flow of traffic (with folks adhering to the designated lanes) is nearly unheard of.

But I digress. This past Sunday, I had the opportunity to visit the inside of the church shown in the picture on the homepage of my website. This is the “Immaculate Conception Cathedral” (aka “Pasig Church”). The reason for this, was to attend the baptism of a grand-niece, named Aya Nicole.

Now, understand that I’m extremely familiar with Catholicism having attended Catholic School from grades 1-8, etc. and having been selected as a godparent (along with my sister) in years gone by. This particular ceremony, however, bore little relation to the standard Catholic practices and involved literally dozens of children and their families – filling the non-air-conditioned church (it’s summer, here, now). Also, instead of the standard two godparents, a number of “sponsors” are assigned, by the child’s family, to be act as “godparents”. I was one of them. Alma was not. I was not told this before-hand, but I knew I was a “sponsor” since someone pinned a tag that said “sponsor”, on my shirt. I was also required to make a small sign of the cross on Aya’s forehead, at one point in the ceremony (she cooperated nicely by not screaming in terror).

The ceremony, itself, consisted of female “announcer” (I’ll call her the “MC”, since she had a microphone and sounded quite upbeat) who gave a long speech pertaining to the ramifications of “baptism” (in Tagalog – with the only word in English being “babies” ). On a humorous note, when I later asked Alma for a translation, she couldn’t give me one since she had, early on, stopped paying attention. (!!) Afterwards, a priest came out, gave a blessing and then, with other priests, proceeded out into the audience with the necessary “holy water”, oil, etc. to complete the ceremony. We then lit small candles that we were holding, had a final blessing, blew out the candles and then posed for photos.

There was a family gathering afterwards, but I had to work and Alma was tired – so we went home.

All in all, it was an interesting peek into the evolution of Catholicism on a tropical island. No doubt, as with most concessions in the Catholic Church, it’s an adaptation of much older beliefs that bear little resemblance to what you might see in Rome. Lots of statues of Mary (overshadowing any depictions of Jesus) and no references from the Bible.

Maybe, some day, Aya and I will have a small talk in which I’ll mention that April 18th, 2010 was not the day she became a Christian (because someone else said so). It was the day that she, herself, decided to be a Christian because she said so.