'Let the children come to me'. Feast of the Santo Niño, Philippines

The Sleeping Santo Niño

Here in the Philippines the Feast of the Santo Niño or Holy Child is observed on the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Readings: Isaiah 9:1-6 / Ps 97:1, 2-3, 3-4, 5-6 / Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-18 / Mark 10:13-16.

Gospel Mark 10:13-16 (New American Bible, used in the lectionary in the Philippines).

And people were bringing children to him that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this he became indignant and said to them, "Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it." Then he embraced them and blessed them, placing his hands on them.

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You can read something about the background of devotion to the Santo Niño in the current issue of Misyon here.

CathNews Philippines carried a story on 10 January, Sinulog contest for kids 'destructive'. Cebu City Vice Mayor Joy Augustus Young, who chairs the committee on education at the Cebu City Council, bewailed the time and money spent preparing the children for the activity, when they could have focused on their schoolwork.

Mayor Michael Rama and Sinulog Foundation Executive Director Ricky Ballesteros defended the activity, which took place last Sunday. Ballesteros said it has become a tradition children are honored to perform in.

The Sinulog, as your editor understands, was originally a dance done as an act of homage before an image of the Santo Niño. The first time I saw this, long before I ever heard the word 'Sinulog' was in a mountain barrio of Karomatan, now named Sultan Naga Dimaporo, Lanao del Norte, in the mid 1970s. After the fiesta Mass and baptisms, the grandmother of one of the newly baptized took the child in her arms and did this dance in front of a statue of the Holy child. I didn't have to be told that she was offering the child to God.

In the early 1980s some business people in Cebu City, the heart of the celebration of the Feast of the Santo Niño, a celebrating of thanksgiving to God for the gift of faith, organized an extravaganza to attract tourists, overshadowing the religious celebration. Unfortunately, the Catholic Church did nothing to stop this hijacking of an ancient religious festival. A whole generation has grown up in Cebu thinking that the commerical Sinulog is the focus of everything, instead of the Christ Child.

And according to those who oppose the contest for schools, the youngsters of Cebu are also being sacrificed, their education taking second place to an extravaganza that supposedly attracts tourists. The CathNews Philippines report tells us: In 2011, Cebu City ranked second from the bottom in the Central Visayas achievement test for elementary and high school.

It is possible for whole nations, huge sections of the globe, to lose the Catholic faith, as happened in north Africa after the rise of Islam, as has happened in many parts of Europe and Quebec, regions that were sedning missionaries to the ends of the earth up to the 1960s.

Jesus says in the gospel, 'Let the children come to me'. By commercializing the festival of faith that the Sinulog originally was, are we in the Philippines preventing the children from going to Jesus, as we use his name and his chiildhood as an excuse for activities, some of which may be good in themselves, but that have no real connection with our Catholic faith? Are we heading the way of the people of north Africa after St Augustine, of the people of Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland in recent decades, countries that sent so many missionaries to the Philippines in the last century? Will the children brought up on a commercial Sinulog bring their Christian faith with them when they emigrate or go overseas to work? Or will they lose a faith that they had never really grown in because the older generation had fed them with superficialities instead of with the sacraments and the Word of God and a genuine sense of their religious heritage?