it was the same gospel reading i have heard since time immemorial, yet somehow, for some unknown reason, everything seems new.
the lenten season has always been a part of my life. filled with wonderful memories of my childhood spent with all of my maternal first cousins, this season, to me, is a time when i get to be myself the most. we used to spend the weekend over my grandma's place and enjoy ourselves getting dirty in that special backyard that we imagined to be our future workplaces, sometimes, our future homes. i specifically remember being a bank teller under the "rambutan" tree tendering payment of large sums of leaf-money to my ertswhile millionaire cousin who just loves the touch of the bills, er, leaves. i remember collecting black pepper seeds and using them as ammos in our game of cops and robbers. not to mention my favorite hobby of collecting gumamela flowers, beating it to pulp and then using the juice to make bubbles. that, to me (at least back then), is one of the most fascinating and most amazing wonders of life. there is also the annual ritual of watching the parade of gigantic saints detailing the passion of Christ, never failing to instill in me an ounce or so of fear. fear that God might ask me to undergo the same passion and fear that those humonguous statues may, for some twist of fate, come to life and beat the hell out of my young self. for me, lent is this and so much more, so so much more.
growing up, however, heralded the discontinuance of these yearly gatherings. as each of us were introduced to the world, we each set out to travel our own ways, seeking who we are, finding our own niche. meeting in that backyard became infrequent until eventually, our separate lives led us to very different paths; and the wonderful make-belive stories of being a bank teller or a cop in that backyard were relegated to mere memories.
as i grew up, i eventually learned that lent is a time of penance, a time when our Lord suffered and that we, as members of the Church, must take part in this suffering. coming from Catholic schools until now, not seldom am i reminded of this truth, yet somehow, i never really got the message. maybe it's because i never wanted to give up on my childhood memories when i was happiest. maybe it's because the child who wanted to be a banker and a cop and a bubble-maker kept calling on to me not to let them go and dissolve into mere obscure details of my mind. thus, i've always ratiocinated that Jesus died and ressurected two thousand years ago, and that we only "remember" his death. and there is no need to be somber and quiet and reserved during this season, for after all, Jesus is alive now. therefore, i can keep my happy childhood memories without necessarily betraying them and disobeying the church. my conscience is the highest moral judge after all, right?
when i attended our class mass barely an hour ago, the priest (who is my most-loved Jesuit in school) in his homily, reminded us of the sacrifice that we ought to make this season. that we must fast and abstain not physiologically but spiritually. it was the same gospel reading and homily that i have heard growing up, yet somehow, for some unknown reason, everything seems new. for the first time, i realized that it is okay to think of lent as a happy time. that it is alright to be merry during this season. that what i am prohibited to do, i think, is to neglect the sacrifice that Christ made for each of us; and that voluntarily, with our whole hearts, we must observe lent as the time when we can cleanse ourselves and ask for forgiveness and reconciliation with God. it is a time when we are asked to momentarily set aside our present worlds in order to go back to that time of innocence, to that time when the world is just a backyard full of wonderful possibilities, full of definiteness as to who the bad guy or the good guy is, that time full of ecstatic wonders like a bubble silently and elegantly floating before it finally bursts and releases the air to the world beyond. that lent is a time to go back and remember ourselves in the eyes of a happy, but now repenting, child.
