Holy Week musing

HOLYWeek 2018 officially started yesterday, Palm Sunday. Like we usually do, we bought coco leaf crosses that my son and I waved while we lined up during the start of the mass as the priest sprinkled us with holy water.

The reading was unusually long and dramatized, a fitting introduction to a solemn week--at least for Catholics, or should I say devout Catholics.

Holy Week is actually the last week of Lent, which opened on Ash Wednesday last month. Interestingly, Ash Wednesday this year fell on Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day, offering a dilemma for Catholics because of the obligation of abstaining from meat and fasting.

I don’t know if there was a study then on whether Ash Wednesday slayed Valentine’s Day or vice versa. Meanwhile, there’s the other Lent twist: Easter Sunday will be on April 1, April Fool’s Day. The last time Ash Wednesday fell on Valentine’s Day and Easter Sunday on April Fool’s Day was in 1945. That’s 73 years ago.

Will someone dare to come up with an April Fool’s Day joke on Easter? Or will April Fool’s Day be ignored because of Easter? Holy Week is supposed to be a solemn week for Catholics. But in these times when curses and irreverence are the norm and the Catholic belief is ridiculed even by Catholics, I expect that solemnity to be broken often.

Like, will the diehard Duterte supporters momentarily stop spreading fake news and lies against the political opposition? Will the “riding-in-tandem” killers momentarily halt their operation?