he annual commemoration of the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ constantly serves as a reminder for people to learn to repent from their sins and learn to embrace the good deeds of Christ in their daily activities. The Holy Week is the time of the year where people stand to reflect on their behavior whether or not they are conforming with the prescribed standards and if they adhered to the teachings of the Almighty Father.
For a number of centuries, people had been using the Holy Week break to spend a well-deserved break in their desired destinations inside and outside the country. Some of them prefer to use the time to attend religious activities to allow them to reflect and repent for their sins. Some make use of the time to continue doing their daily routine as if they do not want to waste their precious time in performing their religious obligation.
Last year, the Corona Virus Disease (COVID) 2019 pandemic made a sudden turn around in the way people commemorated the Holy Week because of the implementation of the Luzonwide lockdown that took effect on March 17, 2020. The usual fully packed churches were unfilled because of the enforced restrictions that compelled people to stay at home to prevent them from contracting the deadly virus and transmitting the same to their family members and communities. The recently tightened quarantine measures due to the sudden surges in the number of COVID cases in the country, may make the commemoration of the Holy Week the same as last year where people will have to continue staying at home for the meantime that the situation remains to be fragile.
On Easter Sunday, the whole Christendom will be celebrating the resurrection of Christ from the dead to save the people from their sins. Previously, the celebration of Easter Sunday serves as an avenue for people to be able to continue bonding together with the members of their families while rejoicing over the birth of Christ. Again, such light moments in our lives with the members of our families will have to be minimized because of the ongoing efforts of the government to effectively and efficiently address the recent surges in the number of cases that is now threatening the stability of our country’s health care system and is on the verge of stressing our frontliners.
Let us not forget the verses in the bible that have stated that for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son and that whoever will believe in him will not perish but will have eternal life. We were the very reason why Christ was crucified. We were the reason why he died for us to be saved from our sins. We were the reason why he resurrected from the dead and ascended into heaven.
As we stay in our homes during the Holy Week because of the strict implementation of the existing restrictions following the downgrading of the community quarantine status in most parts of the country, let us use the precious time given to us to reflect on the way we treat ourselves, the way we deal with the members of our families and the way we interact with our brothers and sisters within and outside our communities. We had been into such routine year in and year out but it seems that there are many people who seem not to value the reflection in our lives which they had been into during the duration of their lives. It is unfortunate that we continue to refuse to learn from our difficult experiences in life because we keep repeating the same mistakes from time to time. We constantly reason out that we are just humans that is why we are prone to temptations but actually such reasoning is no longer logical, especially when we commit similar mistakes as we try to hurdle the challenges that confront us as we strive to succeed in our respective endeavors.
It seems that the commemoration of Holy Week has become part of the normal route in in our lives where we tend to be God-fearing during the holy days but after such commemoration, we go back to our normal ways of life. We tend to go back to commit mistakes after mistakes but we tend to seek the guidance of the Almighty Father when we are in difficult times. It is also most the same routine day in and day out that is why we need to rise up to the occasion and change the way we perceive life and the way we practice our faith.
During this difficult time, let us strictly adhere to the implementation of the basic health and safety protocols, stay at home when we have no essential things to do outside our homes, observe physical distancing in public places and even at home and practice personal hygiene. More importantly, let us put God at the center of our life. God helps those who help themselves
