MANILA (Agencies): On January 9, the Philippines registered 28,707 new Covid-19 infections—its highest daily tally yet, taking the total number of cases to 2,965,447, according to the health department.
The new record came on the day Filipinos would have marked the feast of the Black Nazarene, the festivities for which were cancelled for the second year in a row to curtail further transmission of the virus, UCAN reported.
Jose Cardinal Advincula, the archbishop of Manila, said that although devotees could not be with the Black Nazarene physically, faith teaches that Christ enters every home.
“He is the one who journeys with us now, especially as we continue to fight the coronavirus. He is the one who is holding the rope and unties the knots in our lives. He has paved the way for us to repent and to change our lives,” Cardinal Advincula said.
The cardinal said that devotees may not have joined the image in its procession but it is Christ who knocks on each person’s heart waiting to enter.
“The Black Nazarene is the one who joins and accompanies us. It is not we who are accompanying him,” he said.
The country’s president, Rodrigo Duterte, urged Catholics nationwide to offer prayers to the Black Nazarene for everyone infected by Covid-19 after the country recorded.
“This venerated religious tradition, which commemorates the transfer of the image of Jesus Christ from its original place in Intramuros to its current shrine in Quiapo, is also a precious time for every devotee to understand the value of suffering and its saving grace,” Duterte said in a message on January 9.
The Black Nazarene is the one who joins and accompanies us. It is not we who are accompanying him
Cardinal Advincula
UCAN reported that he urged people to understand the value of suffering amid the pandemic, saying that faith was a gift every Filipino Catholic possessed.
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“May we remain united in spirit and in truth as we continue to build a future that is truly blessed with peace, prosperity, love and goodwill to all,” Duterte said.
The Black Nazarene is a centuries-old dark figure of a kneeling Jesus Christ carrying the cross, which is thought to have arrived in the Philippines in 1606.
Every year a day-long procession usually attended by millions of devotees carries the image to Quiapo Church in Manila.
Meanwhile, a virtual Fiesta Señor celebration kicked off in Cebu City on January 7 at the Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño amid rising cases of Covid-19 infections CBCPNews reported.
Instead of the traditional dawn procession the Augustinian fathers held a mobile procession along the city’s major streets, where devotees lined up to catch a glimpse of the Child Jesus.
Augustinian Father Nelson Zerda, rector of the basilica, who celebrated the opening Mass, encouraged devotees to continue to hope and pray for the end of the pandemic despite another year of “varying degrees of isolation” in the wake of Typhoon Rai [Odette].
He shared that in the gospel of that day, Jesus touched and healed the leper, reassuring the people of God of his continued grace and help. “Thankfully, we are not alone,” Father Zerda stressed.
“We continue to pray for courage and strength that like the leper in today’s gospel we too would be able to humbly express our prayers, our petitions, our sanctity to the Child Jesus. Pleading: Lord, if you wish you can make us clean,” he said.
Here, he added, Jesus “once more” delivered his “afflicted people” from their predicament relating it to this year’s 457th fiesta theme: Santo Niño: Our Source of Communion, Life for Mission.
“It’s not more on us being attracted and magnetised by the Bato-balani [Child Jesus as a magnet], attracted by God, but it’s more on God who is magnetised by our cries…our prayers, by our petitions,” Father Zerda said.
Aside from cancelling the conduct of physical novena Masses, the once crowded pilgrim centre was also converted into a huge space where devotees lit candles and venerated a replica of the miraculous im age of the original Sto. Niño.
