Living with the times

Time was when the month of February was associated with two feasts of Candles — Candlemas and San Blas. Candlemas is the day that all the candles that will be used in church for the coming year is consecrated. Part of the ceremony is the distribution of candles to the clergy and the parishioners. The parishioners take the blessed candles home and light them during thunderstorms, typhoons, floods, earthquakes, fires, childbirth or when a member of the household is sick. Candlemas is commemorated on Feb. 2.

The next day is another church ceremony involving candles — the Feast of San Blas patron of all throat ailments. Throat sufferers go to their parish churches and the priest bless their throats with two crossed candles. The practice was based on two traditional stories concerning San Blas. One is that he once saved a boy’s life by removing a fishbone that had pierced his throat. The other is the story of a girl who provided San Blas with two candles when he was persecuted and imprisoned for his Christian belief. San Blas was said to have rescued the girl’s pig from a wolf. This explains why a pig and a lighted taper are the symbols of San Blas.

Candlemas and the Feast of San Blas are still observed, but they no longer enjoy a mass participation of the devotees nor are they the feasts popularly associated with February. Today, the feast identified with February in Saint Valentine’s Day. The Americans introduced many official American holidays in the Philippines — Washington’s birthday, Decoration, Independence, Occupation and Thanksgiving Day. These were official holidays. Valentine never had any official sanction. None survived except Valentine’s Days. The irony is that in 1969, Pope Paul VI revised the Proper of the Saints. Among the saints sacrificed to effect the reform were Saints Nicholas of Myra, Christopher, Barbara and Valentine.

Some called the Pope’s edict The Second Massacre of the Innocents. The official patron saint of sweethearts is San Antonio de Padua, who was even ready all throughout the year to help girls get true lovers or refashion their fickleness into faithfulness. Boys never prayed to St. Anthony for a girlfriend. They felt that was their job. Just put me where there are girls, I’ll do the rest. That was their general attitude.

Valentine gained popularity in the Philippines because it found an hermano mayor, the businessmen who profit selling cards, gifts and restaurants, night club and movie house customers. And so we inherited two holiday figures from the United States — Santa Claus and St. Valentine.