One perfect gift

I originally intended to write something about the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona which begins in the Senate today. But I found myself too sapped of credulity to even believe we have come this far considering the road that took us here.

It did not help that somebody told me the political brouhaha now gripping the country is actually a catfight among gays in high places. The observation, of course, is too tacky for me to dignify with any comment here. But it does provide some very interesting new perspectives.

So I felt I might as well write about things I still knew to be unassailably true. Like while today may be the opening day of the latest circus to hit town, it is at the same time the Monday after fiesta of the Santo Niño, and thus as good a rest day as any.

Today also happens to be the birthday of my youngest daughter Nina. She is now 12. Next year she will be a teenager. She will begin the process of determining her own life. Papa’s girl is growing up in the world.

But last Wednesday she got a most wonderful birthday gift not everybody is privileged to have. She was among a few dozen family members of Colegio del Santo Niño alumni allowed the rare chance by the Augustinian Fathers to enjoy a private viewing of the original Santo Niño image.

Like her sisters Carmel and Lia from a previous occasion, Nina now enjoys the precious “bragging rights” to having come up close and personal to the very image that Ferdinand Magellan gifted Rajah Humabon and Queen Juana on their conversion to Christianity in 1521.

This is the Santo Niño image found among the ruins of a burnt village when the Spanish returned with Miguel Lopez de Legazpi’s expedition 44 years later in 1565. This is the Santo Niño that lies at the heart of every Cebuano’s being, more than four centuries later.

I belong to the earlier generations of alumni when CSN still had a high school. The times were still uncomplicated then. As young boys, we had direct, personal, and often physical contact with the original Santo Niño image. We can tell our Nino from the replicas.

The number of devotees in the 1960s did not pose a security concern for the treasured image. It was still possible at the time to allow unrestricted viewing and interaction between devotees and the Santo Niño. As Boy Scouts, we were at the very heart of these interactions.

Niña is my only daughter who did not go to school in CSN so I really wanted her to see the original image. After all, she is named after the Santo Niño, having been born on his feast day in 2000 (my eldest, Carmel, was born a day after the fiesta in 1986).

Heavy rains fell on the 7 p.m. Mass we attended prior to the CSN alumni private viewing. It was as if the heavens fell to test the tens of thousands with water and chill. But not a soul moved. Nobody gave an inch.

What a magnificent display of faith. What an inspiring show of strength. One is easily moved to tears just beholding that wonderful sea of humanity — bowed by individual burdens yet united in prayer, ready to be humbled by the unerring judgment of God.

 And then came the private viewing. There is something that happens with your entire being that you cannot describe when you stand before the image, knowing that it is the original one and so much a part of your faith, as well as your history as a people.

You feel puny and weak before such a powerful yet loving presence. At the same time you feel strengthened by the experience. You feel nothing can go wrong. That was the perfect gift I wanted for Niña.

Years from now she will look back on the experience. Hopefully she will learn to truly appreciate what she had been given. Hopefully when she is of age she will understand why nobody that night scampered for shelter from the rain.