BOOK REVIEW:
Jesus for Filipinos – Reflections on Philippine Social Issues
In the Light of the Gospel
By Fr. Ramon D. Echica (Dean of San Carlos Major Seminary, Cebu City)
Published by: The Institute of Spirituality in Asia, 2023
CEBU CITY (MindaNews / 20 October) – Who are you Jesus Christ? This question has reverberated across the centuries since Jesus of Nazareth appeared in humanity’s history. From Zaccheus’ quest for an answer to this question (in Luke 19:3) to Judas Iscariot’s song in the Broadway musical – Jesus Christ Superstar – this question sought the right answer. Jesus himself asked his Apostles: “Who do you say I am?” (Mt. 16:15).
Among us Filipinos, there are various popular images of Jesus that help portray who Jesus is from the Santo Niño to Jesus Nazareno to the Sacred Heart to Christ the King to the Divine Mercy. There are various statues, icons and images of Jesus with these different images that one can see in churches, in the altars of homes, in billboards and painted on the side of jeepneys.
The dead image of the Nazareno inside the historic Quiapo church at the very heart of Manila draws thousands on an ordinary day. And a million devotees join the procession where everyone fights for space to be able to touch the image of Jesus carrying the cross. In El Salvador, Misamis Oriental, the giant image of Jesus as Divine Mercy has become a popular pilgrimage site. Many Catholic churches across the archipelago hold novenas to the Sacred Heart of Jesus every first Friday of the month.
But if one goes out to the street or inside churches to ask the question – “Who is Jesus Christ for us Filipinos?” – most probably, the answers would vary depending on their class and academic backgrounds, their theological and missiological orientations and even their ideological positions. There are those who could easily mouth the standard answer based on their rudimentary catechetical knowledge, namely, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified, died and resurrected in order to save humanity from sin! On the other extreme, a young student activist might claim that Jesus is the Liberator, a champion of the poor who denounced various forms of injustices and announced the Reign of God where peace flows like a river!
Now comes a book that might be helpful for us Filipinos to seek the answer who Jesus is and how our belief in His being a Savior can truly deepen our faith as His followers in the here and now. Fr. Ramon D. Ecbica’s JESUS FOR FILIPINOS – REFLECTIONS ON PHILIPPINE SOCIAL ISSUES IN THE LIGHT OF THE GOSPEL is the latest book that deals on Jesus as written by a Filipino author. Earlier works included: Julius Bautista’s Figuring Catholicism: An Ethnohistory of the Santo Nino of Cebu, Benigno Beltran’s Christology of the Inarticulate: An Inquiry into the Filipino Understanding of Jesus Christ and Leonardo Mercado’s Christ in the Philippines.
Reynaldo Ileto’s Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840-1910 also tangentially refers to how Jesus’ Passion narrative was appropriated by the likes of Hermano Pule and the Confradia de San Jose. Hermano Pule and his followers saw Jesus as the God who would liberate them from their oppressors. For such a belief, Hermano Pule was martyred and his followers persecuted by the Spanish colonizers. But – according to Ileto – their social movement was a precursor to the setting up of the revolutionary Kagalang-galangan, Kataas-taasang Katipunan ng mga anak ng Bayan.
Fr. Echica’s Christological take offers a new perspective. His book’s major contribution is to offer fresh insights into how we can contextualize Jesus in these our turbulent times. To situate Jesus vis-à-vis the realities of the Philippines, some questions need to be asked according to the imminent Filipino theologian, Aloysius L. Cartagenas in his Foreword to this book: “As His community of disciples who do we say Jesus is? In the here and now are we becoming an embodiment of His teachings and values? Where are we heading as His disciples as we navigate through the crisis and issues hounding the Filipino nation?”
Cartagenas asserts that “for the author of this book, half of the answer lies on what he calls a ‘liberating understanding’ of the life and actions of Jesus, of his teachings and values, the decisions he made and the options he took as narrated to us by Sacred Scriptures and studied by scholars. The other half is to read this body of knowledge about Jesus the Christ in the light of Philippine social conditions, both past and present, and discern the demands Jesus makes on us in the here and now. The interplay of both is given a pastoral intent by the author, particularly emphasizing the need to recover some aspects of the Jesus story which, for some reasons, may have been forgotten, neglected or watered down.”
One can only hope that this book becomes required reading materials for seminarians studying in various seminaries in the country, religious and laypeople enrolled in various Theological Institutes and students in Catholic schools taking up Religious Studies. In fact, its first readers should be our bishops and clergy in this country who need to be theologically updated specifically in Christology. In fact, one hopes this can be translated into the major languages in this country so it could reach our grassroots church leaders, especially those in Basic Ecclesial Communities.
Apart from the Foreword of Cartagenas, there are 11 Chapters in this book of 210 pages all related to various aspects of how Jesus relates to various aspects of life. These include the following: 1) The Political Context of the Infancy Narratives and the Apolitical Devotion to the Santo Niño, 2) Jesus and Violence, 3) Jesus: A Humorist?, 4) Jesus and Clericalism, 5) Jesus, Capital Punishment and Extra Judicial Killing, 6) Jesus and the Religions, 7) Jesus and the Law, 8) Jesus and the Environment, 9) Jesus and the Ethical Dimension of the Eucharist, 10) The Passion of Jesus and the Filipino and 11) The Meaning of the Resurrection for the Filipino.
From the Chapter titles, one can immediately see that this is a most relevant and timely book. We cannot deny that we Catholics in this country are attached to our various devotions to Jesus and Mary. Thousands – and millions during the feast days – flock to the pilgrimage sites from the Santo Nino shrine in Cebu, the Nazareno in Quiapo, the Marian shrines in Baclaran and Naga. Many theologians and church pastoral workers have critiqued the apolitical manner we practice our popular religious devotions. That is, they have the tendency to domesticate our faith by emphasizing a privatized and individualistic form of prayer and worship without any regard to the concrete situation on the ground that matters to the everyday lives of the people, especially the poor.
Meanwhile, we are constantly battered by the realities of life in a Third World country characterized by authoritarianism and a corrupt governance system leading to impunity, the disregard of people’s human rights while ignoring the people’s basic needs. Through the years, violence – in various forms e.g. landlessness of peasants, the extreme poverty, militarization, EJKs, etc. – has characterized the country’s landscape that fueled armed struggles that have added to the eruption of violence.
And there is the matter related to the ongoing destruction of the environment contributing further to the impact of climate change. Meanwhile, the institutional Church herself has to deal with its own internal tensions owing to clericalism and other realities. In such a context, how can Jesus’ life witness and teachings guide us in the faith options that we should make? How are we to manifest a faith that really does liberating action and help establish a society where truth, justice, peace and compassion prevail?
Fr. Echica’s book comes at a most timely moment in the Church’s history. From October 4 to 29, 2023 more than 300 delegates from all over the world – Cardinals, bishops, priests, religious men and women and laypeople – picked by Pope Francis and his advisers are gathered in Rome to come up with a Working Document for the Synod on Synodality meant for the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in October 2024.
It is possible that the outcome of this Synod will determine how the Church will function in the decades to come when the global situation could further worsen at all fronts. Only time will tell if the Church is up to this challenge considering the fragmentations that characterize the People of God today. For us here in the Philippines, the manner we follow Jesus will also make a difference in how the Local Church will cope with its mission to truly preach the good news of salvation.
For Fr. Echica – as prophetically exhorted in this book – there is hope for us Christian Filipinos if we can link Jesus to the social issues of our beloved country in the light of the Gospel!
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N.B. Order your copies from: the Institute of Spirituality in Asia or c/o Fr. Echiva at the San Carlos Major Seminary at this address: 2021 Pope John Paul II Ave, Cebu City, 6000.
(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. Redemptorist Brother Karl Gaspar is Mindanao’s most prolific book author. Gaspar is also a Datu Bago 2018 awardee, the highest honor the Davao City government bestows on its constituents. He recently moved to his new assignment in Cebu City.
