Pamalandong

I FIND myself truly grateful that I have a hometown where there is an annual celebration of Holy Week. I had a guest once who is city born and bred, and with the faintest idea of what Holy Week stands for other than going with family or friends for a respite to the beach or a new destination. Talisay City is my family’s hometown and every Holy Week, like a ritual, we troop to Talisay to partake in the Good Friday procession. From our grandmother, Eleuteria Treyers Lizares, we are blessed to have our Dolorosa, which will be making her one hundredth procession come next year. Talisay City is equally blessed to have Fr. Dexter OAR, a very proactive and prolific parish priest, who has transformed the landscape of the Parish of San Nicolas Tolentino. In addition to beautifying the church from within and without, there is now the Diocesan Shrine of San Vicente Ferrer with first class relics of the saint and a pilgrimage site. Also proximal to the church is a Lenten exhibit, featuring the different holy images which local folks. Guests will have the pleasure of watching during the Good Friday procession, but this time up close. Father Dexter, although with some resistance from the owners of the different images because of security and wear and tear at the onset of this project, was able to provide a sanctuary for the images which is well guarded, cool (powered with air-conditioners), and meditative to assure the owners. There are currently 18 images on display. The objective of Fr. Dexter is directed to evangelization and catechism. As visitors, especially students come to see up close these participants in Christ’s Passion, they enter into a deeper understanding of the life of Christ and the meaning of His Life and Death. Fr. Dexter says that hopefully in a year or so, the different Stations of the Cross will be complete with more devotees expressing their desire to come up with more “caros.” The exhibit will ran until Holy Tuesday. It is an exhibit worth your time. You will not only leave with a better understanding of why Christ died for us, but be inspired by His suffering and death.( Lucy Lizares,SUNSTAR BACOLOD)