More than a Million People in the Street
Today is the Feast of the Black Nazarene. I'm unsure of its historical roots, but it's a day on which literally more than a million semi-frenzied Filipinos drag a dark wooden statue of Jesus through the streets, prostrating themselves, working themselves into ecstatic throes of religiosity and attempting to achieve the epitome of fervor by touching the statue. It's still another cultural phenomenon that I fail to understand. The well known Sociologist Randy David wrote an excellent article on the practice in his Inquirer column today, and I attach the link, [url]http://opinion.inquirer.net/column/public-lives[/url] For those who want to read about this description of what David calls "infantile religiosity."
GE