incessant rambling

the title Black Magic Mary is enough to conjur images of a witch draped in black robes similar to that of the Virgin Mary albeit with a more sinister aura. in Sta. Maria Church in Siquijor, a saint wearing a black habit holds a skull in one hand and an "inverted cross" in another is fast gaining a reputation that is probably influenced by the mystic history of the island itself. locals have speculated that the skull is actually her husband's and that she murdered her husband for reasons that seems to have been lost in history. a bit of research show that the locals refer to the saint as Santa Rita de Siquijor, probably a Filipino convention where we name the Virgin Mary with annexes related to places (e.g. Our Lady of Guadalupe). my own research led me to discover this particular "myth" in an effort to know more about Santa Rita de Cascia who is the patron saint of a church and town named after her in Pampanga. The first thing that caught my attenti...

San Guillermo, Bacolor Pampanga i find it embarrassing, really. everyone i asked couldn't give me the answer when i asked if they knew the name of Mama Mary's mother. and if you're one of them, i bet you just popped another browser tab open to try and research the information in google. I wouldn't have known if I didn't get the chance to visit barili in cebu and chanced upon a church dedicated to her. It is doubly embarrassing that as a catholic i don't know that piece of information. The locals excavated the original retablo and mounted it closer to the dome of the original church which leads me to a thought of how we name churches and the saints that magically bestow its protection over the town that carries their name as a patron. i guess, naming every church after Jesus or Mary would be a bit confusing. in a recent trip to pampanga, i asked my hosts to bring me to bacolor to get the chance to visit the remains of the church that got buried i...

At the start of this particular millennium, I read for the first time about Santiago de Campostela in a book by Paolo Coelho who wrote about his pilgrimage in Northern Spain. I didn’t expect that I’d be reconnected with the same history in a town much closer to home in Betis, Guagua, Pampanga. take note of the wooden floors, low view of the main altar from the entrance betis church, exterior The curiously grand baroque church of Betis is dedicated to the town patron Apung Tiago, otherwise known as St. James the Great. The name Santiago is an abbreviation of the original Latin “Sanctus” and standard Hebrew “Ya-agov” or “Ya-aqo” that means “lacobus” in latin. “Lacobus” means “lago” or “Jaime” in Spain and translates to “James” in English. the baptismal area wide view of the altar Santiago de Campostela is famous in Gallica, Spain as a pilgrimage route that leads to the shrine where legend says the dead body of Santiago was brought by angels in an unattended boat fro...