Last August 17, my classmate, Fr. Bogs Moraleja, invited me to join the celebration of the tricentennial of the Parish of Santa Rita de Cascia in Santa Rita, Pampanga, where he is presently the parish priest.
The Mass
was scheduled at eight in the morning, so we left Intramuros early and braved
the rainy weather to make it to Santa Rita on time.
What
immediately caught my attention when I arrived at the parish church were the sandbags
placed in front of the church doors. I was told that during the previous week,
the church was flooded. Fortunately, by the
time we arrived, the water had already subsided, although the church floor was
still wet.
Passing
through the old wooden convent, we encountered more water. Sandbags had been
laid down as makeshift stepping stones so that we could cross the flooded
portion and reach the present convent.
Santa
Rita was among the Pampanga towns affected by the lahar following the eruption
of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991. Although the lahar did not enter the church itself, it
raised the level of the surrounding ground by about two to three feet. As a
result, one now has to go down into the church from the surrounding area. When
it rains continuously for several days, as it had during the two weeks before
our visit, water seeps through the flooring and floods the interior. The parish
has installed water pumps, but during prolonged and heavy rains, even these are
sometimes not enough to keep the church dry.
The
tricentennial celebration was also an occasion to remember the long history of
the parish. Aside from priests of the Archdiocese of San Fernando, my classmate
invited Augustinian priests from Manila, in recognition of the important role
of the Augustinians in the evangelization of the area. They administered the
parish for much of the Spanish period until its administration passed to the
Filipino diocesan clergy around the time of the Philippine Revolution in 1898. Archbishop
Florentino Lavarias of San Fernando was the main celebrant of the anniversary
Mass.
I did not
notice any significant changes in the church since my first visit about ten
years ago. This time, however, I made it a point to photograph all fourteen
Stations of the Cross. They are particularly interesting because they appear to
be old wooden bas-relief carvings, with the titles of each station still
written in Spanish. They are among the details of the church that speak quietly
of its long history.
A first-class
relic of Santa Rita de Cascia was also displayed near the altar for the
occasion.
At the
end of the Mass, Santa Rita Mayor Reynan S. Calo led the unveiling of the
historical marker prepared by the municipal government in commemoration of the
parish’s tricentennial.
It was
fitting that the celebration looked back on three centuries of the parish's
history while the old church itself continued to bear the marks of that
history—from its Spanish-era religious art to the physical changes brought
about by the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. Despite floods, lahar, changing times,
and generations of parishioners and priests, the church of Santa Rita continues
to stand at the heart of the community it has served for three hundred years.
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