1.

 A typical Filipino Fiesta lasts for a week or a month with a lot of activities scheduled in
those Fiesta days. As expected, such activities would attract a lot of people. Each
house to prepares sumptuous meals. Food anywhere you go. Videoke’s of aspiring
singers would usually fill the air even in the wee hours of the mourning. There is
nothing compared to the way we celebrate Fiesta: flamboyant, grand, pompous. The
millennial word that described our Fiestas is BONGGA! And indeed,
PABONGGAHAN.
2. But this year, is a different story. For generations to come, we will remember this day
or these days when we are struck unawares of an unexpected guest: Chinese
Corona Virus which started in Wuhan China. Suddenly, we are brought into a halt.
Our Fiesta today is laid bare. Our celebrations are stripped off their usual pomp.
3. An important lesson that we can get from this predicament we are now facing is that,
BY STRIPPING OUR CELEBRATIONS OF THEIR POMP AND GLAMOUR, WE
ARE LEFT WITH THE ESSENTIALS, WE ARE LEFT WITH WHAT IS
NECESSARY AND IMPORTANT.
4. Perhaps, in our celebrations, we have too engrossed with the party, we have focused
our attention so much in the outward display of pageantry, that many times we forget
the very REASON why there is a FIESTA. That a Fiesta is primarily a celebration of
the presence of God as embodied in a particular Saint, in our case, St. Vincent
Ferrer.
5. Now that our Fiestas are laid bare, we are forced to focus on the REASON of our
FIESTA CELEBRATION: JESUS. This pandemic forces us to go back to Jesus. To
Jesus whom we have drowned in the noise of battles of the Bands and over the top
divas in our singing contests, To Jesus whom we have neglected in our party– party
all night, TO JESUS whom we have left alone quarantined , so to say, in our
tabernacles, as if, HE IS SHUNED AWAY IN OUR celebrations.
6. This pandemic has also rendered our human efforts helpless. Experts scramble to
find a cure: but not according to the dictates of their premeditated timetable. They
cannot simply manipulate at will, elements in nature that would hopefully produce a
cure against COVID 19. So, we turn to prayer. Prayer, which was legislated against
in public places in most of the Western countries because some people find it
offensive to do so, today is back in the public sphere: in FB, twitter, in the Radyo, in
televisions - and the even President declared a Week of Prayer.
7. We are forced to pray. No longer in the way we used to pray - hurried, memorized,
canned and mindless mumbling parroting only words we have been used to say. We
are forced to pray sincerely in a loving dialogue: We lament, we ask the Lord why,
we implore him. Finally, we are at the disposal of God. We are forced to be patient.
To wait because in PRAYER, we do not demand God to grant immediately what we
ask for. In prayer, we are in God’s hands. We are brought back to the very essence
of prayer: NOT MY WILL, BUT GOD’s WILL BE DONE. Prayer is waiting. Prayer is
listening. Prayer is letting God be GOD. Prayer is allowing God to be GOD in our life.
8. We look at this global pandemic where in the world has stopped as A WORLDWIDE
LENTEN RETREAT. We retreat, that is, we go back to where we started. We go
back to the essence of things. We go back to where God has intended us to be. We
go back to the path that the Lord has marked out for us.
9. Lord, in the sea where the boat of the disciples were tossed by raging waves—raging
 because of a storm - you were asleep in the boat. You were asleep, and the
disciples were so terrified and afraid. And we find ourselves today in that situation.
Do you not care, Lord, that we are drowning. Lord, we implore you, we are drowning.
Please wake up now Lord!
10. But, IF I DROWN BEFORE YOU WAKE UP I will not lose faith. So, Lord, be still.
Lord take your rest. The storm can wait. Just sleep there beside us. Sleep, O Jesus,
DREAM for us. The storm shall pass. The waves shall be calm. But as you sleep
Jesus, let us enter into your dream. And there, we shall find your light. Amen.