CBCP head reminds the faithful to reflect on the love poured by Jesus Christ to make this week holy

President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a resounding success in terms of improving the lot of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and strengthening the Philippines’ ties with the Middle East country. (Photo: Benjie Ordoñez/Flickr)

MANILA—The head of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) reminded the faithful to reflect on the love poured by Jesus Christ to make this week holy.

“When we speak of Holy Week, you must remember that this week is holy not because of the blood of Jesus Christ, this week is holy not because of the sacrifices we make, this week is holy because among all the days of the week, God has poured so much love into these days,” said CBCP president Archbishop Socrates Villegas in an interview over ANC.

With this, the Catholic prelate noted that the challenge for the people is on how they can also share their love to the public.

“Therefore the challenge for us Filipino Catholics is to pour much love into it also, concretely what can be done? We make pilgrimage, we make visita iglesia, what can be done is you can go to 7 charity wards of hospitals and visit the sick people there and bring them something to eat as we usually done during Christmas, that is a pilgrimage,” he said.

Villegas added, “Because fasting in itself is not good. Fasting only becomes good when you save what you have fasted on and then share it with others because if you don’t eat on Good Friday and you have extra food in Black Saturday, that is not fasting, that is savings.”

The Lingayen-Dagupan aldo cited the changes in the commemoration of the Holy Week.

“We used to look at Holy Week as what to do for God, with the advent of cable TV, media, Internet, we are given an invitation to look at Holy Week from a different perspective,” he said.

Villegas added, “Holy Week is not telling people what to do, Holy Week is meditating on what God has done for us, that seems to be the change. When the focus was more on what you should do, keep quiet, fast, do not take a bath. Now we can take a bath, watch tv religious programs because they help us meditate more on what God has done for us.”

Roman Catholics around the world are commemorating the Holy Week, which started on Palm Sunday, April 9 and will end on Easter Sunday, April 16.

The faithful observes the journey of Jesus Christ to the cross, from his triumphal entry to Jerusalem to his resurreccion.