Welcome to the Junior Nazareno roadshow

IT’S obviously unaware of what it has done, but the Church should congratulate itself for scoring a monumental marketing coup in the last Black Nazarene procession.
If in boxing, the Church has broken existing gate records with an all-time high in attendance.
The last traslacion of the Black Nazarene was so huge a spectacle it had also loomed as an international terrorist target.
In fact, the surge of devotion was so overwhelming the highest church authority in Manila apparently did not see the need for future events to be more solemn and manageable.
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You need to be a devotee to understand it, swore Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle.
Outsiders do not understand, he explained.
This year’s ritual, a messy repeat of the successful traslacion of some four years ago, took nearly 22 hours to complete.
The image of the Black Nazarene left the Quirino Grandstand at 7:30 the morning of Monday, and reached the Quiapo Church shortly after 6 a.m. Tuesday.
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The event was, as expected, rated a huge success.
There was not a single death reported, although the number of casualties reportedly increased.
At the same time, the Manila Police District described the procession as a security nightmare.
The Archbishop of Manila did make an honest admission when he claimed that only a devotee could understand what it was all about.
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However, there’s one disturbing twist that could not be fathomed by many seasoned devotees of the miraculous Mahal na Poong Jesus Nazareno in Quiapo.
These veteran adorers of the Nazarene were one in wondering why the traslacion has had to be done year after year.
By its nature, the traslacion of some four or five years ago was in commemoration of the first transfer of the miraculous image of the Black Nazarene—which arrived from Mexico in 1607—from the Recollet Church in Intramuros to its current shrine in Quiapo.
If to a wedding, the traslacion could be likened to a golden anniversary, wherein the old couple performs the very special rite of repeating their nuptial vows.
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This year’s traslacion was indeed great.
“But why did they have to commemorate it year after year?” wondered Councilor Louie Espinosa, a devotee of three decades from Poblacion, Mandaluyong City.
Devotees from the Mandaluyong marketplace, like Luis Senano, swore the repeat of the traslacion has deteriorated through the years.
The way he observed it, after his last stint tugging at the Nazarene ropes along the National Museum on Monday, the procession had gone obscenely out of hand.
While there was a determined direction for the procession before the modern-day traslacion, the path could not now be properly determined—like a chicken without a head—mainly before the wild approach to the Quezon Bridge.
He said something about devotion slipping into degeneration—“nasa-salaula na talaga.”
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Maybe the Church could’ve also lessened the chaos if it had been explained earlier that the image being borne in the traslacion is not the original one transported through a ship that burned on its way from Acapulco to Intramuros.
As things stand in the annual procession, the ever-growing multitude try to touch and venerate a surrogate Nazarene, a native junior image carved out by an artisan from Benavidez.
For over a decade now, the original image of the Mahal na Poong Nazareno has been reduced to a sideshow, although it still occupies its rightful royal perch, the center altar at Quiapo.
There’s actually one suggestion to hopefully make the annual procession saner, manageable again: Take the annual procession back to the old route of the Señor Nazareno.
The Archbishop of Manila may have to consider this sound suggestion.
Unless he has also fallen in love with the Junior Nazareno roadshow.