Philippine faithful flock to ‘Black Nazarene’ icon
Believed to have miraculous powers
Tens of thousands of barefoot Philippine Catholics joined a religious procession yesterday for a centuries-old black icon of Jesus Christ believed by many to have miraculous powers.
The annual parade of the Black Nazarene aboard a gilded carriage around the downtown Quiapo district in Manila is one of the largely Catholic country’s most spectacular and extreme shows of faith and attracts people from all walks of life.
The carriage was pulled along in a sea of devotees, with thousands scrambling to get near the statue or touch the ropes as the image slowly made its way through busy roads.
The faithful threw white towels or handkerchiefs to men at the front, who wiped them on the statue before tossing them back.
“I couldn’t get near, but when I saw the Nazareno I immediately knew that my prayers will be answered,” 59-year-old Linda Meme said, tears welling in her eyes.
A mother of 10, the laundry woman and part-time faith healer said she wished for good health and that the youngest of her children, suffering from a digestive disease, be healed.
She said she had not missed a Black Nazarene procession since the 1970s, and two of her adult children were also somewhere in the crowd.
The life-size wooden statue was brought to Manila by a group of Augustinian priests from Mexico in 1607, where it was first housed in a church at an old Spanish fortress, local religious historians said.
More than a century later, the image was transferred to the Quiapo church, where it survived two huge fires, two earthquakes and the bombing of Manila by allied forces to end the Japanese occupation in 1945.
Devotion to the Nazarene grew in the 19th century when then-Pope Pius VII declared that anyone who prayed piously through the image could have punishment for sins committed expunged – in the here and now, and in purgatory.
The event’s popularity has grown so huge that each year dozens are hurt and sometimes crushed to death in the crowd.
The Red Cross said that in the first few hours of the procession yesterday, medical staff had already given first aid treatment to 130 devotees who suffered abrasions, headaches, hypertension and dizziness.
A 35-year-old man was in serious pain after suffering third degree burns to his feet while another suffered bone fractures while trapped inside the moving mass of human bodies.