My yearly fix of spirituality

April 6 to 8 marked my eleventh Easter triduum in Ateneo.

The Easter Triduum is a series of services held in Ateneo each year during Holy Week. On Holy Thursday, there's a Mass and the celebration of the Lord's supper (a.k.a. Last Supper) with a re-enactment of the washing of the feet. On Good Friday, it's a service with a really long gospel reading, veneration of the cross, and Stations of the Cross around campus. And in the evening on Black Saturday, there's the Easter Vigil. (I don't know if I'm capitalizing the right words here.)

My first encounter with the Triduum was way back in 1997. Fr Nemy had invited me and Mariel, then ACMG's choir heads, to lunch at the Loyola House of Studies. It was a Friday during Lent then, and I was telling Mariel I'd be in trouble because I didn't eat seafood. Well, it turned out to be a good meal... leave it to the Jesuits to serve steak in their mess hall on a Friday in Lent. Fr Nemy had asked Hangad and ACMG to lead the singing at the Triduum, where we would be joined by a few members of Bukas Palad, Himig Heswita, and Tinig Barangka.

And he had asked me to play the piano, along with a string and wind ensemble. It was a huge honor for me -- and a daunting task that made my jaw drop. I was then a sophomore, and since entering college, I had attended Ignatian Masses and ordinations and been spellbound Fr Arnel playing the piano along with Prof Serge Esmilla and Mayos Esmilla leading a talented ensemble of violinists, violists, cellists, and flautists. With Fr Arnel being assigned somewhere else in the country, they needed me to take over.

What an experience that first Triduum was. It my first time playing with an ensemble --a nerve-wracking exprience at first, but a hugely fulfilling and educational one once I got through it. But more than that, I could also feel the music and services feeding each other with energy and meaning, bringing the musicians and the congregation in an upward spiral of joy.

Things have changed through the years. Around once or twice, Fr Arnel has been in town and taken over the piano. Recently, the event has been moved from LHS to the Church of the Gesu. More and more, it's become a Hangad event, with the other choirs having their own activities for Holy Week. The congregation has gotten bigger every year, as more people have heard about it. And this year, the event was televised live over ABC5.

But even with these slight changes year on year, every year for the past 11 years, the Triduum has been a marvelous experience I look forward to. In recent years, in fact, it has been the spiritual highlight of my year. And the services have never stopped energizing the music. There is always wonder in seeing a respected priest kneel to wash strangers' feet; in a sparse Good Friday service commemorating Christ's passion and death; in seeing queues of people slowly advancing to kneel and venerate the cross; in a totally darkened chapel that suddenly becomes awash with candlelight at the beginning of the Easter Vigil; in a haunting Exultet that hails the glorious night of nights; in a series of readings and psalms that proclaim our story as one of salvific love (which actually inspired "Love Untold", my favorite song in Hangad's The Easter Journey); in a church that bursts into light, revealing a sanctuary decked with flowers, as the Gloria is sung; in singing the Alleluia for the first time in 40 days; and the words, "Thanks be to God, Alleluia, Alleluia", leading to a glorious final hymn as everyone happily greets each other "Happy Easter."

Invariably, people ask me each year -- "Are you going to Boracay over the Holy Week break?" Each year, I shake my head, and I think I'll have the same answer for a very long time. The Triduum is one experience that no vacation can ever replace.