Holy Week Special: Easter Sunday
Easter morning is marked with joyous celebration, the first being the dawn ceremony called the Salubong (Filipino: "meeting"). Images of the Resurrected Christ and the Virgin Mary, are brought in procession together to meet at a designated area called a "Galilea", usually located at the plaza fronting the church. It plays out the imagined reunion of Jesus and his mother Mary after the Resurrection. In some locales, statues of other saints involved in the Resurrection narrative accompany them, such as St. Peter and Mary Magdalene, as well as St. John the Evangelist.
The Virgin Mary is clothed or at least veiled in black to express bereavement. A girl dressed as an angel, positioned on a specially constructed high platform/scaffold or suspended in mid-air, sings the Regina Coeli in Latin or a local language and then dramatically removes the black veil, signifying the end of her grieving. This is accomplished by the "angel" simply pulling off the veil, or by tying it to balloons or doves and releasing these into the air. The Virgin is then transformed into the Nuestra Señora de Alegria, or Our Lady of Joy. The moment is marked by pealing bells and fireworks, followed by the Easter Mass that begins right after sunrise either at 6 or 7 in the morning. In some parishes however the pratice is done on midnight of Easter Sunday after the Easter Virgil the night before.
Easter Gospel:
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love, now and always,
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